Iowa Theater
416 Main Street,
Keokuk,
IA
52632
416 Main Street,
Keokuk,
IA
52632
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Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 6 comments)
Here is a 1940s postcard view of Main Street, with the Iowa Theater visible on the left.
Some of the oral histories on keokuk.com state that the Iowa theater burned to the ground. I didn’t post the link here as you have to sift through a great deal of nostalgia to find the references to the Iowa.
From what I found on the Iowa it originally opened in 1913 as the Mark Angell’s Hippodrome and around 1915 became known simply as the Hippodrome. It was renamed the Regent Theatre around 1920 and then renamed the Iowa in 1938. At that time seating was listed at 1090 and was owned and operated by the Frisina Amusement Co. until 1975 at its closing.
A Barton theater organ was installed in the Regent Theater in 1927.
Auditorium pictured as the Regent in this 1937 trade article: Boxoffice
This house was still called the Hippodrome as late as 1922, when the June issue of Stone & Webster Journal said that the Baker-Dodge Theatre Company was remodeling its Hippodrome Theatre in Keokuk at a cost of $20,000. It might have been at the time of this remodeling that the house was renamed.