Theatre
119 S. Center Street,
Lake City,
IA
51449
119 S. Center Street,
Lake City,
IA
51449
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This theatre appears on the 1919 Sanborn in the south half of an old storefront. Despite surpassing 1,000 citizens by 1890, no earlier maps seem to exist, but from a postcard view, the building appears to date to about 1890.
This was a fairly small theatre, and likely did not operate for long. The building was one of a pair, the southern of which still survives, with a terrible remodel. The central part of the block was torn down many years ago, and the site is a parking lot.
Contributed by
Seth Gaines
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Recent comments (view all 4 comments)
Three movie houses, the Gem, the Grand, and the Lyric, are listed at Lake City in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. I’ve been unable to find Lake City mentioned in the movie theater trade journals before 1921, but two Lake City theaters are listed by name and manager (but not address) in Polk’s 1916-1917 Iowa Gazetteer. The Grand is one of them, and the other was called the Isis.
There was also an opera house in a big three story Odd Fellows Hall on the corner of E Main and S Illinois. Only a tiny portion, one story tall, remains today. That could have been the Grand?
If the Opera House in the Odd Fellow’s building was the one listed in Polk’s Iowa Gazetteers for 1905-1906 and 1916-1917 as the Townsend Opera House then it was most likely not the Grand, which had a separate listing in the 1916-1917 edition. The Opera House was managed by E. W. Townsend, who was also president of the Citizen’s Bank, while the proprietor of the Grand was N. W. Sherman.
It’s (very slightly) possible that Sherman operated the Grand as a business in the Opera House under some sort of limited lease from Townsend, with the understanding that Townsend could boot Sherman’s movies out when the space was needed for some other event, but a photo of the Opera House interior can be seen on this Facebook page, and it not only had a flat floor, it also had columns in the center and would have made a wretched space for showing movies. I doubt it could have survived two years with any competition at all, and the Grand was listed in both 1914 and 1916.
It seems most likely that the Grand had its own place, probably a converted storefront like the theater at 119 S. Center Street, which could have been either the Grand or the Isis, with Gem or Lyric as a possible earlier aka if it was the Isis.
I agree that the opera house is not a good candidate.