Dodge Theatre
1018 Central Avenue,
Fort Dodge,
IA
50501
1018 Central Avenue,
Fort Dodge,
IA
50501
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Additional Info
Previously operated by: Central States Theatres Corp
Functions: Retail
Previous Names: Majestic Theatre, Polkadot Theatre
Nearby Theaters
The Majestic Theatre opened by December 1912, with seating listed at 436. It was equipped with a Robert-Morton 2 manual organ. It was still the Majestic Theatre in 1926 with 420-seats. By 1931 it had been renamed Polkadot Theatre, still with 420-seats. By 1940 it had been renamed Dodge Theatre with 408-seats. It was operated by Central States Theatres Corp. from the mid-1960’s until it closed in the mid-1970’s.
Contributed by
Chuck
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Recent comments (view all 6 comments)
Here is an October 1949 ad from the Fort Dodge Messenger:
http://tinyurl.com/m5yccu
Bad dates on this one. The building was constructed between 1907 and 1912, and had a theater on the west side of the ground floor from the very beginning. It’s a three-story apartment building, quite deep. Attractive and in decent shape, but I didn’t take a picture for some reason. Current occupant of the theater space is a comic book store.
The NRHP listing for this calls it the Carter Building/Majestic Theatre. Says it was built in 1913, but it appears on the Dec. 1912 Sanborn.
The November, 1925 issue of a magazine called The Community Builder, published by the Fort Dodge Chamber of Commerce, said that on May 31 that year the Majestic had been purchased by the A. H. Blank Company of Des Moines. The same company bought Fort Dodge’s Rialto Theatre on October 15.
Turns out I do have a picture of a ghost ad for the theater.
Added the ghost. Can’t read all of it, and there was something else to the right that had been painted over.