Ruenes Family Theater Circuit

Compiled by Javier R. Garcia with
history and photos provided by by Ricardo Ruenes

 The first theater built by the Ramon and Esther Ruenes was the Juarez in San Benito built in the 1920's on the northeast corner of Hidalgo and Landrum Streets.  The first films shown here were silent movies using a hand cranked movie projector like the example below.  

1920s era hand cranked 35mm film movie projector

Don Ramon Ruenes immigrated to the United States of America from Asturias, Spain in 1902 and married Esther Trevino Ramirez at the age of 21 in 1910.  They had four children:  Esther, Paquita, Ramon II and Christina who also grew up to help operate and expand the theater business.  Don Ramon hand-cranked the movie projector while Esther played piano music while film was running.  Stage performances also drew crowds in the 200-seat theater built out of wood and this idea eventually evolved as the "Noche de Aficionados (Amateur Night)" program where people could competitively entertain audiences for prizes.

Ramon and Esther pioneered family entertainment for Spanish speaking audiences in south Texas but their dream was interrupted in 1940 when Ramon died.  Esther continued operating the theater and had to find a way to build the Ruenes Theater during World War II in spite of the mandatory rationing of valuable resources for the war effort.  That meant auto production and building construction was halted and factories shifted from manufacture of civilian products to military material.  

Ramon Ruenes in front of the Juarez Theater

Ramon II was in service to the U.S. Army at the time Esther went to Rio Grande City to oversee the dismantling of an old theater brick-by-brick which was delivered to 567 Sam Robertson in San Benito and was twice the size of the Juarez Theater which had closed a month earlier to the completion of the Juarez in 1942.

1950 San Antonio newspaper clipping

The Ruenes chain of theaters continued expanding.  Ramon II owned the Teatro Victoria and Ruenes Drive-In Theater  (hereafter "DI") in Brownsville, Texas.   Later he owned the Loop 13 and Kelly DI in San Antonio and Paquita Canas owned the Azteca Theater in Harlingen, Rex Theater in Rio Hondo and Roxy Theater in Port Isabel.  Paquita and her mother also built the Juarez DI between San Benito and Harlingen in 1962.  The eldest, Esther, owned the Gulf DI in Corpus Christi.  Upon her retirement her son Eduardo acquired the El Rey Theater and Valley DI and Buckhorn DI's in Mission.  Youngest daughter Christina "Tina" helped Esther run her theaters and married Phillip Brady who also came from a pioneering theater family begun by his father Tom Brady in the Rio Grande Valley.

Ramon and Viola married on New Year's Eve 1941.  They had four children:  Ramon III, Mary Esther, Larry and Ricardo, who who continue running the business after Ramon II passed on in 1985.  The era of Ramon and Viola is what Spanish-Language theater historian and local expert Rogelio Agrasanchez refers to as the "Golden Age of Mexican Cinema."  This star studded era will be revisited on a future post on Bronsbil Estacion with photos of the Victoria and Ruenes DI.

In 1946 Ramon Ruenes II built the Teatro Victoria at a cost of $90,000 with a 6,000 square foot auditorium to seat 950 people with help from brother-in-law Ed F. Brady upon returning from the war and later turned the Fiesta DI into the Ruenes DI in 1965.  It had a baby parlor for mothers to sit with crying children.  The Majestic built in 1949 also had a "crying room."

Ruenes Theater Circuit business card

Ricardo saw the era come to an end with the advent of shopping mall multi-screen theaters, cable television, BETA and VHS explosion in the market and tele-novela serials becoming popular in the 1980's which kept viewers glued to television each evening but in the end it was the Teatro Victoria and Ruenes DI that outlasted all theaters and drive-ins in Brownsville, Texas.  We'll post more history of that era with stories and photos in a future post.