Ingersoll Theatre
3711 Ingersoll Avenue,
Des Moines,
IA
50312
3711 Ingersoll Avenue,
Des Moines,
IA
50312
1 person
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The 1940s-era Streamline Moderne Ingersoll Theatre was most recently home to a dinner theater which has since closed. Further information on the Ingersoll would be appreciated.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 8 comments)
This is a photo of the former Ingersoll Theater.
It’s good you shared that photo, Lost Memory. I haven’t lived in Des Moines for a long time, but I read somewhere there’s talk of the entire block being demolished.
Toward the end of it’s run as a cinema, the Ingersoll was an art house—some first-run films, some revivals. I saw a Bergman film or two there—can’t recall which. Also “Elvira Madigan” and Joseph Losey’s 1975 biopic of Galileo, based on the Bertolt Brecht play.
Here are some additional photos. The dinner theater closed in 2004, and although there has been interest in reuse, nothing has happened yet:
http://tinyurl.com/2vbjzo
http://tinyurl.com/2sy5pc
Tri-State Theaters announced construction plans in January 1938. The theater opening was planned for July of that year.
1983 photo of the Ingersoll Theatre.
View link
Here is another 1983 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/lle7jw
Here are some November 2009 articles about reuse of the Ingersoll:
http://tinyurl.com/y8m7tyo
http://tinyurl.com/ycb5327
I worked there in 1964 as a usher.
With the little suit, paper dickey, and flashlight.
Got to know every line of the longest day, a walt disney file tomensina(spelling), a full length yogy bear animation, how the west was won and probaly others I would rather forget.
They also had Cleopatra for a long run months before the glitzy hollywood premier. All reserved seating for that one.
With the attendance even then I think it is amazing it stayed open for so long.
But fun days never the less.