Rex Theatre

414 1st Street,
Glenwood, IA 51534

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Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on October 22, 2024 at 8:36 pm

An item in the May 31, 1913 issue of The Billboard says that “W. A. Coates & Son, Whiting, Iowa, will open a moving picture theater In Everham Block, Glenwood, Iowa.” I haven’t been able to track down an Everham Block in Glenwood, so I don’t know if it could be this theater or not. What is certain is that the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory lists two theaters at Glenwood: the Motiograph Theatre and the Glenwood Opera House. The latter must be a missing aka for the Rex, and the former could be the Coates’s house.

But there is an ad from the Mills County Tribune of October 28, 1915 promoting a special feature at the Rex Theatre in Glenwood, and sporting a line at the bottom reading “Regular program at the Scenic…..5c and 10c.”

The 1905 Polk guide to Iowa lists the Glenwood Opera House, and the theater is still listed that way in the 1914-1915 Gus Hill Guide, but it is listed as the Rex Theatre in the Cahn Guide at least as early as the 1912-1913 edition.

mcginniswm
mcginniswm on February 13, 2009 at 11:44 pm

It was called the Royal Theatre during the 1990’s . It had been bought by a theater circut that did not have a sensitivity to the historic name . After the McGinnis familiy purchased it they changed the name back to The Rex Theatre .