Mars Theater

This theatre started life as a grocery store. In the 1940’s, the wooden floor was sloped, and the rest of the building was remodeled to turn it into a neat “little” 300 seat theatre. It was named the Mars, after it’s owner, Marvin Fosse. It usually featured three show changes in any given week. The Mars was never any kind of a movie palace but it (like it’s predecessor the Pastime) was the center of small town life on Friday and Saturday nights into the very early 50’s. When local TV came upon the scene, and because the theatre could not book pictures anywhere near their release date, and with many of it’s potential patrons traveling 15 miles to the “big city” of Waterloo to see their movies new, many in the Paramount (movie palace), business began to decline and the theatre started closing on selected weekdays. In the mid to late 50’s, the theatre was closed. It later was reopened on weekends and operated at various times by Terry Philpott and/or Mike Geater. (who installed it’s first Cinemascope screen). But by the early 60’s the handwriting was on the wall and the theatre was once again closed and returned to it’s roots as a (short-lived) grocery store. It is now a furniture store.

I thought it was named Mars after the planet, not Marvin. I should ask my mom (Shirley) and she would probably know (although she didn’t marry Marvin till 1951).

Paul Fosse (Son of Marvin Fosse)

Thanks Mike, TV certainly killed alot of small town Theatres and that is too bad when one sees what TV has become.