Hildreth Theatre
409 N. Main Street,
Charles City,
IA
50616
409 N. Main Street,
Charles City,
IA
50616
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Additional Info
Previous Names: Hildreth Opera House
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The Hildreth Opera House was part of the Hildreth Hotel building, built in 1893. It was screening movies by 1916. It was destroyed by fire in February 1935.
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john story
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Recent comments (view all 3 comments)
Pretty poor listing with almost no information. The address was 409 N Main, and this huge complex is obviously much older than 1929. It was built in 1893 by Azro Benjamin Franklin (A.B.F.) Hildreth who was a successful entrepreneur and member of the Iowa State Board of Education and the Iowa General Assembly.
It consisted of the Hildreth Hotel and the Hildreth Opera House. It had its own electric light plant, located behind the theater. The capacity listed may be from a later cinema remodeling, but the 1905 Cahn guide gives it a capacity of 1,000. It’s not clear when it began showing films, but it was destroyed in a fire in February 1935. The Charles theater replaced it on the same site. I’ve added a Sanborn view to show the plan.
The Hildreth Opera House was showing movies at least as early as 1916. Several issue of Moving Picture World that year have items following the saga of the theater’s manager, William E. Waterhouse, who was repeatedly arrested for showing movies on Sunday, despite a recent city ordinance granting him permission to open the theater on Sunday afternoons. One item told how a judge fined the Sherriff, who was apparently under the influence of a group of local anti-movie preachers, $100 for creating a disturbance by making the arrests.
The Hildreth is listed in the FDY from 1928, but with no seating capacity given until 1931, when it is listed with 600. Competing house the Gem had 500 seats.
Need to update this with address, status, etc.