Rialto Theatre

Joe Vogel on May 12, 2024 at 6:33 am

Here is an excerpt from a “10 Years Ago” feature in the August 4, 2021 issue of the Madison Courier: “Thursday was a historic day in Marengo; it was the date of the last showing of a movie at the Rialto Movie Theater. ‘The Cable Guy’ marked a long line of Hollywood classics to shine across the silver screen of the 175-seat theater that opened more than half a century ago. The theater will now become Stone Canyon Country Music Depot, owned by Wayne Bullington.”

I haven’t been able to find any other references to a music venue of that name on the Internet, and in fact in the Google satellite view of the building the interior looks burned out, though the walls appear intact. In Google’s March, 2023 street view the masonry front looks freshly painted and the building (or its shell) bears a “For Sale” sign, though an opening in the door shows a bit of what looks like wreckage inside.

But in any case, the Rialto seems to have come back from its mid-1950s closure and survived for a long time. Oh, and Indiana Memory has a 1985 photo of the Rialto.