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Iowa City Walking Tour
Item 11 of 14
The Englert Theater is an historic, vaudeville era theater built in 1912 in downtown Iowa City, Iowa. It was designed by Vorse, Kraitsch, & Kraitsch, and Wiley & Son in the Renaissance Revival style. It is now a community arts center operated by the non-profit art organization, Englert Civic Theater. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.

The theater today

The theater today

Interior of the theater at the reopening

Interior of the theater at the reopening

The theater as it looked in 1912

The theater as it looked in 1912
William Englert and his wife, Etta, built the theater in 1912. The theater contained over 1,000 seats and were films were shown in addition the vaudeville acts. William and his family lived on the second floor and the acts stayed on the third floor. William died of a brain hemorrhage in 1920. Etta hired A.H Blank and Nate Chapman to manage the theater. Nate passed away in 1925 but his wife Dora and her brother partnered with Blank to manage operations. A fire in 1926 almost destroyed the theater but the partners rebuilt it. It was modernized in the 1970s-1980s and sold in 1999 to a bar owner but the City of Iowa City later bought it so that funds could be raised for renovations, which were completed in 2004.  
http://www.englert.org/about/iowa-city-theatre-mission-history/ Nash, Jan O. "Englert Theater", National Register of Historic Places. 7-6-01 http://pdfhost.focus.nps.gov/docs/nrhp/text/01000911.PDF