Firemens Theatre
22 N. Locust Avenue,
New Hampton,
IA
50659
22 N. Locust Avenue,
New Hampton,
IA
50659
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A small theatre that had a couple of columns that were hard to see around. A victim of fire.
Contributed by
scrimger
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Recent comments (view all 10 comments)
A small photo of this theater can be found towards the bottom of this website.
Here is another vintage photo of the Firemens Theater. Its supposed to be a pre 1919 photo.
Opening date was 1917, according to the New Hampton Tribune.
The pre 1919 photo is probably about right…I remember it had a neon sign marquee…isn’t it strange the name and then to be burned to the ground…
This is another photo of the Firemens Theater. It looks similar to the photo I linked to on Apr 30, 2007. This photo has awnings over the stores and the street lights are different. I don’t know which photo is older.
The Firemens Theatre was purchased by Peterson Theatres of Waverly Iowa in 1974 from Ray Klenski and Ray Huffman. For a small town theatre it was huge in size. In its early days it was used as a vaudeville theatre complete with an orchestra pit and dressing rooms under the stage. If you look at Lost Memories photo of the theatre you will notice that there was a scene drop at the rear of the building that was used in the vaudeville days. It also had cat walks for the stage hands. The Firemens was closed in the mid 80’s and sold to a local investor who completely renovated it to become a live performance theatre once again. One live performer was Jerry Reed. The Firemens was a victim of arson in the late 1980’s of which nobody was ever convicted.
The address for this theatre was listed at 22 North Locust Avenue. That is the address according to the Iowa Historical Society.
1984 photo of the Firemans Theatre.
View link
How Ironic!
Wonder if “TOWERING INFERNO” played there?