A Century at the Hardacre

A gift to Tipton

Jacob Hardacre lived in the Tipton area from 1841, a year after the town was platted, until 1892, when he moved to Missouri. He died on August 10, 1912, with no direct heirs besides nieces and nephews. His will left Tipton money for an opera house, something he believed the town very much needed.

Hardacre had belonged to the Odd Fellows' Manitou Lodge No. 8 since 1857, and he gave the lodge a hand in carrying out the gift. The will also provided for a lodge room in the building, provided the lodge paid the extra cost.

At the time Tipton was a market town of about 2,000 people. Its entertainment happened in borrowed spaces: a third-floor hall that doubled as armory and opera house, and two makeshift "picture theaters" on Cedar Street. The town had never had a purpose-built opera house.

The will was contested several times over the next three years. By the time it was settled, the original $65,000 bequest to Tipton had shrunk to $20,000, just enough to build.

Building the opera house

The Odd Fellows invited the public to dedicate "their beautiful new home in the Hardacre Memorial building," then threw open the auditorium doors. The Tipton Conservative described what visitors saw:

Curtain up

The first lease went to Ralph E. Kent, a local painter, and his mother-in-law, Mrs. Anna Bagley, doing business as the Tipton Amusement Co. In February 1916 Kent advertised for an opening act in the Opera House Reporter, a theater trade paper:

Opening night came on April 13, 1916, with Selwyn & Co.'s comedy Twin Beds. Every seat was filled.

The Tipton Advertiser praised the room itself: "every spoken word on the stage carried to the most distant seats."

From the start the house was meant for both road shows and "photoplays." In late summer 1916 Kent sold the lease to Oliver P. M. Littlejohn, a retired hotel keeper from Laurens, Iowa, who added more and more films. The first big feature, D. W. Griffith's The Birth of a Nation, played in December 1916. By 1918, as in most small-town Iowa opera houses, moving pictures had become the main attraction.

See the 1916 playbills →

Pictures every day

In March 1919 Calvin A. Lopeman, an experienced exhibitor from Belle Plaine, took over the lease and began showing Paramount pictures daily, at 11, 17 and 22 cents. Hazel Snyder, the daughter of Tipton's late mayor, served as manager, and Oliver Littlejohn, the former lessee's son, ran the projector.

The Hardacre was still the town's hall. The Tipton High School senior class put on its annual play there in May 1917 to a packed house, and on February 21, 1919, Tipton gathered there to remember two local men killed in action in France. By 1926 it was the only movie theater in town.

A pipe organ to accompany silent films arrived in 1927. In 1928 the theater closed for a week of redecoration, and the inner foyer that still stands was built between the lobby and the auditorium.

The DeNune years

In November 1928 Grover L. DeNune, a veteran exhibitor from DeWitt, bought the business. About a year later the Hardacre was wired for Vitaphone sound, and its first "talky" was The Broadway Melody.

By 1932 the proprietor was Beulah I. DeNune. Her own monthly programs called her "Prop. and Mgr.," and the 1933 city directory listed her as "proprietor Hardacre Theater." Trade journals, though, only ever named her former husband, a sign of how thoroughly men dominated film exhibition by then.

She ran the Hardacre through most of the Great Depression and kept investing in it:

• 1931 Moved Bargain Night from Wednesday to Thursday, so merchants and store clerks working late on Wednesdays could come.
• 1932 Staged a Fall Style Show with live models walking a runway built through the middle of the house.
• By 1936 Put up the theater's first neon marquee, in the Streamline Moderne style, and installed a "washed air" cooling system.
• 1937 Held a "Grand Opening" on August 8 to show off new Western Electric Mirrophonic sound.
• 1939 Installed new American Body Form chairs and leased a second theater, the new Toy Theatre around the corner.
• Every Christmas Eve A free show for the children of the community, with a gift for each child.

Each month she mailed a program schedule to households across Tipton and Cedar County. Don Stout remembered her as "colorful," usually in "a long black closely fitted gown, her fingers laden with rings."

A mid-century makeover

Some time before July 1947 Beulah DeNune sold the business to Iowa United Theatres, a Des Moines chain. In December 1948 the new owners ordered the neon marquee that still hangs over the sidewalk, from the Iowa Neon Sign Company of Des Moines, then brought in Dahlstrom & Weinberger of Minneapolis to modernize the interior: soft lighting, freehand painted ceilings, chrome-studded doors and a new proscenium arch.

Clarence Nayland managed the theater in the early 1950s. Francis Schilling took over in 1953. He had been "part of the Hardacre since he was a teen-ager," working as assistant projectionist and selling popcorn, and in 1970 he bought the business from Iowa United Theatres.

How the 1948 makeover shaped the building →

Changing hands

A stage extension built in 1972 brought live shows back. The Tipton Playhouse staged plays, a children's theater took over in summer, and from 1975 a partnership with the University of Iowa drama department brought student productions to Tipton through the 1980s.

In 1978, unable to keep up with winter gas bills of about $1,000 a month, the Odd Fellows sold the building to Louie E. and Virginia M. Cook. The lodge disbanded in 1988, and its hall was later split into apartments.

Shrinking audiences led Schilling to sell his lease in 1982 to Lee and Frances Kenney, who brought back live theater. They went bankrupt in 1986 and the theater closed, reopening a year later under Jeff and Julie Eisentraut.

In 1997 Troy Peters founded the Hardacre Film Festival, an August showcase of independent films from around the world. It ran for 16 years, until the theater closed in 2013.

What happened next →