Scenic Theatre

HoffmanBR on July 25, 2024 at 3:09 pm

This theatre location was known as the Scenic, located between the Columbia Opera House (also used as a theatre) and the Weeks drug store (then operated by C. C. Yockey). The building was originally the New Hardware store, but it was converted into a full-time theatre in 1913 (I’ve attached a photo circa 1920) with “a slant floor, plush chairs and a musician’s balcony in the city style,” as reported in the Correctionville News. After a fire in 1927, the Scenic closed permanently, leaving the New Radio theatre (renamed The Ritz in 1928) as the only full-time theatre building in the vibrant little city. The Ritz building is still standing, though it ended its life as a movie theatre in 1968.

Joe Vogel on November 19, 2023 at 1:45 am

Two theater names associated with Correctionville were the Scenic and the Radio, or New Radio. Both appear in the FDY in 1926 and 1927, while the 1928 edition lists only the Ritz Theatre. It’s possible that the Ritz was one or the other of those houses, renamed, and if so then this theater at 325 Fifth must have been the other.

One other Correctionville theater name is revealed in the 1996 obituary of Doris L. Grawburg Beers, which says that during the silent movie era she played the piano at the New Radio Theatre and, before that, at a house called the Luna Theatre. It says her piano playing career lasted six years, and as the Radio apparently closed or was renamed in 1927, she might have begun playing as early as 1922, when she was thirteen years old.

One other bit of information probably useful is that a Scenic Theatre was listed at Correctionville in Polk’s 1914 Iowa Gazetteer, with no address alas, so it’s not possible to say if it was the same Scenic that was operating in 1926.