Legion Theatre
329 N. Main Street,
Sioux Center,
IA
51250
329 N. Main Street,
Sioux Center,
IA
51250
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The Legion Theatre (named after the American Legion) was located in the city’s old town hall, opening its doors on March 28, 1947 with Edward G. Robinson in the 1945 film “Our Vines Have Tender Grapes”.
The theatre was owned by World War II veteran Herman Feldman of George, Iowa, who also operated two other theatres in the Sioux City Air National Guard Base in Sioux City. It would later being taken over by Gary Vande Berg.
On June 24, 1953, the theatre unexpectedly closed its doors just for the summer season only. Gary announced that it makes it difficult to operate in a smaller and much more colored community town. It’s not just that, but it’s just the way of saving expenses. Months later, the Sioux Center News reported that the theatre closed at that point is because the traffic fell below in the point of a breaking even.
The theatre would then give a second reopening shot with Walt Disney’s “Peter Pan”, including a Disney short cartoon, on October 1, 1953.
After almost 2 months, the theatre had failed miserably. The theatre ended up closing its doors for the final time on November 28, 1953 with Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour in “Road To Bali”.
The theatre had lost a lot of money and the local Legion post had reported that they could no longer foot the bills. Television took a huge blowout with the members of the American Legion who previously operated the Legion Theatre who took an early meeting on how to dispose of the equipment. Legionaries had claimed that television dealt the final blow after it had limped along in recent months in competition with other popular kinds of local sponsorship and community entertainment.
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50sSNIPES
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Recent comments (view all 4 comments)
When the Legionnaires began sponsoring movies in Sioux Center, then a town of less than 2000, it was not without controversy. In fact, the controversy was so intense (and by that late date so unusual) that Life Magazine featured an article about it in their issue of April 19, 1948.
One of the images in the Life article is a reproduction of part of an ad placed in the local newspaper by the anti-movie forces who had engineered a referendum on the issue, giving reasons why they believed citizens should cast their votes to reject movies. Signed by 450 local farmers, who lived outside city limits and thus were not eligible to vote, the ad said in part (I won’t reproduce their ALL CAPS shout:
The anti-movie forces prevailed in the election, 488 to 427, but a newly elected city council ignored the advisory result and voted to renew the American legion’s license to operate the movie theater in Town Hall. Those citizens of Sioux Center and vicinity who were inclined to such wickedness were thus able to enjoy movies locally for five more years before a force apparently more powerful than the group of ministers who led the fight against them, television, finally closed the theater.Sioux Center’s midcentury flirtation with evil does not seem to have harmed the town, which, unlike many similar small towns in the nation’s agricultural regions, has continued to grow and prosper. Today it has a population of over 7,000, and supports a five-screen tool of Satan… I mean multiplex… operated by Fridley Theatres.
Further digging has revealed that the 1948 vote was not the first time Sioux Center had rejected a movies, nor was the Legion Theater of that period the first movie house operated there by the town’s American Legionnaires. This item is from the July 2, 1938 issue of Boxoffice:
A bit garbled on the syntax, lots of switching tenses, etc. This has been demolished. The former municipal building, which is about as attractive as the rest of downtown (so not at all), was built in 1961, meaning this theater was demolished. Address approximately 329 N Main. The Legion now has their own building, which is a blah little box which could be from around 1970, or 1960, or… The 1917 map shows that city hall was a dinky little one story brick shack with a ‘public hall’ in the rear. I assume that’s where the theater operated.
The November 29, 1946 Film Daily said that the Legionnaires were planning to build a ne theater in Sioux Center, but I don’t know if they actually did or not. I don’t see it listed in the FDYs: “Sioux Center—The local American Legion is ready to begin work on a new auditorium that will house a theater, seating 650. Until same is completed this city will have its temporary theater in the city hall, under C. F. Van Steenwyk’s management.”