<P> This article delineates the history of cinema in the United States . </P> <P> The earliest documented account of an exhibition of projected motion pictures in the United States was in June 1894 in Richmond, Indiana by Charles Francis Jenkins . Jenkins used his Phantoscope to project his film before an audience of family, friends and reporters . The film featured a vaudeville dancer performing a Butterfly Dance . Jenkins and his new partner Thomas Armat modified the Phantoscope for exhibitions in temporary theaters at the Cotton States Exposition in the fall of 1895 . The Phantoscope was later sold to Thomas Edison, who changed the name of the projector to Edison's Vitascope . With the Vitascope, Edison began public showings of his films at Koster and Bial's Music Hall on 34th Street in New York City on April 23, 1896 . However, the first "storefront theater" in the US dedicated exclusively to showing motion pictures was Vitascope Hall, established on Canal Street, New Orleans, Louisiana July 26, 1896--it was converted from a vacant store . </P> <P> A crucial factor was Edison's decision to sell a small number of Vitascope projectors as a business venture in April--May 1896 . In the basement of the new Ellicott Square Building, Main Street, Buffalo, New York, Mitchell Mark (properly spelled Mitchel Mark) and his brother Moe Mark added what they called Edison's Vitascope Theater (entered through Edisonia Hall), which they opened to the general public on October 19, 1896 in collaboration with Rudolf Wagner, who had moved to Buffalo after spending several years working at the Edison laboratories . This 72 - seat plush theater was designed from scratch solely to show motion pictures . </P>

Where was the first permanent theater dedicated solely to screening films located