Nearly ninety years on West 4th Street
In 1937 Harlan Anderson gave St. Ansgar a theatre the Enterprise called the newest and most modern in Northeast Iowa. He built much of it with his own hands. Since then the building has been a movie house, a bowling alley, a movie house again, and a bridal shop. Every chapter brought people downtown.
Opening night, August 4
St. Ansgar contractor August C. Janzow built the Roxy. Anderson and his helpers, Mr. McBride and Mr. Christensen, put in the projectors and the new synchrophonic sound system. Anderson built the entrance canopy, the red-and-blue neon signs, the marquee letters, the light fixtures, and even the doors himself. The week the doors opened, local businesses filled an entire page of the Enterprise with congratulations. The first bill reportedly paired Meet the Boy Friend with the Three Stooges in Dizzy Doctors.
Amelia Earhart had vanished over the Pacific just a month earlier, and the Golden Gate Bridge opened that May.
On the home front
The Roxy was on the federal schedule to show The New Spirit, the Treasury Department's wartime film urging Americans to pay their taxes, on February 6–7, 1942.
The country had been at war for two months, since Pearl Harbor.
A sister theatre under the stars
In July Anderson opened the Roxy Drive-In two miles northwest of town on Highway 105. It later became the Bel-Air Fly-In (see its story).
The Korean War armistice was signed that same month, on July 27.
Widescreen arrives
Anderson installed CinemaScope and opened the widescreen era with The Robe, starring Richard Burton and Jean Simmons.
That July, a young Elvis Presley cut his first record at Sun Studio in Memphis.
Lucky Lanes
Movies gave way to bowling. In November, twenty St. Ansgar men drove 300 miles to Grand Rapids, Minnesota, over a weekend. They hoisted five bowling alleys out through a basement window and trucked them home for Anderson's new Lucky Lanes, built inside the former Roxy. The goal was to be rolling by Thanksgiving.
The same front page announced that President Eisenhower had been re-elected in a landslide. Mitchell County voted for him 4,175 to 2,630.
New owners at the lanes
Anderson sold Lucky Lanes to Wilmer and Arnold Dieterich.
A year later, in February 1959, Buddy Holly, Ritchie Valens, and the Big Bopper played their final show at the Surf Ballroom in Clear Lake, just down the road.
Andy brings the movies back
Anderson closed the drive-in after the 1975 season. A year later, twenty years after closing the Roxy, he reopened the downtown theatre himself as the Cinema Capri on Thursday, October 7, 1976, doing most of the remodeling on his own again. The new theatre had a tropical theme "from sidewalk to screen," black-light lighting, three sound systems, and a screen styled after Cinerama. It seated 260 in wider seats with more legroom and had a rocker section for adults. An automated xenon projector replaced the old carbon arcs, and there was still a cry room for parents with little ones. Shows ran Thursday through Sunday, mostly G and PG films. The palm trees were still standing on the marquee.
It was the fall of America's Bicentennial year. The same front page announced Saints Homecoming, with two unbeaten football teams set to meet that Friday night.
The Bridal Theatre
Shortly after the last movie was shown, Ruth Libersky and Marilyn Edgington bought the building and moved their bridal business from Lyle, Minnesota. Evenson Bridal Theatre opened Monday, September 17, 1979, after an extensive remodel. It sold gowns for brides, bridesmaids, and mothers of the bride, along with invitations and accessories. It became the only bridal shop in Mitchell County. By its own account, it kept old seats, the marquee, and a ticket booth inside, and painted palm trees still framed the marquee out front.
Less than three weeks later, Pope John Paul II celebrated Mass for a huge crowd at Living History Farms near Des Moines.
Dressing generations
Anita Sponheim started at the shop part-time in 1980. In October 1992 she bought the business with Nancy Bell and later became sole owner. Over the next three decades the Bridal Theatre dressed brides, prom-goers, and military-ball couples from across the region and, thanks to the internet, customers as far away as India. Sponheim began seeing the daughters and sons of earlier brides come through the same front doors.
A new Roxy
New owners take the keys on October 15, 2026, with a plan to bring live music, dancing, and community events back to downtown St. Ansgar, built on the building's own history.
