Odeon Theatre
13 S. 2nd Avenue,
Marshalltown,
IA
50158
13 S. 2nd Avenue,
Marshalltown,
IA
50158
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The September 17, 1892, issue of The New York Clipper had an announcement saying that the Odeon Theatre in Marshalltown, Iowa, had been leased for a term of years by its manager, Archie Cox. I haven’t yet been able to discover how long the house had been in operation at that time. The 1899-1900 Cahn guide lists the Odeon Theatre in Marshalltown as a ground floor house with 1,200 seats.
The Odeon is mentioned frequently in theatrical trade papers of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, and Marshalltown appears to have been a good theater town, hosting any number of road shows and concerts, with the Odeon the principal venue for them. This continued for decades, even after the house had turned to movies as its primary fare. It was one of the stops on the Denishawn Dance Company’s 1922-23 tour.
The Odeon was hosting live shows at least into the 1930s, and starting in 1932, the Odeon hosted plays by a newly established local company of actors, the Marshalltown Community Theatre.