Lyric Theatre
804 Central Aveue,
Hawarden,
IA
51023
804 Central Aveue,
Hawarden,
IA
51023
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It’s hard to tell. It certainly didn’t burn to the ground. There could have been a fire, and it even could have been fairly serious, but left the facade.
While the Hawarden Theatre is listed (without an address) in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, Polk’s 1914 Iowa Gazetteer lists only one movie theater (the Lyric) and the opera house (Brunskill Opera House, David Brunskill, propr.) at Hawarden. Items in theater industry trade journals indicate that Lyric was a new name for the Hawarden Theatre, but not in 1914. The earliest mention of the Lyric in Hawarden I’ve found in the trades is from Moving Picture World of March 6, 1915, which says that the Hawarden Theatre had recently changed hands and would be renamed the Lyric. But I do wonder how a name change from 1915 ended up in the 1914 Gazetteer?
In any case, after that March 6, 1915 item, Lyric is the only theater name I’ve found associated with Hawarden in the trade journals for the next few years, and the last of those mention, in MPW of January 4, 1919, says that the Lyric had “…burned to the ground….” Is there any indication of the building at 804 Central having burned? It most likely would have been only whatever was between the brick side walls. Roof and floors were usually built of wood in those old commercial buildings.