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Frankie's Smoke Shop, Pottsville (1938–1992)

By Schuylkill Hub editorial · Published July 31, 2026

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Frankie’s Smoke Shop was a downtown Pottsville newsstand — tobacco, candy, comic books, and a pool table — that Frank Tassone ran for about fifty-four years, from 1938 until an arson fire destroyed it in October 1992. For most of that run it stood at 105 West Race Street, a hangout where a generation of Pottsville children came for comic books, candy, and a game of pinball. It was never rebuilt, and both of the downtown addresses it kept in its life are parking today. The shop began in the Capitol Theatre Building and ended around the corner on West Race Street, run the whole way by one man from an immigrant family who had grown up a few streets away.

The man behind the counter

Frank Tassone was born in Pottsville on October 6, 1910, a son of the Italian immigrants Nicholas and Frances (Constanza) Tassone. He served in the United States Army during the Second World War and belonged to St. Joseph’s Roman Catholic Church and the American Sons of Italy. In 1928 the Tassones were a labouring family — his father is listed in the city directory as a labourer on East Norwegian Street — and ten years later Frank, still in his twenties, was running his own downtown shop under his own name. He kept it for essentially the rest of his working life, and died in April 1996, at eighty-five, survived by a son, Nicholas, and a daughter, Josephine.

The Capitol Theatre Building years

Frankie’s Smoke Shop first appears in the Pottsville Republican in 1938, and by that December it was buying display space of its own: an advertisement headed “FRANKIE’S SMOKE SHOP — CAPITOL THEATRE BUILDING” pitched an electric shaver as a Christmas gift. The address tells you what kind of business this was. The Capitol Theatre stood at 218–220 North Centre Street — the address recorded by the Library of Congress’s Historic American Buildings Survey, whose file is titled “Capitol Theatre, 218-220 North Centre Street, Pottsville, Schuylkill County, PA.” The theatre had opened in November 1927, a Spanish Colonial Revival house of cast stone, terra-cotta block, and brick, “specially built for sound” and seating roughly 2,700 — in the survey’s words, “one of the largest movie theatres in Pennsylvania.” A smoke shop in that building shared its address with a 2,700-seat movie palace and the crowds it drew.

Around the corner to West Race Street

Around 1950 the shop moved to 105 West Race Street, just around the corner — from the Centre Street theatre block onto Race, in the first block west of Centre — where it would stay for the next four decades. Its customers hardly had to learn a new route.

One thing about that address is worth noting: two decades before Frankie’s arrived, it had already been a place to play. Boyd’s 1928–29 city directory lists 105 West Race Street as the Park Pool Room, run by Victor B. Hawk. The amusement use ran in the building’s grain — when Frankie’s pool table burned in 1992, it was not the first to have stood at that number.

A neighborhood fixture

For four decades on West Race Street, Frankie’s was a neighborhood institution. It sold tobacco, cigarettes, candy, and comic books, and it kept a pool table and, by the end, a row of video games — the descendants of the pinball machines that had drawn earlier customers. The games were leased from a local operator, Glauda’s Amusements. The Pottsville Republican caught the shop’s character in a single line, written the morning after it burned: it had been “a popular hangout for generations,” selling “comic books, candy and various games since it opened.”

By its last decade the shop stood within the Pottsville Downtown Historic District, listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1982.

1992: the year of fire

The shop’s last year brought fire to its door twice. On the night of July 4, 1992, a man poured gasoline on the door and pavement in front of Frankie’s and set it alight; the Humane Fire Company put it out, and the shop was undamaged. Fifteen weeks later, it was not so lucky.

At about 12:26 on the morning of Sunday, October 18, 1992, someone broke into the shop through a second-story window, poured a flammable liquid, and set several fires on the floor. The blaze moved fast. A passing driver saw the smoke and pulled the alarm box near the Humane Fire Company, and by the time crews arrived, “flames were shooting from every side of the structure.” Fire Chief Todd March told the Pottsville Republican, “It burned through the roof … It definitely, right now, is a suspicious fire.” The loss came to roughly $25,000 across the building, the store, and the leased games. Frank Tassone, then eighty-two, had been planning to retire at the end of that month. The shop was never rebuilt.

The fire was investigated as arson, and appears never to have led to an arrest.

Afterward

Both of Frankie’s addresses have since been cleared. The Capitol Theatre closed in 1977 and was demolished in 1982; the intersection now holds a municipal parking garage, built in 1995, and the county’s assessment roll no longer lists 218 or 220 North Centre at all. West Race Street tells the same story: there is no 105 West Race Street any more — the county’s street list begins at 209, and the block the shop stood on is now the garage and two surface lots. A store that opened inside the Capitol Theatre Building ended as a numbered gap in an assessor’s street list, a short walk from the Schuylkill County Historical Society at Centre and Race.

Something of the shop’s hold on local memory survives, though. The main Facebook group devoted to old downtown Pottsville is named, in part, for Frankie’s Smoke Shop — a counter where, for half a century, people bought comic books and stayed to play.

Towns: Pottsville

Sources

Frequently asked

Where was Frankie's Smoke Shop?
In two places, both in downtown Pottsville. It opened in 1938 in the Capitol Theatre Building at 218–220 North Centre Street, and it spent its last four decades at 105 West Race Street, in the first block west of Centre.
Who owned Frankie's Smoke Shop?
Frank Tassone (1910–1996), for essentially its entire life — about fifty-four years, from 1938 until arson destroyed the shop in 1992.
What was at 105 West Race Street before Frankie's?
A pool hall. Boyd's Pottsville directory for 1928–29 lists the Park Pool Room, run by Victor B. Hawk, at that address — so the room Tassone took over around 1950 had been a place to play two decades before it held his own pool table and video games.
When did the shop move to West Race Street?
Around 1950. It had been in the Capitol Theatre Building since 1938 and spent its last four decades at 105 West Race Street, a short move around the corner of Centre and Race.
What happened to Frankie's Smoke Shop?
It was destroyed by arson early on Sunday, October 18, 1992. Someone entered through a second-story window and set several fires with a flammable liquid; the loss came to about $25,000. The shop was never rebuilt, and its eighty-two-year-old proprietor had been planning to retire that month.
Was anyone ever caught for the fire?
The fire was investigated as arson — the Pottsville fire chief called it suspicious within hours — but it does not appear to have led to an arrest.
Is anything left of it?
No. The Capitol Theatre was demolished in 1982 and the West Race Street building burned in 1992; neither was replaced by a building. There is no 105 West Race Street on the county roll any more, and the block is now a municipal parking garage, built in 1995, and two surface lots.
Is this the same Frankie's Smoke Shop that was in Mahanoy City?
No. A separately owned business of the same name operated in Mahanoy City, about thirteen miles away; there is no established connection between the two.