Harbor Theatre

The Harbor Theater was owned by my grandfather, Ingolf Berger Iverson, a Norwegian immigrant who also owned the local Ford dealership at one time. He and his wife, Walberg, built the theater building in 1948 < hence the marble plaque in the facade) and ran the theater until he died of a heart attack in the late 50s. For a few years in the mid and late 50s, the Harbor Theater and the theater in the neighboring town of Washburn (which was owned and run by my parents) would show the same movie with slightly different starting times. When the first reel of film was finished in Washburn, my dad would make the 9 mile run to Bayfield at high speed so they could start the movie there. This process was repeated for each of the film reels. This way, the two theaters only had to rent one movie from the studio, but could show it in two towns. As a kid, I used to get to sit in the projection rooms of both theaters to watch movies.