I haven’t found anything saying the Grand and Temple were originally in the same building, but there’s nothing saying they weren’t either. I had the impression they were simply rivals that merged, consolidating their business in the better theater’s location.
It might be that the Grand was at 108 Grand, shut down around November, 1917 (perhaps losing a lease) and Mr. Combs' Iris opened in the Grand’s location about the time the Grand’s owners merged their operation with the Temple’s. The news of the merger and of the opening of Mr. Combs' house appeared in the same issue of MPW, December 1, 1917.
As the earliest mention of the Strand I’ve seen is from 1925, there was plenty of time for the Iris to come and go at that location without leaving a ripple. The absence of the Grand from the 1914 directory doesn’t seem a major problem, either. The place might have opened, closed and then reopened more than once during that time. Early theaters often had very short life spans. Plus the directory might simply have missed it.
If you’re referring to the listings in the 1925 FDY, you’ve misread it. Chariton, Iowa isn’t listed, but Chariton, Illinois had nine theaters. Had the Iowa Chariton been listed it would have been on the same page as the one in Illinois, but the whole state of Indiana is also on that page. The listings were quite perfunctory that year.
A Grand Theatre at Chariton is mentioned in the December 1, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World: “Chariton, Ia.—The Grand and Temple theaters are to be consolidated and will be renamed the Lincoln theater. Mrs. Victorin Dewey and Becker and Bowen will have the joint ownership of the theater.”
That is the only mention of the Grand I’ve found in the trade journals. It was not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, which lists only the Temple at Chariton.
The same issue of MPW has an item datelined Chariton saying that “D. Earl Combs has opened his new theater to the public.” A December 22 item says that Mr. Combs' new house was called the Iris. I’ve found no other mentions of the Iris, or of Mr. Combs.
I’ve found the Strand mentioned in two items in Moving Picture World of September 5, 1925. The first says that “W. H. Dewey has sold his interest in the Lincoln and Strand Theatres at Chariton to his partner, E. P. Smith, and will enter other lines of business.” The second says that “E. P. Smith of Chariton, Ia., has sold the Strand and Lincoln Theatres at that place to S. H. Edmiston.”
The November 14, 1927 Film Daily also mentions the Strand: “Chariton, Ia.—The Strand has discontinued pictures temporarily to play stock.”
The July 3, 1909 issue of The Show World said that vaudevillian Lee J. Kellam would be performing at the Temple Theatre in Chariton, Iowa July 5-10.
The December 1, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World had this item: “Chariton, Ia.—The Grand and Temple theaters are to be consolidated and will be renamed the Lincoln theater. Mrs. Victorin Dewey and Becker and Bowen will have the joint ownership of the theater.”
The July 27, 1929 issue of Motion Picture News had this item that had to have been about this theater:
“The new theatre now under construction at Hartselle, Ala., is rapidly nearing completion and Manager Ray N. Howell has purchased talking equipment, sound-on-disc, from Jack Marshall, of the North Birmingham Theatre, who is marketing his own invention. The Hartselle house, which will seat 500, will be of fireproof brick and cement and will be outfitted with the most up-to-date equipment. It is understood that Mr. Howell has not yet determined whether he will continue to operate the present Scenic Theatre or will close and dismantle it after the new house is opened.”
The FDYs give a clue to what might have happened next in Hartselle. Ray Howell’s 300-seat Scenic Theatre is listed in the 1929 edition, but the only house listed in 1930 is a 300-seat Alma Theatre. In 1931, the 435-seat Pearl Vaughn theatre appears, along with the Alma. It appears that Mr. Howell failed to get his new house open, but Dr. William Booth got control of it and opened it as the Pearl Vaughn Theatre sometime in 1930. Meantime, Howell’s old Scenic remained in operation with the new name Alma Theatre. In 1932, the new theater returned to the control of the Howell family, as the house was renamed Strand Theatre on August 20 that year, and the January 14, 1933 issue of Universal Weekly says that an Adam P. Howell was manager of the Strand in Hartselle. The 1933 FDY lists the Strand, with 472 seats, but the Alma is no longer listed.
The second go-round of the name Rodeo for the house began in 1959, according to this item from the May 27 issue of Motion Picture Exhibitor that year: “Hank Farris has changed the name of his house in Hartselle, Ala., from the Strand to the Rodeo.”
Incidentally, the Scenic Theatre was the sole listing at Hartselle in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
The Barron Theatre’s web site can be found at this link. The youth ministry which owns and operates the house converted the former balcony theater to what they call a teen room, and installed digital projection in the main floor theater, which shows a single feature three days a week, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Admission is five dollars.
The State Theatre opened on May 29, 1929. Commonwealth Theatres took over operation in 1936 and still controlled the house at least as late as 1967 when the theater underwent a three-month remodeling, reopening with “El Dorado” on July 20. In December, the State Theatre hosted the premier of the movie “In Cold Blood” which had been partly filmed locally in Finney County, where the murders depicted in the film had taken place.
The last owners of the house were Dickinson Theatres, who took over in 1997 and closed the doors in January, 1999. In November that year the building was given to the municipality with the proviso that it not be used to show first run movies. An attempt to renovate and reopen the State as a theater was abandoned in 2003 when adequate funding could not be acquired. A later attempt at a less ambitions renovation also fell short. Proposals for some sort of public reuse of the building have been made as recently as 2023, but have come to nothing. I’ve been unable to discover the current status of the building, other than that is apparently still owned by the City of Garden City.
Boxoffice of August 25, 1951 said that Columbia Basin Theatres had opened their Lee Theatre at Ephrata and would open their new Lake theatre at Moses Lake later.
The Lake Theatre opened in latter part of 1951. The August 25 issue of Boxoffice said that Columbia Basin Theatres had just opened the Lee Theatre in Ephrata, and would open their Lake Theatre at Moses Lake later.
This PDF has some history of Ephrata’s theaters starting on page six. In 1936, John and Mary Lee, who would later open the MarJo and Lee theatres, took over the Kam theatre, which was listed with 125 seats (but closed) in the FDY that year, and after sprucing it up, reopened it on October 9 as the Capitol Theatre. The Capitol is listed in the 1937 FDY with 125 seats, along with a house called the Ephrata, for which no details are provided.
In the 1938 FDY, the Capitol is not listed but the Ephrata is still there, now with 125 seats and the notation (port) which means portable. I suspect that this was still the Kam/Capitol building, but it was now the home base of the traveling circuit the Lees had established, driving the portable equipment around the additional towns of Moses Lake, Wilson Creek, Connell, Othello, Washtucna, White Bluffs, and Mansfield. The MarJo Theatre is first listed in 1941, and the Eprhata is last listed in 1942. It might be that the old Kam building was no longer used for regular exhibition after the larger MarJo opened, but it might have continued as a part time operation into 1942. The history recounted in the PDF doesn’t say, and the FDY listing is ambiguous.
The Kam’s building, an unprepossessing little one-story frame structure, was on First Avenue NW. Sanborn Maps show it on the Northwest corner of Jefferson Street (now First Ave. NW) and an alley between 3rd Street (now C Street NW) and 4th Street (now D Street NW.) This is now part of a parking lot, but Google street view assigns it the address 403 First Ave. NW.
This item from Moving Picture World Of November 6, 1926, might be about this house: “Forms Havana Co.
“Nat Liebeskind, formerly manager of the Universal exchange in Cuba, has formed the Havana Theatre Company, Inc., to operate picture theatres in Havana. On or about November 1 the first theatre will be opened. This will be known as the Cine Esmeralde.”
If Mr. Liebeskind’s house was indeed this one, then he was taking over an existing theater. This page from the “Lost Architecture” subreddit has an earlier photo of the house, dating its construction to 1908 and attributing its original, fanciful Art Nouveau design to architect Alberto de Castro. I wonder if Mr. Liebeskind was responsible for the old fashioned yet wretchedly inferior remodeling of the façade? The current front does look like a 1920s design, and few in the 1920s had respect for the Art Nouveau style.
The Meta Theatre made its first appearance in the FDY in 1936, suggesting a 1935 opening. Prior to that, Lamont had not appeared in the Yearbook since 1929, when the 235 seat Cozy Theatre was last listed. The Cozy had been in operation since at least as early as July, 1925, when manager W. C. Snyder was submitting capsule movie reviews to Moving Picture World. Given how small Lamont was it seems likely that the Meta was the Cozy reopened. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists only a house called the Elite at Lamont, with no details, but it might also have been the same theater.
The Streamline remodeling this house underwent prior to reopening in early 1947 was designed by the local architectural firm Coston & Frankfurt (Truett Harry Coston and William Wallace Frankfurt.) The January 3, 1948 issue of Boxoffice featured an article about the Home State Theatre, revealing that the original lessee, R. Lewis Barton, had recently sold his interest in the house to H. T. Braucht and Robert D. Curran, who had been handling the live events at the house throughout Barton’s tenure.
About $10,000 of the $250,000 renovation budget was expended on improvements for the stage, which was 45 feet deep and featured a 60 foot wide proscenium. Both major road shows and local civic events were presented on the stage. The article also revealed that the 2,200 capacity of the house was actually 2,000 seats and room for 200 standees.
Here is an item from the October 12, 1912 issue of The Billboard noting the opening of the new Broadway Theatre in Muskogee on October 6: “Muskogee, Okla., Oct. 11 (Special to The Billboard).—The new Broadway Theatre was opened on October 6, with five vaudeville acts from the Interstate Amusement time. A crowded and enthusiastic audience was present. Fred E, Turner is the owner and R. B, Stephens, the sole proprietor. The new house is located in the heart of the shopping district and is elaborately finished, with a capacity of 1008
“Muskogee has needed a first-class vaudeville theatre for some time as Oklahoma City is the only other place in the state that plays first class circuits and the productions furnished by the Interstate Company will insure a prosperous and successful career”
Boxoffice of March 6, 1948, reported that Earl Kerr had taken over the Grand and Marion theatres at Knoxville, Iowa from Mrs. A. M. Black. George D. Hart, formerly manager of Kerr’s Iowa Theatre at Winterset was named manager of the two Knoxville houses.
An item in Boxoffice of October 2, 1948 mentioned George Hart as the manager of the Grand theatre in Knoxville, while another item in the same issue said that E. W. Kerr had recently been a guest of his manager George D. Hart while in Knoxville inspecting his theaters, so the Grand must have been run by Kerr Theatres at least as early as that year.
This item from Motion Picture News of May 8, 1926, says that the house that would become the Dickinson theatre was to be in an entirely new building in 1926, not just a remodeling of the old Novelty Theatre: “A new theatre will be constructed on the site of the present Novelty Theatre, Eighth Avenue and Quincy Street, Topeka, Kans., it is rumored, although the name of the prospective builder, or builders, has not been disclosed.”
Whether the house was entirely new in 1926 or not, this web page from the University of Kansas indicates that the Novelty originally opened in 1906 as the Aurora theater and was renamed the Novelty in 1909. The house was showing movies by 1914, and was listed in the American Motion Picture Directory that year. The new or remodeled house of 1926 operated as the Novelty until 1944, when it became the Dickinson.
A brief note of praise for the trade journal Motion Picture News, from “Ray Tuller, Mgr. and Owner, Palace theatre, Afton, Iowa” appeared in the magazine’s issue of July 3, 1920. That is the earliest, and almost only, mention of Afton I’ve been able to find in the trade journals.
I don’t know if the theater in this item from Motion Picture Herald of October 3, 1931 was an entirely new house or simply new to Mr. Wellemeyer. “B. A. WELLEMEYER has named his new theatre in Afton, Iowa, the Aftonia.”
Much later news from Afton is found in this item from Boxoffice January 22, 1962: “Closes Afton, Iowa, Paris
“AFTON, IOWA — After operating the Paris Theatre for nearly 17 years, L. J. Kessler has closed the theatre and sold the building to an oil company. The final screen program at the Paris was shown December 18, the equipment then being dismantled and removed from the building.”
The name Community Theatre was in use at New Market by early 1928, when a capsule movie review by the Community’s manager E. W. Lawrence appeared in the January 21 issue of Movie Age.
This item appeared in the January 6, 1932 issue of Motion Picture Herald: “J. F. MILLER has purchased the Community Theatre, New Market, Iowa, from Ed Lawrence. Miller hails from Knoxville.”
A D. B. Pace of the Isis Theatre in New Market was submitting reviews to Exhibitors Herald in September, 1926.
From The Show World, October 22, 1910: “L. P. Priessman, president of the Comet Amusement Company of Creston, Iowa, which operates houses at Red Oak, Alba and Creston, will open a new theater at Creston, November 7. All of the Comet houses are booked by the W. V. M. A..”
As the house at 211 W. Adams was in operation by 1907, the 1910 project must have been another theater, but I’ve been unable to determine which one. Perhaps it was the unidentified predecessor to the Uptown, just down the block from the Comet.
This fire-prone theater also burned in 1909, the December 11 issue of The Show World reporting $40,000 dollars damage to the Temple Grand Opera House at Creston the previous day. Only $13,000 was covered by insurance. Spontaneous combustion of boiler coal stored in the basement was blamed for the fire.
I haven’t found anything saying the Grand and Temple were originally in the same building, but there’s nothing saying they weren’t either. I had the impression they were simply rivals that merged, consolidating their business in the better theater’s location.
It might be that the Grand was at 108 Grand, shut down around November, 1917 (perhaps losing a lease) and Mr. Combs' Iris opened in the Grand’s location about the time the Grand’s owners merged their operation with the Temple’s. The news of the merger and of the opening of Mr. Combs' house appeared in the same issue of MPW, December 1, 1917.
As the earliest mention of the Strand I’ve seen is from 1925, there was plenty of time for the Iris to come and go at that location without leaving a ripple. The absence of the Grand from the 1914 directory doesn’t seem a major problem, either. The place might have opened, closed and then reopened more than once during that time. Early theaters often had very short life spans. Plus the directory might simply have missed it.
If you’re referring to the listings in the 1925 FDY, you’ve misread it. Chariton, Iowa isn’t listed, but Chariton, Illinois had nine theaters. Had the Iowa Chariton been listed it would have been on the same page as the one in Illinois, but the whole state of Indiana is also on that page. The listings were quite perfunctory that year.
A Grand Theatre at Chariton is mentioned in the December 1, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World: “Chariton, Ia.—The Grand and Temple theaters are to be consolidated and will be renamed the Lincoln theater. Mrs. Victorin Dewey and Becker and Bowen will have the joint ownership of the theater.”
That is the only mention of the Grand I’ve found in the trade journals. It was not listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, which lists only the Temple at Chariton.
The same issue of MPW has an item datelined Chariton saying that “D. Earl Combs has opened his new theater to the public.” A December 22 item says that Mr. Combs' new house was called the Iris. I’ve found no other mentions of the Iris, or of Mr. Combs.
I’ve found the Strand mentioned in two items in Moving Picture World of September 5, 1925. The first says that “W. H. Dewey has sold his interest in the Lincoln and Strand Theatres at Chariton to his partner, E. P. Smith, and will enter other lines of business.” The second says that “E. P. Smith of Chariton, Ia., has sold the Strand and Lincoln Theatres at that place to S. H. Edmiston.”
The November 14, 1927 Film Daily also mentions the Strand: “Chariton, Ia.—The Strand has discontinued pictures temporarily to play stock.”
The July 3, 1909 issue of The Show World said that vaudevillian Lee J. Kellam would be performing at the Temple Theatre in Chariton, Iowa July 5-10.
The December 1, 1917 issue of Moving Picture World had this item: “Chariton, Ia.—The Grand and Temple theaters are to be consolidated and will be renamed the Lincoln theater. Mrs. Victorin Dewey and Becker and Bowen will have the joint ownership of the theater.”
The July 27, 1929 issue of Motion Picture News had this item that had to have been about this theater:
The FDYs give a clue to what might have happened next in Hartselle. Ray Howell’s 300-seat Scenic Theatre is listed in the 1929 edition, but the only house listed in 1930 is a 300-seat Alma Theatre. In 1931, the 435-seat Pearl Vaughn theatre appears, along with the Alma. It appears that Mr. Howell failed to get his new house open, but Dr. William Booth got control of it and opened it as the Pearl Vaughn Theatre sometime in 1930. Meantime, Howell’s old Scenic remained in operation with the new name Alma Theatre. In 1932, the new theater returned to the control of the Howell family, as the house was renamed Strand Theatre on August 20 that year, and the January 14, 1933 issue of Universal Weekly says that an Adam P. Howell was manager of the Strand in Hartselle. The 1933 FDY lists the Strand, with 472 seats, but the Alma is no longer listed.The second go-round of the name Rodeo for the house began in 1959, according to this item from the May 27 issue of Motion Picture Exhibitor that year: “Hank Farris has changed the name of his house in Hartselle, Ala., from the Strand to the Rodeo.”
Incidentally, the Scenic Theatre was the sole listing at Hartselle in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
The Barron Theatre’s web site can be found at this link. The youth ministry which owns and operates the house converted the former balcony theater to what they call a teen room, and installed digital projection in the main floor theater, which shows a single feature three days a week, Friday, Saturday and Sunday. Admission is five dollars.
The State Theatre opened on May 29, 1929. Commonwealth Theatres took over operation in 1936 and still controlled the house at least as late as 1967 when the theater underwent a three-month remodeling, reopening with “El Dorado” on July 20. In December, the State Theatre hosted the premier of the movie “In Cold Blood” which had been partly filmed locally in Finney County, where the murders depicted in the film had taken place.
The last owners of the house were Dickinson Theatres, who took over in 1997 and closed the doors in January, 1999. In November that year the building was given to the municipality with the proviso that it not be used to show first run movies. An attempt to renovate and reopen the State as a theater was abandoned in 2003 when adequate funding could not be acquired. A later attempt at a less ambitions renovation also fell short. Proposals for some sort of public reuse of the building have been made as recently as 2023, but have come to nothing. I’ve been unable to discover the current status of the building, other than that is apparently still owned by the City of Garden City.
Boxoffice of August 25, 1951 said that Columbia Basin Theatres had opened their Lee Theatre at Ephrata and would open their new Lake theatre at Moses Lake later.
The Lake Theatre opened in latter part of 1951. The August 25 issue of Boxoffice said that Columbia Basin Theatres had just opened the Lee Theatre in Ephrata, and would open their Lake Theatre at Moses Lake later.
This PDF has some history of Ephrata’s theaters starting on page six. In 1936, John and Mary Lee, who would later open the MarJo and Lee theatres, took over the Kam theatre, which was listed with 125 seats (but closed) in the FDY that year, and after sprucing it up, reopened it on October 9 as the Capitol Theatre. The Capitol is listed in the 1937 FDY with 125 seats, along with a house called the Ephrata, for which no details are provided.
In the 1938 FDY, the Capitol is not listed but the Ephrata is still there, now with 125 seats and the notation (port) which means portable. I suspect that this was still the Kam/Capitol building, but it was now the home base of the traveling circuit the Lees had established, driving the portable equipment around the additional towns of Moses Lake, Wilson Creek, Connell, Othello, Washtucna, White Bluffs, and Mansfield. The MarJo Theatre is first listed in 1941, and the Eprhata is last listed in 1942. It might be that the old Kam building was no longer used for regular exhibition after the larger MarJo opened, but it might have continued as a part time operation into 1942. The history recounted in the PDF doesn’t say, and the FDY listing is ambiguous.
The Kam’s building, an unprepossessing little one-story frame structure, was on First Avenue NW. Sanborn Maps show it on the Northwest corner of Jefferson Street (now First Ave. NW) and an alley between 3rd Street (now C Street NW) and 4th Street (now D Street NW.) This is now part of a parking lot, but Google street view assigns it the address 403 First Ave. NW.
This item from Moving Picture World Of November 6, 1926, might be about this house: “Forms Havana Co.
“Nat Liebeskind, formerly manager of the Universal exchange in Cuba, has formed the Havana Theatre Company, Inc., to operate picture theatres in Havana. On or about November 1 the first theatre will be opened. This will be known as the Cine Esmeralde.”
If Mr. Liebeskind’s house was indeed this one, then he was taking over an existing theater. This page from the “Lost Architecture” subreddit has an earlier photo of the house, dating its construction to 1908 and attributing its original, fanciful Art Nouveau design to architect Alberto de Castro. I wonder if Mr. Liebeskind was responsible for the old fashioned yet wretchedly inferior remodeling of the façade? The current front does look like a 1920s design, and few in the 1920s had respect for the Art Nouveau style.
The Meta Theatre made its first appearance in the FDY in 1936, suggesting a 1935 opening. Prior to that, Lamont had not appeared in the Yearbook since 1929, when the 235 seat Cozy Theatre was last listed. The Cozy had been in operation since at least as early as July, 1925, when manager W. C. Snyder was submitting capsule movie reviews to Moving Picture World. Given how small Lamont was it seems likely that the Meta was the Cozy reopened. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists only a house called the Elite at Lamont, with no details, but it might also have been the same theater.
The Streamline remodeling this house underwent prior to reopening in early 1947 was designed by the local architectural firm Coston & Frankfurt (Truett Harry Coston and William Wallace Frankfurt.) The January 3, 1948 issue of Boxoffice featured an article about the Home State Theatre, revealing that the original lessee, R. Lewis Barton, had recently sold his interest in the house to H. T. Braucht and Robert D. Curran, who had been handling the live events at the house throughout Barton’s tenure.
About $10,000 of the $250,000 renovation budget was expended on improvements for the stage, which was 45 feet deep and featured a 60 foot wide proscenium. Both major road shows and local civic events were presented on the stage. The article also revealed that the 2,200 capacity of the house was actually 2,000 seats and room for 200 standees.
Here is an item from the October 12, 1912 issue of The Billboard noting the opening of the new Broadway Theatre in Muskogee on October 6: “Muskogee, Okla., Oct. 11 (Special to The Billboard).—The new Broadway Theatre was opened on October 6, with five vaudeville acts from the Interstate Amusement time. A crowded and enthusiastic audience was present. Fred E, Turner is the owner and R. B, Stephens, the sole proprietor. The new house is located in the heart of the shopping district and is elaborately finished, with a capacity of 1008
“Muskogee has needed a first-class vaudeville theatre for some time as Oklahoma City is the only other place in the state that plays first class circuits and the productions furnished by the Interstate Company will insure a prosperous and successful career”
Boxoffice of March 6, 1948, reported that Earl Kerr had taken over the Grand and Marion theatres at Knoxville, Iowa from Mrs. A. M. Black. George D. Hart, formerly manager of Kerr’s Iowa Theatre at Winterset was named manager of the two Knoxville houses.
In fact, Boxoffice of March 6, 1948 said that “E. W. Kerr, Denver, has taken over the Grand and Marion theatres in Knoxville, Iowa.”
An item in Boxoffice of October 2, 1948 mentioned George Hart as the manager of the Grand theatre in Knoxville, while another item in the same issue said that E. W. Kerr had recently been a guest of his manager George D. Hart while in Knoxville inspecting his theaters, so the Grand must have been run by Kerr Theatres at least as early as that year.
This item from Motion Picture News of May 8, 1926, says that the house that would become the Dickinson theatre was to be in an entirely new building in 1926, not just a remodeling of the old Novelty Theatre: “A new theatre will be constructed on the site of the present Novelty Theatre, Eighth Avenue and Quincy Street, Topeka, Kans., it is rumored, although the name of the prospective builder, or builders, has not been disclosed.”
Whether the house was entirely new in 1926 or not, this web page from the University of Kansas indicates that the Novelty originally opened in 1906 as the Aurora theater and was renamed the Novelty in 1909. The house was showing movies by 1914, and was listed in the American Motion Picture Directory that year. The new or remodeled house of 1926 operated as the Novelty until 1944, when it became the Dickinson.
A brief note of praise for the trade journal Motion Picture News, from “Ray Tuller, Mgr. and Owner, Palace theatre, Afton, Iowa” appeared in the magazine’s issue of July 3, 1920. That is the earliest, and almost only, mention of Afton I’ve been able to find in the trade journals.
I don’t know if the theater in this item from Motion Picture Herald of October 3, 1931 was an entirely new house or simply new to Mr. Wellemeyer. “B. A. WELLEMEYER has named his new theatre in Afton, Iowa, the Aftonia.”
Much later news from Afton is found in this item from Boxoffice January 22, 1962: “Closes Afton, Iowa, Paris
“AFTON, IOWA — After operating the Paris Theatre for nearly 17 years, L. J. Kessler has closed the theatre and sold the building to an oil company. The final screen program at the Paris was shown December 18, the equipment then being dismantled and removed from the building.”
The July 12, 1931 Film Daily mentioned this house: “Mt. Ayr, Ia.— Will H. Eddy has purchased his second theater, the Princess here.”
The name Community Theatre was in use at New Market by early 1928, when a capsule movie review by the Community’s manager E. W. Lawrence appeared in the January 21 issue of Movie Age.
This item appeared in the January 6, 1932 issue of Motion Picture Herald: “J. F. MILLER has purchased the Community Theatre, New Market, Iowa, from Ed Lawrence. Miller hails from Knoxville.”
A D. B. Pace of the Isis Theatre in New Market was submitting reviews to Exhibitors Herald in September, 1926.
From The Show World, October 22, 1910: “L. P. Priessman, president of the Comet Amusement Company of Creston, Iowa, which operates houses at Red Oak, Alba and Creston, will open a new theater at Creston, November 7. All of the Comet houses are booked by the W. V. M. A..”
As the house at 211 W. Adams was in operation by 1907, the 1910 project must have been another theater, but I’ve been unable to determine which one. Perhaps it was the unidentified predecessor to the Uptown, just down the block from the Comet.
This fire-prone theater also burned in 1909, the December 11 issue of The Show World reporting $40,000 dollars damage to the Temple Grand Opera House at Creston the previous day. Only $13,000 was covered by insurance. Spontaneous combustion of boiler coal stored in the basement was blamed for the fire.
The Hardin theatre was in operation at least as late as 1977, when it was mentioned in the August 5 issue of the Bedford Times-Press.