Legion Theater
1204 Gowrie Street,
Ruthven,
IA
51358
1204 Gowrie Street,
Ruthven,
IA
51358
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Additional Info
Previous Names: Ruthven Opera House
Nearby Theaters
This theater appears on the 1933 Sanborn, in an old wooden opera house built sometime before 1901.
The building was a tall one story structure, tin clad. It was a decent size, definitely enough for a small town like Ruthven.
It is unknown when movies began or ended here. It is possible that this became the original Legion Theatre in 1934, in which case it closed in 1936 and burned in 1937. At any rate, this building, along with most of the rest of downtown, is long gone. The site today is a gravel parking lot.
Contributed by
Seth Gaines
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Recent comments (view all 1 comments)
The earliest mention of Ruthven I’ve found in the trades is from Moving Picture World of December 20, 1913. The local movie house had just changed hands but its name was not given. The next mention was in the October 9, 1915 issue of the same journal, which again noted the sale of the house, but it was called the Electric Theatre. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory missed Ruthven altogether.
The Electric Theatre still existed in 1926, when the FDY listed it with 240 seats. The listing was unchanged in 1929. The Electric is listed as a silent house in 1931, closed in 1932 and 1933, and Ruthven itself vanishes in 1934, though so do several other cities at the end of the “R” section, so that could have been a mistake by the FDY. The Legion Theater first appears in 1935, with 325 seats. If it was in the same building as the Electric its remodeling must have been extensive.