In the 1930s, Selbyville, Delaware boasted one of the nicest movie theaters in southern Delaware. Before he entered the service in World War II, young Edward Mumford was in charge of running the business for Diamond Globe Corporation, which owned another theater in Berlin, Maryland. "I started out taking tickets and started learning. As the war progressed everybody was drafted and I was the last man left. I was 17 years old and running the theater."

The movie theater at that time was "the biggest thing in town….[We] had shows where there wasn't any standing room in the lobby or anywhere." Mumford remembered the popular shows and the crowds

Tickets were only 25 cents for adults and 15 cents for children for a two hour show that might include cartoons, newsreels, a travel log and comedy sketches along with the main feature. Wednesday nights featured westerns, Thursday and Fridays classic movies and the most popular titles on Saturday nights. Shows with a big draw might take in $600 in a single night, a sizable sum for the time, and all of it from ticket sales. "We would not allow nothing in the theater. No sir. You could not bring any food [such as candy or popcorn] in the theater." Not until after the war and the rise of television, did theaters of this type decline in popularity and begin to shut down.