Liberty Theater
Mabton,
WA
98935
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The Liberty was owned by Vernett Grow and Arthur Work in the 1940s. The building was badly damaged by a fire in August 1948.
Contributed by
Ken McIntyre
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A June 1921 Paramount ad in the Spokane Spokesman-Review included the Mabton in a list of theaters showing a week of Paramount movies.
The Spokesman-Review wrote in October 1936 that the Mabton theater, “scarcely a year old,” had reopened. Its owner, P. L. Carpenter, had closed it for a week of renovations including dropping the floor and enlarging the stage.
Boxoffice, Aug. 21, 1948: “MABTON, WASH. - Two Yakima valley fire departments were called to fight a fire in the Liberty Theatre here recently, but despite all efforts the theatre was destroyed … The blaze began near the righthand corner of the screen, at 8 p. m. while 20 patrons were attending the show. The Liberty building is owned by Art Work and Vernett Grow, both of Mabton, and the theatre was operated by Bill Carey … Mabton will not be without theatre entertainment long. The new theatre being built by Vern Powell is expected to open within the next two months.”
Lorena Powell, Vern’s wife, told the Sunnyside Sun 29 years later that in 1948, she and her husband “went into hock to build the Mabton Theater which included rentals, private living quarters for the Powells and Doris’s Beauty Salon … The last picture shown in the theater was on the last Saturday of January 1976.”
Its most likely that this opened as the Mabton Theatre, and was renamed the Liberty Theatre sometime in the early-1940s.