Star Theatre
203 N. Main Street,
Buffalo Center,
IA
50424
203 N. Main Street,
Buffalo Center,
IA
50424
No one has favorited this theater yet
Additional Info
Nearby Theaters
The 1915 map, the earliest for this town, shows a theatre operating in the northern half of a two story brick bank building which was constructed in 1896.
By 1923, this space was a drug store, and a new theatre, possibly the same operation, had appeared at the north end of this block.
This building was in rather rough shape, but was restored recently. Current use is unknown.
Note that the historical address appears to have been 302 5th Street.
Contributed by
Seth Gaines
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater.
Recent comments (view all 3 comments)
Tiny Buffalo Center had no fewer than four movie theaters listed in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory: the Dreamland Theatre, the Lyric Theatre, the Opera House, and the Star Theatre.
The Opera House building is still standing and now houses a museum. It operated as a movie house in the late 1920s, listed as the 700-seat Opera House in the 1926 FDY and as the 700-seat Community Theatre by 1929. The Community was listed as late as 1931, with an asterisk denoting it as a silent house, but in 1932 it is gone.
I’m not sure where this opera house would have been. 700 is enormous for a town that was just under 800 in 1920. The only auditorium anywhere near that large would have been in the high school. The museum is in a dumpy modern thing south of where the railroad used to be. If there was anything downtown, I would have a picture of it, but most of town is pretty nondescript, and almost everything is one story.
700 might have been a mistake by the FDYs. The 1908 Polk Iowa Gazetteer lists the Buffalo Center Opera House with 400 seats. I’ve been unable to re-find the web page that said the museum was in the old Opera House. I didn’t check for a date on it, so the source might have been obsolete.