Rialto Theater
10 S. Main Street,
Butte,
MT
59701
10 S. Main Street,
Butte,
MT
59701
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The Rialto Theater designed by architect Henderson Ryan for Claude Jensen and John Von Herberg, opened in May of 1917. The building was closed in the late-1950’s, but reopened in 1962. It was demolished in the 1960’s and replaced by a bank.
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Lost Memory
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Recent comments (view all 6 comments)
A 1917 article from Pacific Builder and Engineer (Barnes, Horace. “Patented Ramp in Liberty Theatre Seattle.” Pacific Builder and Engineer, April 27, 1917, p. 16.) states that Jensen and Von Herberg were the “lessees” of the theatre and that Seattle architect Henderson Ryan was the designer using his patented ramp design. Stylistically, the Rialto is very similar to the Liberty Theatre. Ryan was also working on Butte’s Peoples Theatre and another unknown theatre in Helena at the time. The Neptune Theatre (1921) in Seattle, also by Ryan, looks like a stripped down version of the Rialto.
Thanks Chuck,wonderful pictures.
1920 photo added courtesy of the Distinctly Montana Facebook page. 1927 photo added courtesy of Copper City .Com Facebook page.
This closed in 1958 or 1959 and reopened on February 16th, 1962. 1962 ad in the photo section.
1918 photo & description added courtesy Vintage Cinema Ads Facebook page.
The Rialto in Butte MT, where the theater had the local fire department do a full appearance to advertise a fire-department related movie called “The Still Alarm”.
The February 24, 1917 issue of Motion Picture News published this effusive description of the new Rialto Theatre, then under construction in Butte: “Walls and roof of the new Rialto theatre, Butte, are now completed and interior work is being rushed. The exterior of this building is the finest looking of anything in the northwest excelling by far anything seen in Denver, Salt Lake, Minneapolis or Spokane. It is a newly constructed concrete building of four stories, the outer walls of which are faced with especially made white terra cotta, beautifully decorated and set off by bits of highly colored stone here and there. The interior is to be most elaborately decorated and furnished, and when completed, the Rialto will be one of the show places of the west. It will be operated by the Greater Theatres Company of Seattle, Jensen and Von Herberg, and it is rumored that it will show Artcraft, Paramount, Vitagraph and Pathe pictures.”