Royal Theatre
110 W. Main Street,
Rigby,
ID
83442
110 W. Main Street,
Rigby,
ID
83442
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The Idaho Falls Post-Register noted on August 16, 1970 that the George family was selling the Royal Theatre to Nile Tanner. The theater was in the George family for over 50 years and was built by Tom George in 1918, who managed it until his death. It opened on September 29, 1919. Tom’s son Hilmer and his wife Edith then took over management. After the death of her husband, Edith continued to manage the theater until her death in March of 1970.
The Royal Theatre and its competitor the Gem Theatre, which later became the Main Theatre, advertised regularly in the local Star newspaper. Sometime before 1965 the Main Theatre closed leaving only the Royal Theatre, which remained opened at least through the late-1970’s, showing only family movies.
It was demolished on December 13, 1979 and the former location is the vacant lot next to Me ‘n Stan’s restaurant.
Contributed by
Ron Pierce
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Recent comments (view all 3 comments)
More info and photos are always welcome.
Uploaded an abstract about the demolition of the Royal which I found on EastIdahoNews.com. Demolition was on December 13, 1979.
According to what you can read there had been five theatres in Rigby over the years with three open at one point. The Royal was the last to go.
The newspaper article robboehm uploaded to the photo page says that the Royal Theatre opened on September 29, 1919.
We have four theaters listed for Rigby: The Royal, the Orpheum, the Gem/Main, and the Iris. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists the Orpheum and a house called the Lulu, located on Main Street. Unless Lulu was an aka for the Iris, it must have been the fifth theater mentioned in the newspaper article. The three operating at the same time must have been the Royal, Orpheum and Iris in the late 1910s.