Mabton Theatre

Joe Vogel on March 22, 2026 at 9:35 am

If you check Google’s street view of this theater you can see that the auditorium is in a Quonset structure attached to the back of what looks like an older commercial building. As for the sequence of events, the fire that destroyed the Liberty Theatre was reported in the August 21, 1948 issue of Boxoffice. The item said that the town would not be without movies for long though, as the new theater being built there by Vern Powell was expected to open within the next two months.

An item in the June 15, 1948 issue of Boxoffice reported that ground had been broken in Mabton for a new, 400-seat house that was expected to open on July 15. The owner’s name was mistakenly given as Dowell rather than Powell, and the July 15 opening date was hilariously overoptimistic, but the item does show that the new theater was planned quite some time before the August fire.

Incidentally, the Mabton Theatre, not the Liberty, is listed in the 1945 FDY, though it was listed as closed. Perhaps it was renamed Liberty after reopening. In 1945 it had 230 seats, as opposed to the 364 listed for the Mabton Theatre in the 1951 year book.