Uptown Theater
3rd Street,
Muscatine,
IA
52761
3rd Street,
Muscatine,
IA
52761
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The Uptown Theater dates back to at least 1933. Still operating in 1965.
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Lost Memory
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The year given for this photo is 1933.
Click on the blue links below this shot and you’ll find a whole bunch more of this house (and others in the area). The stage in this place got used a lot. Nice shots.
A biographical sketch of the original owner of the Uptown, Ludy Bosten, appeared in the April 9, 1962, issue of Boxoffice Magazine, on the occasion of his fiftieth anniversary in the theater business.
The Uptown opened in 1929, and was located in a former National Guard armory. An 11-inch concrete floor had to be ripped out in order to convert the building into a theater.
Bosten opened his first theater in Muscatine, a nickelodeon called the Princess, in 1912. Later, the Princess was known as the Gayety. A few years later he opened the A-Muse-U Theatre, and at one time operated the Family Theatre in partnership with Carl Laemmle Jr., who would later found Universal Pictures.
Other Muscatine theaters operated by Bosten included the Grand and the Palace, which had closed two years before the article was published. In 1962, he was still operating the Uptown Theatre and the Hilltop Drive-In in Muscatine, and the Wapello Theatre in Wapello, Iowa.
The Uptown Theatre was domolished in the mid to late 80,s to make room for the new city parking lot across from city hall.