Lyric Theatre
113 W. J Street,
Forest City,
IA
50436
113 W. J Street,
Forest City,
IA
50436
No one has favorited this theater yet
This theatre appears on the 1913 Sanborn, in the western half of a two-story brick commercial building that appears to date to around 1890. For some reason, the first map of Forest City wasn’t made until 1901, and I suspect this building had already been there for some time. Long used as a general store, at some point after 1907 the store vacated the western half for the theatre.
The theatre remained in operation on the 1916 map. The 1931 map is not available online, but the theatre closed many years ago. The building is fairly well-kept, and this half is a Verizon store.
Contributed by
Seth Gaines
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater.
Recent comments (view all 6 comments)
Despite the sun shining right on the front, I was too dumb to get a picture of this during my 2009 visit.
I’m pretty sure that this could be the Gem Theatre (formerly Scenic Theatre).
The Scenic Theatre opened its doors during the week of December 10, 1908 and was renamed Gem Theatre in September 1909. The theater closed in early-1913 and was razed during the first week of May of that same year to make way for the Thompson & Clauson company.
There is also an older opera house simply called “Opera House” that closed down before the opening of the New Opera House (later Forest Theatre) in September 1914, although I cannot find any info rather than its plans dating back to November 1905.
This can’t be the Gem, since it was still open in 1916, and hasn’t been torn down. The opera house was a wooden thing that was right about where the chiropractor is now. It was gone sometime after 1913, but before 1916.
Wherever the Scenic/Gem was, it fell in the gap between the 1907 map and the 1913 map, which is from November. I might be able to locate it by seeing what’s missing between those two.
The only candidate I see is 133-141 N Clark, where three wooden storefronts were replaced by the brick storefronts that are still there. The central storefront, which is labeled ‘Shoes & Dry Goods’ on the 1907 map, was the largest and deepest of those, and could have held a small early theater. If anyone can confirm, we can list it.
So this is the Lyric I see. The Lyric operated from 1911 until 1917.
It was once closed for a short time during 1914 due to the opening of the New Opera House, which both the Lyric and the New Opera House were operated by P.E. Wilcox, but reopened right when 1915 kicked in. On the same day the New Opera House opened in September 1914, the building itself was not even finished yet at the time of its first attraction.