Built in 1928 from plans by architect Clare A. Henderson of Coffeyville, the Midland Theater was the idea of John Tackett, its proprietor, and Glen W. Dickinson of Lawrence, KS who founded Dickinson Theaters in 1920.  The Theater opened in September of 1928 as the New Tackett Theater. 

Tackett built several theaters in the area including the Tackett Theater at 7th & Maple, the Airdome at 8th & Maple, and an Airdome for African American patrons at 7th & Walnut.  He ran a vaudeville theater on Union Street and built a theater in South Coffeyville, OK when KS law prohibited theaters from running shows on Sundays.  The New Tackett Theater (later the Midland Theater) appears to have been John Tackett's last movie house venture. 

Built for $80,000 the New Tackett Theater was the largest movie theater of the four theaters existing in Coffeyville at the time.   The lavish auditorium had plush carpeting, upholstered seats, crimson and gold draped fabrics, tapestries on the walls painted with a Spanish motif and crystal chandeliers.  It offered the newest movie technology of its time including Vitaphone (amplified orthophonic music), as silver sheet screen made especially for Vitaphone, a Wicks nine-manual pipe organ, electric lighting, two of the latest Simplex movie projectors, and spotlights controlled from the projection booth.  It also offered modern heating, cooling and ventilating systems.  Mr. Tackett incorporated a ballroom in to the theater as "a throw-back to the days when the dancing and playhouse occupied the same building."  He believed his ballroom was the first in any theater in the country.  Located at the front of the building on the second floor, draperies, artistic lighting and an ornamental drinking fountain decorated the ballroom which measured 25 by 50 feet.