Forest Theatre

The Forest Theatre is open showing current attractions. website

Looking at the photo of the current Forest Theatre I would say it was a rebuild after the fire in 1950.

The January 10, 1950 fire occurred during a showing of Donald O'Connor in “Yes Sir That’s My Baby” with no extra short subjects, when the fire started in a furniture storage room of the theater which was located at the roof, estimating $125,000 in damage. With the flames being reported at 8:40 PM CST, there were over a hundred people intending the movie and all of them escaped without injury.

Within 30 minutes after the alarm sounded instead, the flames broke through the roof of the theater, and as the flames threatened to spread to the Soda Bar building to the north and the Olson Furniture store and Lynns Department Store to the south, a call for additional units from surrounding departments was sent out to the cities of Lake Mills, Garner, Clear Lake, and Mason City Fire Departments. Forest City used all of their three engines including their 1925 Watrous truck unit were on-scene at first before additional units. For the other departments, units from Lake Mills and Garner arrived first while Clear Lake’s engine were frozen up near Ventura which were forced to turn back and return to the station. The Mason City engine which had been sent to standby in Clear Lake made the run to the scene. By the time the other departments arrive on-scene, the fire raged and went under control. They do have time to remove all the equipment inside the theater including the popcorn machine and other concessions in the lobby. The movie’s title plus the “Two Jackpots” contest advertisement on the marquee was still attached as the flames grew. Shortly after 10:00 PM CST, the rear wall started to collapse, adding a new hazard for units to combat. Before the fire was completely under control, more walls fallen. An hour and 15 minutes later comes the additional units to return. The entire fire department in Forest City remained on-scene until 4:00 AM the next morning, pouring water on the fire. Water was still being played on the burning ruins of the theater as Hansen said that his men at the FCFD used a 1,000ft of 2-½ inch hose, a 900ft of 1-½ inch hose, and a 300ft of 1-inch hose in the fire and more than 100,000 gallons were poured in during the blaze.

The fire apparently had smoldered in the storage area for sometime before being discovered because as soon as the door into the store room was broken in, flames rapidly spread throughout the second floor. Fire officials who had entered the theater were forced by the flames to retreat from the building.

The Forest reopened on August 8, 1950 with “My Friend Irma Goes West” with no extras.

I recently looked at the archives of the advantage-preservation website and it appears that the Forest Theatre did not close its doors in the late-1950s and beyond despite the page saying “but later closed” after 1956, although it did close for four days during Christmas Week 1965 due to major interior remodeling which featured larger seats.

The Compston Brothers of Jack and Gary Compston were the Forest Theatre’s long-time managers. Jack Compston operated it from July 1954 until January 1974, when his son Gary took over as the manager of the theater. Prior to his theater business, Jack operated a bowling alley in Sleepy Eye, Minnesota. At the time of his theater business, he was a resident of Decorah. During Gary’s early theater days comes the Forest Theatre’s longest running movie, “The Sting”, ran there for three weeks in 1974. Throughout Gary’s theater business, automated projection in 1979 and Dolby Stereo in 1982 were installed in the theater.