An item in the April 3, 1909 issue of Moving Picture World might have been about this house, but unfortunately gives no name for it. “Sac City, Ia.-Harry Arney has purchased a moving picture theater here, and has taken possession.” The only other mention of Harry Arney I’ve found is from 1900 and notes that his business was then real estate and insurance.
The 800-seat Casino was the only theater listed at Sac City in the 1926 FDY, but it was probably the proposed theater noted in this item from the September 11, 1920 issue of Moving Picture World: “SAC CITY, lA.—Walford W. Watt will erect new theatre on North Fifth street, with seating capacity of 1,000.” This was probably the house the opening of which was noted in the March 5, 1921 issue of The Billboard, though that item didn’t give the house a name, saying only that it had cost $50,000.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists only two movie houses at Sac City, those being the Lyric Theatre on Main Street and the Opera House. There might have been an earlier Casino Theatre at Sac City, but if so I’ve been unable to find any mentions of it in the trade journals. I wonder if Casino might have been a briefly used aka for the Opera House?
The history section of the Lake City Capri Theatre’s web site says that the Iowa Theatre had been on the same site the Capri was later built on, so the address should be 115 N. Center Street. The fire that destroyed the house took place on New Year’s Day, 1958. The Iowa was last operated by Fridley Theatres.
Incidentally, the Iowa was part of a theater chain owned by Robert Fridley’s uncle Robert Bernau when Fridley leased the house and operated it on his own starting in 1950. It was while running the Iowa that Fridley met his future wife of 67 years, Myrna. Owner of perhaps the most successful regional, independent theater chain in the country, Bob Fridley died in February, 2021, at the age of 103. Read his obituary here.
Some issues of Boxoffice from 1971 call Dwight Hanson’s drive-in at Rockwell City the Golden Buckle Drive-In. Rockwell City has long touted itself with the appellation “The Golden Buckle on the Corn Belt.” The town still has a few businesses using the name, though the drive-in is long gone. I’ve been unable to discover just how long this aka was used, but it was definitely in use in 1971.
I haven’t been able to find any Sanborns of Rockwell City on the Iowa State web site other than the one from 1915. I did, however, come across this item from Motion Picture Herald, April 12, 1952: “R. M. Bernau and R. L. Fridley, both of Lake City, have purchased the Empress theatre at Rockwell City from R. M. Phillips and Oky Goodman. Bernau and Fridley, who also own the Iowa in Lake City and the King at Ida Grove, say the Empress will be closed sometime during the summer for a complete overhauling.”
The Empress was mentioned in the trade journals a few times in the 1950s, and there was still an indoor theater in Rockwell City, probably the Empress, in 1963, when the July 15 issue of Boxoffice said that “…Mr. and Mrs. Dwight Hanson, who have the conventional theatre and drive-in at Rockwell City, Iowa, visited in Des Moines last week…” I’m not sure when the Empress closed, but by 1971, on the occasions of Mr. Hanson’s visits to film row, Boxoffice identified him only as the operator of the Golden Buckle Drive-In.
Whether this house was the Magic Theatre, which was being “greatly improved” according to the January, 1912 issue of Motography, or the Electric Theater, which was mentioned in the June, 1912 issue of the same publication, or some other house with an unknown name, it was closed by 1916. The April 15 issue of Moving Picture World that year said: “Rockwell City, Ia.-Manager Meholin will have no competition for his handsome new Empress theater. He bought the Magic theater and closed it.”
The Magic Theatre was listed with 200 seats in the 1912 edition of Polk’s Iowa State business directory, and was the only house listed for Rockwell City. I suppose someone might have squeezed 200 seats in to this small building, but the theater on 4th Street would have accommodated them more comfortably. If the great improvements being planned for the Magic in January 1912 included any even modest increase in capacity, that would surely have put this location right out of the running.
Here is an item from the January 1912 issue of Motography: “The Magic Moving Picture Theater at Rockwell City will be greatly improved.”
Rockwell City is mentioned again in the June, 1912 issue of the same journal: “The Electric Theater at Rockwell City has been purchased by F. G. Winston, who will make improvements.”
I’ve been unable to determine if Electric Theater was an aka for the Magic Theater or was a rival house. The Magic Theatre was the only house listed at Rockwell City in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but listings in the directory were sometimes incomplete, so the Electric might still have been in operation then.
Judging from this item in the March 4, 1916 Motion Picture News, the Empress was probably not the former Opera House: “G. L. Meholin has opened the Empress, Rockwell City, a brand new house built in an unusual manner. It has no lobby, the entrance being a mere vestibule. It is a modern little house, with fine projection and interior finishing.”
The first announcement about Mr. Meholin’s plans I’ve found is from the October 16, 1915 Moving Picture World, which said: “ROCKWELL CITY, IA.-G. L. Meholin is having plans prepared for a one-story moving picture theater, 22 by 110 feet, to cost $5,000.” An October 30 item in the same journal upped the projected cost of Mr. Meholin’s theater to $10,000.
Given that delays in publication were common in trade journals of the era, the project might have gotten underway prior to October, 1915 and the Empress might have opened earlier than March, 1916, and perhaps even by late 1915.
The June 20, 1918 issue of The Princeton Union carried an advertisement giving the upcoming schedule for the “Strand Theater (Formerly Crystal)….” The earliest appearance of the name Crystal Theater I’ve seen in the paper is in 1915. Prior to that the only theater name to appear was Happyland.
The theater marquee was still on the Strand building in the mid-1980s, when the Union published a photo of it with a caption noting that it still looked much the same as it had the previous year when a St. Paul architect had announced that he would remodel the interior for a mixed use project. Comments on the local Facebook page also say that for a time the building housed a nightclub called Porky’s, but it isn’t pinned down to a specific era.
Princeton might have had more than one house called the Strand. The “New Theatres” column of Film Daily for May 6, 1927 said (with dateline Princeton, Minn.) “M. C. Kruschke has opened the Strand, seating 500.” But M. C. Krushke’s Strand at Princeton had also been mentioned in the December 8, 1923 Universal Weekly. FDYs list the Strand with 350 seats from 1926 through 1929.
Information is very sketchy, but some local sources say that the Strand building was converted into apartments, not demolished. A Strand Building is listed on a real estate web site at 121 S. Rum River Drive (formerly called 5th Avenue), and is a good match for a ca.1984 photo of a closed Strand Theatre which was posted to Pinterest, with no additional information, from a link that is no longer active. The real estate web site says the Strand Building dates from 1914, so it could be that the Strand started out as the Happyland Theater, the only movie house listed at Princeton in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
CinemaTour gives the Strand an address of 128 5th Avenue N., which I think must have been the address of a later Strand. That address is in a modern strip mall, and in a comment on a Princeton nostalgia Facebook page one member says “I go to church in the old strand theatre in the mall next to pizza barn every Friday night, I look around & try to remember what it looked like, I last remember taking my oldest there in 1998 when she was 6 months.” The Pizza Barn is listed on the Internet at 128 N. Rum River Dr., so I’m thinking the 1980s era replacement for the Strand probably occupied both the church space and the Pizza Barn space. The Facebook commenter is likely too young to remember the original Strand.
That’s all a bit confusing, but I’m sure that 121 Rum River Dr. S. is the correct modern address of the original Strand Theatre, which might have opened in 1914, possibly as the Happyland Theatre, and might have been expanded in 1927. The building still has the old stage structure, which might have been original from 1914 or might have been added in a remodeling. Unfortunately the newest Sanborn map of Princeton available online dates from 1912.
When the address is corrected per Ron Pierce’s information above, we can also add the opening year 1927, when the “New Theatres” column of the May 6 Film Daily said that “A. Molins will open the El Cajon on May 18.”
The July 13, 1907 issue of The Billboard noted that Fresno’s Barton Opera House was then being operated as part of the Klaw & Erlanger circuit of playhouses.
No longer operated by Reading Cinemas, Sacramento’s venerable Tower Theatre is now called the Tower Theatre by Angelika, and is operated by the Angelika Film Center. Here is the current web site.
The Delight Theatre was the only house listed at McGregor in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The house was also listed twice (under the Theatres heading and under the Moving Pictures heading) in the 1912 edition of Polk’s Iowa State Gazetteer and Business Directory, as the Theatre Delight.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory listed a house called the Liberty as the only movie theater in Prairie du Chien. It was located on Bluff Street, which was the former name of Blackhawk Avenue. The January 6, 1917 issue of Motography ran this item:
“Early in December the Regent Theater at Prairie Du Chien was opened to the public as a picture and vaudeville theater. The playhouse was formerly known as the Liberty, but the new manager, Mr. Harris, renamed it. The theater has been redecorated and other improvements.”
I’ve been unable to discover exactly when the Liberty opened, but it was mentioned in the August 31, 1912 issue of Moving Picture World. The Regent Theatre was on a list of independent vaudeville theaters published in the February 23, 1918 issue of The Billboard. It was also mentioned in the January 25, 1919 issue of Film Daily: “Prairie du Chien, Wis.— George Gassen has bought the Regent. Gassen formerly owned Fox, Black River Falls.”
The Regent was also the only Prairie du Chien theater featured on the “Important First Run Houses” list in Wid’s Year Book for 1921.
The grand opening ad posted by rivest266 reveals that the plans for the 1973 remodeling of the Palace Theatre into the Town Cinemas were drawn by architect Grant R(ussell) Sauder.
According to this web page from the St. Catharine’s Museum, the Griffin Theatre opened on May 6, 1915, with the first Canadian showing of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Tramp.” The appellation Opera House for this theater appears to be a modern invention. Early ads from the WWI era call it Griffin’s Theatre or the Griffin Theatre, and it operated as a combination vaudeville and movie theater from the beginning.
This was the second theater opened at St. Catharines by the Griffin Amusement Company. The first, Griffin’s Family Theatre, was a nickelodeon opened in 1908, and was John Griffin’s first venture outside Toronto. Both it and the new Griffin Theatre begun in 1913 and opened in 1915 were designed by local architect Thomas Husted Wiley. The Griffin Amusement Company (not related to the later chain of the same name in Texas) at its peak operated at least 34 theaters.
Here is a missing aka for this house, noted in the April 6, 1929 issue of Motion Picture News: “H. E. MOORE and B. E. Darby bought the Ariana, Auburndale, Fla., and re-opened it under the name of the Park. To inaugurate opening they gave free show Friday night.” The theater returned to the name Ariana at some point, as that was the only theater name listed at Auburndale in the 1933 FDY. The house was listed as closed that year though.
And then the name Park Theater returned to Auburndale, but I haven’t been able to determine if it was in the same building. An article about the opening of the new Auburn Theatre in the December 11, 1948 issue of Boxoffice mentions “[t]he Park, opened by Maurice E. Hensler 14 years ago….” The old house would remain open, but only four days a week, the item said.
The Cinemette chain, which also operated the Court and Coronet Theatres in downtown Wheeling, received permission to remodel a former trading stamp redemption center in the Warwood Shopping Center for use as a movie theater on March 25, 1976, according to the May 3 issue of Boxoffice. The 600-seat, twin-screen project was expected to be completed within three months, an estimate that turned out to be overly optimistic.
The Gresham Theatre made its first appearance in the FDY in the 1927 edition. Gresham was not listed in the 1926 FDY, so it’s likely that the house opened that year, after the FDY was compiled. The photos of the theater clearly show a style characteristic of the mid to late 1930s, so it must have been either remodeled or moved to a new building during that era. The obituary of Rose Moyer in the May 3, 1976 issue of Boxoffice said that she and her husband Larry opened the Gresham in 1938, so they might have been responsible for any remodeling or rebuilding that took place then.
News from the March 1, 1913 issue of Motography: “W. F. Smith, formerly located in De Soto as a furniture dealer, opened the Colonial moving picture and vaudeville house at Clarion, Iowa, which is apparently a credit to its proprietors' enterprise and thrift. Mr. Smith’s new theater is of colonial design, furnished throughout in mission furniture. It will be used for occasional vaudeville attractions and for continuous picture shows.”
An item datelined Algona in Moving Picture World of December 30, 1911 said that “C. M. Stevens and Roscoe Call will open a moving picture theater in the Call Opera House in a few days.” An item in the December 23 issue of the same journal had noted that “M. Stevens” was planning to build a movie theater at Algona. This was probably the same Stevens, but I’ve been unable to discover if his venture with Mr. Call was in lieu of or in addition to his new theater project.
In any case, the conversion of the opera house in 1912 was undoubtedly temporary. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists only the Broadway and Magic theaters at Algona. It was not until September 23, 1916 that MPW announced that the recently remodeled Call Opera House had reopened as a movie theater and would continue to operate as such except when theatrical attractions were available.
The Cahn Guide was listing this as the Iowa Theatre by 1906, so probably its opening name. Although Emmetsburg does not appear in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the Iowa Theatre was being mentioned in Moving Picture World at least as early as mid-1917.
An item in the April 3, 1909 issue of Moving Picture World might have been about this house, but unfortunately gives no name for it. “Sac City, Ia.-Harry Arney has purchased a moving picture theater here, and has taken possession.” The only other mention of Harry Arney I’ve found is from 1900 and notes that his business was then real estate and insurance.
The 800-seat Casino was the only theater listed at Sac City in the 1926 FDY, but it was probably the proposed theater noted in this item from the September 11, 1920 issue of Moving Picture World: “SAC CITY, lA.—Walford W. Watt will erect new theatre on North Fifth street, with seating capacity of 1,000.” This was probably the house the opening of which was noted in the March 5, 1921 issue of The Billboard, though that item didn’t give the house a name, saying only that it had cost $50,000.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists only two movie houses at Sac City, those being the Lyric Theatre on Main Street and the Opera House. There might have been an earlier Casino Theatre at Sac City, but if so I’ve been unable to find any mentions of it in the trade journals. I wonder if Casino might have been a briefly used aka for the Opera House?
The history section of the Lake City Capri Theatre’s web site says that the Iowa Theatre had been on the same site the Capri was later built on, so the address should be 115 N. Center Street. The fire that destroyed the house took place on New Year’s Day, 1958. The Iowa was last operated by Fridley Theatres.
Incidentally, the Iowa was part of a theater chain owned by Robert Fridley’s uncle Robert Bernau when Fridley leased the house and operated it on his own starting in 1950. It was while running the Iowa that Fridley met his future wife of 67 years, Myrna. Owner of perhaps the most successful regional, independent theater chain in the country, Bob Fridley died in February, 2021, at the age of 103. Read his obituary here.
Some issues of Boxoffice from 1971 call Dwight Hanson’s drive-in at Rockwell City the Golden Buckle Drive-In. Rockwell City has long touted itself with the appellation “The Golden Buckle on the Corn Belt.” The town still has a few businesses using the name, though the drive-in is long gone. I’ve been unable to discover just how long this aka was used, but it was definitely in use in 1971.
I haven’t been able to find any Sanborns of Rockwell City on the Iowa State web site other than the one from 1915. I did, however, come across this item from Motion Picture Herald, April 12, 1952: “R. M. Bernau and R. L. Fridley, both of Lake City, have purchased the Empress theatre at Rockwell City from R. M. Phillips and Oky Goodman. Bernau and Fridley, who also own the Iowa in Lake City and the King at Ida Grove, say the Empress will be closed sometime during the summer for a complete overhauling.”
The Empress was mentioned in the trade journals a few times in the 1950s, and there was still an indoor theater in Rockwell City, probably the Empress, in 1963, when the July 15 issue of Boxoffice said that “…Mr. and Mrs. Dwight Hanson, who have the conventional theatre and drive-in at Rockwell City, Iowa, visited in Des Moines last week…” I’m not sure when the Empress closed, but by 1971, on the occasions of Mr. Hanson’s visits to film row, Boxoffice identified him only as the operator of the Golden Buckle Drive-In.
200 seats would be an awfully tight squeeze for the building on Main Street.
Whether this house was the Magic Theatre, which was being “greatly improved” according to the January, 1912 issue of Motography, or the Electric Theater, which was mentioned in the June, 1912 issue of the same publication, or some other house with an unknown name, it was closed by 1916. The April 15 issue of Moving Picture World that year said: “Rockwell City, Ia.-Manager Meholin will have no competition for his handsome new Empress theater. He bought the Magic theater and closed it.”
The Magic Theatre was listed with 200 seats in the 1912 edition of Polk’s Iowa State business directory, and was the only house listed for Rockwell City. I suppose someone might have squeezed 200 seats in to this small building, but the theater on 4th Street would have accommodated them more comfortably. If the great improvements being planned for the Magic in January 1912 included any even modest increase in capacity, that would surely have put this location right out of the running.
Also, the Magic Theatre was the only house listed at Rockwell City in the 1912 Polk Iowa State directory, where it was listed with 200 seats.
Here is an item from the January 1912 issue of Motography: “The Magic Moving Picture Theater at Rockwell City will be greatly improved.”
Rockwell City is mentioned again in the June, 1912 issue of the same journal: “The Electric Theater at Rockwell City has been purchased by F. G. Winston, who will make improvements.”
I’ve been unable to determine if Electric Theater was an aka for the Magic Theater or was a rival house. The Magic Theatre was the only house listed at Rockwell City in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, but listings in the directory were sometimes incomplete, so the Electric might still have been in operation then.
Judging from this item in the March 4, 1916 Motion Picture News, the Empress was probably not the former Opera House: “G. L. Meholin has opened the Empress, Rockwell City, a brand new house built in an unusual manner. It has no lobby, the entrance being a mere vestibule. It is a modern little house, with fine projection and interior finishing.”
The first announcement about Mr. Meholin’s plans I’ve found is from the October 16, 1915 Moving Picture World, which said: “ROCKWELL CITY, IA.-G. L. Meholin is having plans prepared for a one-story moving picture theater, 22 by 110 feet, to cost $5,000.” An October 30 item in the same journal upped the projected cost of Mr. Meholin’s theater to $10,000.
Given that delays in publication were common in trade journals of the era, the project might have gotten underway prior to October, 1915 and the Empress might have opened earlier than March, 1916, and perhaps even by late 1915.
The June 20, 1918 issue of The Princeton Union carried an advertisement giving the upcoming schedule for the “Strand Theater (Formerly Crystal)….” The earliest appearance of the name Crystal Theater I’ve seen in the paper is in 1915. Prior to that the only theater name to appear was Happyland.
The theater marquee was still on the Strand building in the mid-1980s, when the Union published a photo of it with a caption noting that it still looked much the same as it had the previous year when a St. Paul architect had announced that he would remodel the interior for a mixed use project. Comments on the local Facebook page also say that for a time the building housed a nightclub called Porky’s, but it isn’t pinned down to a specific era.
Princeton might have had more than one house called the Strand. The “New Theatres” column of Film Daily for May 6, 1927 said (with dateline Princeton, Minn.) “M. C. Kruschke has opened the Strand, seating 500.” But M. C. Krushke’s Strand at Princeton had also been mentioned in the December 8, 1923 Universal Weekly. FDYs list the Strand with 350 seats from 1926 through 1929.
Information is very sketchy, but some local sources say that the Strand building was converted into apartments, not demolished. A Strand Building is listed on a real estate web site at 121 S. Rum River Drive (formerly called 5th Avenue), and is a good match for a ca.1984 photo of a closed Strand Theatre which was posted to Pinterest, with no additional information, from a link that is no longer active. The real estate web site says the Strand Building dates from 1914, so it could be that the Strand started out as the Happyland Theater, the only movie house listed at Princeton in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory.
CinemaTour gives the Strand an address of 128 5th Avenue N., which I think must have been the address of a later Strand. That address is in a modern strip mall, and in a comment on a Princeton nostalgia Facebook page one member says “I go to church in the old strand theatre in the mall next to pizza barn every Friday night, I look around & try to remember what it looked like, I last remember taking my oldest there in 1998 when she was 6 months.” The Pizza Barn is listed on the Internet at 128 N. Rum River Dr., so I’m thinking the 1980s era replacement for the Strand probably occupied both the church space and the Pizza Barn space. The Facebook commenter is likely too young to remember the original Strand.
That’s all a bit confusing, but I’m sure that 121 Rum River Dr. S. is the correct modern address of the original Strand Theatre, which might have opened in 1914, possibly as the Happyland Theatre, and might have been expanded in 1927. The building still has the old stage structure, which might have been original from 1914 or might have been added in a remodeling. Unfortunately the newest Sanborn map of Princeton available online dates from 1912.
When the address is corrected per Ron Pierce’s information above, we can also add the opening year 1927, when the “New Theatres” column of the May 6 Film Daily said that “A. Molins will open the El Cajon on May 18.”
The July 13, 1907 issue of The Billboard noted that Fresno’s Barton Opera House was then being operated as part of the Klaw & Erlanger circuit of playhouses.
No longer operated by Reading Cinemas, Sacramento’s venerable Tower Theatre is now called the Tower Theatre by Angelika, and is operated by the Angelika Film Center. Here is the current web site.
The Delight Theatre was the only house listed at McGregor in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. The house was also listed twice (under the Theatres heading and under the Moving Pictures heading) in the 1912 edition of Polk’s Iowa State Gazetteer and Business Directory, as the Theatre Delight.
The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory listed a house called the Liberty as the only movie theater in Prairie du Chien. It was located on Bluff Street, which was the former name of Blackhawk Avenue. The January 6, 1917 issue of Motography ran this item:
I’ve been unable to discover exactly when the Liberty opened, but it was mentioned in the August 31, 1912 issue of Moving Picture World. The Regent Theatre was on a list of independent vaudeville theaters published in the February 23, 1918 issue of The Billboard. It was also mentioned in the January 25, 1919 issue of Film Daily: “Prairie du Chien, Wis.— George Gassen has bought the Regent. Gassen formerly owned Fox, Black River Falls.”The Regent was also the only Prairie du Chien theater featured on the “Important First Run Houses” list in Wid’s Year Book for 1921.
The grand opening ad posted by rivest266 reveals that the plans for the 1973 remodeling of the Palace Theatre into the Town Cinemas were drawn by architect Grant R(ussell) Sauder.
According to this web page from the St. Catharine’s Museum, the Griffin Theatre opened on May 6, 1915, with the first Canadian showing of Charlie Chaplin’s “The Tramp.” The appellation Opera House for this theater appears to be a modern invention. Early ads from the WWI era call it Griffin’s Theatre or the Griffin Theatre, and it operated as a combination vaudeville and movie theater from the beginning.
This was the second theater opened at St. Catharines by the Griffin Amusement Company. The first, Griffin’s Family Theatre, was a nickelodeon opened in 1908, and was John Griffin’s first venture outside Toronto. Both it and the new Griffin Theatre begun in 1913 and opened in 1915 were designed by local architect Thomas Husted Wiley. The Griffin Amusement Company (not related to the later chain of the same name in Texas) at its peak operated at least 34 theaters.
Here is a missing aka for this house, noted in the April 6, 1929 issue of Motion Picture News: “H. E. MOORE and B. E. Darby bought the Ariana, Auburndale, Fla., and re-opened it under the name of the Park. To inaugurate opening they gave free show Friday night.” The theater returned to the name Ariana at some point, as that was the only theater name listed at Auburndale in the 1933 FDY. The house was listed as closed that year though.
And then the name Park Theater returned to Auburndale, but I haven’t been able to determine if it was in the same building. An article about the opening of the new Auburn Theatre in the December 11, 1948 issue of Boxoffice mentions “[t]he Park, opened by Maurice E. Hensler 14 years ago….” The old house would remain open, but only four days a week, the item said.
The Cinemette chain, which also operated the Court and Coronet Theatres in downtown Wheeling, received permission to remodel a former trading stamp redemption center in the Warwood Shopping Center for use as a movie theater on March 25, 1976, according to the May 3 issue of Boxoffice. The 600-seat, twin-screen project was expected to be completed within three months, an estimate that turned out to be overly optimistic.
The Gresham Theatre made its first appearance in the FDY in the 1927 edition. Gresham was not listed in the 1926 FDY, so it’s likely that the house opened that year, after the FDY was compiled. The photos of the theater clearly show a style characteristic of the mid to late 1930s, so it must have been either remodeled or moved to a new building during that era. The obituary of Rose Moyer in the May 3, 1976 issue of Boxoffice said that she and her husband Larry opened the Gresham in 1938, so they might have been responsible for any remodeling or rebuilding that took place then.
News from the March 1, 1913 issue of Motography: “W. F. Smith, formerly located in De Soto as a furniture dealer, opened the Colonial moving picture and vaudeville house at Clarion, Iowa, which is apparently a credit to its proprietors' enterprise and thrift. Mr. Smith’s new theater is of colonial design, furnished throughout in mission furniture. It will be used for occasional vaudeville attractions and for continuous picture shows.”
An item datelined Algona in Moving Picture World of December 30, 1911 said that “C. M. Stevens and Roscoe Call will open a moving picture theater in the Call Opera House in a few days.” An item in the December 23 issue of the same journal had noted that “M. Stevens” was planning to build a movie theater at Algona. This was probably the same Stevens, but I’ve been unable to discover if his venture with Mr. Call was in lieu of or in addition to his new theater project.
In any case, the conversion of the opera house in 1912 was undoubtedly temporary. The 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists only the Broadway and Magic theaters at Algona. It was not until September 23, 1916 that MPW announced that the recently remodeled Call Opera House had reopened as a movie theater and would continue to operate as such except when theatrical attractions were available.
The Cahn Guide was listing this as the Iowa Theatre by 1906, so probably its opening name. Although Emmetsburg does not appear in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory, the Iowa Theatre was being mentioned in Moving Picture World at least as early as mid-1917.