Rialto Theatre

820 Story Street,
Boone, IA 50036

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Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on May 29, 2018 at 12:49 pm

The May 6, 1920, issue of Engineering News-Record had this item:

“Ia., Boone—Theatre—Rialto Theatre Co., c/o A. H. Blank. 326 Iowa Bldg., Des Moines, let contract converting 2 story, brick, rein.-con. and steel hotel into theatre, to Kofab & Brawner, Boone. About $100,000; cost plus percentage basis.”
Another item about the project identified the Des Moines firm of Kraetsch and Kraetsch as the architects. Brothers George A. and Carl H. Kraetsch had merged their practice with that of Norman T. Vorse in 1919, a relationship that lasted into the mid-1930s, and it is likely that Vorse was the lead architect for the Rialto as he was for the firm’s other theater projects.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on June 14, 2013 at 2:33 pm

The Rialto Theatre at Boone, Iowa, was mentioned in the January 13, 1929, issue of The Film Daily, so it must have been open by 1928 at the latest. This comment by IowaBackroads on our Boone Theatre page says that the Rialto Theatre was destroyed by a fire and was subsequently replaced by the Boone Theatre on the same site. CinemaTour’s Rialto page says that the fire took place on September 10, 1966.