Lyric Theatre

The Lyric Theatre was a downtown Hartington fixture for around 70 years. It launched on December 17, 1908 but would move in just two weeks to a location across from the Opera House in the town’s former post office building on Broadway Avenue. The 400-seat venue was operated by F.A. Salmon. Eight operators later, steady leadership came from R.V. Fletcher who ran the Lyric Theatre for more than 25 years from November of 1923 to 1951.

Fletcher brought talkies to Hartington on May 10, 1929 commanding the front page as “Weary River” with Richard Barthelmess. Modifications through the years dropped the seat count to 265. Fletcher was followed by Leonard J. Leise. He operated the Lyric Theatre from 1951 to 1976. Leise brought “wide vision screen presentation” to the Lyric Theatre beginning on February 9, 1955 with “Garden of Evil” in CinemaScope. In 1959, the town also got its first drive-in, the Hi-Vue. The theatre appears to have gone out of business in 1976.

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