Question: What is the oldest operating movie theater in Texas?
Answer: The Cliftex Theatre in Clifton
About 45 minutes northwest of Waco, the Cliftex opened its doors in 1916 as the Queen Theatre, screening silent films in the era before synchronized sound, with a projectionist swapping reels mid-show while an intermission jingle played.
When “talkies” arrived, the theater rebranded as the Cliftex Talkies (later shortened to just the Cliftex), and crowds reportedly lined up around the building to catch the new sound pictures. More than a century later, the theater still shows first-run features, now on digital projection, and even keeps its old-fashioned intermission and jingle as a nod to its reel-to-reel roots.
