News : Cobb Alley and who was "Cobb"?

Cobb and Neva with their family

A photo from April 8, 1946 of Cobb

It all started when I noticed the impressive changes in Cobb Alley. The Palace Theatre is working to make what was a drab alleyway into an eye-pleasing area. The project is not complete, but the changes already make you take note of the improvements.

Located next to the Palace Theatre, the alley is will be named in honor of Aubry "Cobb" Smock who was the motion picture machine operator at the Palace for 39 years as well as a vaudeville performer on the early Palace stage.

The Palace has also added a walk-up window, picnic tables and lighting in the alley.

An old newspaper article reported that the alley's namesake, Aubrey "Cobb" Smock, said at his retirement that his plans for the future were indefinite yet simple ones. Cobb said that he planned to "clear my lungs of carbon gas."

While the alley is waiting on a few more additions, I thought I'd go ahead and do some more digging around to see what I could find out about Cobb.

Born in 1896, Cobb began working in the movie industry an article said in 1904, when he was still in "grades" and in knee pants and was the envy of the other boys in town. His first job was cranking the phonograph and taking tickets at the Electric Theater, Vinton's first "picture Showhouse" as it was referred to. On June 5, 1906, Gib Tracy took over the Electric Theater and Cobb started projecting movies.In those days the movies were silent and hand-cranked. Cobb said that sound arrived in 1930 and he'd only had one sound failure and that was on July 7, 1935 when the equipment developed a "bug" that he couldn't fix. New sound equipment was installed the next month.

Since that time, he had never missed a show, except during four one-week vacation periods.

With the exception of serving in the Army in 1917-1918, and then a stint in the late 1920s when he briefly worked for about a year with the state highway commission he had always been employed by the theater. He began projecting movies in 1931, and was promoted to the job as manager of the Palace in April of 1943.

Cobb bragged about the fact that not in his 39-year career did he have one fire. At the time that Cobb served as the projectionist, projection booths sometimes caught fire due to the use of nitrate in creating the films. It was reported that thousands of people in the U.S. had been killed in theater fires caused by defective films. As a precautionary measure, Cobb would test every film before it was played in the crowded theater.

Cobb started keeping records of the many film reels that he ran, from 1935 until April 6, 1946. In total, he recorded 114,908 reels. Following the showing of the film, the movies were destroyed by burning the reels. In an article from 1947, Cobb said that he had burned some 10.967 reels.

Smock was also a sign painter. If you remember back in the day, there used to be large signs that hung in Fareway to advertise the sales, this is the kind of work that he did. There are many family memories from his family about his pencil sketches of locomotives. His nephew Bob Kimm said that now he wishes he would have kept them.

Cobb was also known as an entertainer. In one story, it was noted that "Aubry (Cobb) Smock, drew liberal applause for his famous soft shoe shuffle accompanied by John Primmer on the Banjo." as part of a program that was performed for the local legion fundraiser. Cobb was also a drummer.

Cobb and his wife Neva passed away at a young age. Both died the same day, December 19, 1954. Cobb died of a heart attack and his wife Neva died from complications of cancer. She had been taken to Virginia Gay Hospital the night before. The newspaper said she was in a coma, and Cobb died in his sleep. Cobb was 58 and Neva only 43. They left behind children, Millard, Dee Ann and James.

Cobb had also served the country during World War I and as a veteran he was a member of the American Legion George G Luckey Post at the time of his death. Neva was a member of Prairie Creek Church, American Legion Auxiliary, VFW Auxiliary, Navy Mothers and was also a deputy county auditor.