Essay | Lanesboro’s State Theatre, From Silent Films to Center Stage

LANESBORO—When I was a kid in Lanesboro in the 1950s, we would go see movies at the State Theatre, now called the St. Mane Theatre — and before those two names, it was called the Elite Theatre.

Family rumor holds that our grandmother, Esther Shattuck, would sometimes play piano there along with the silent, black and white films being shown. I have no way of proving or disproving that rumor. No matter.

I do remember my grandmother taking my sister and me to see a movie there. It featured one of my grandmother’s musical heroes, Burl Ives, in the role of Big Daddy. The movie was Cat on a Hot Tin Roof.

I guess grandma thought she was going to see a musical. The show seemed boring to me, but before it had gotten very far, my sister and I were snatched out of our seats and dragged up to the lobby. There, our dear grandma started berating the theater manager about exposing the town to this “smut.”

When we got home, I heard grandma explaining to grandpa, “. . . and there was Elizabeth Taylor, IN HER SLIP!!”

I was confused. Every Sunday morning you could count on seeing my grandma, my mom and any other family female who was going to church that morning running around in their slip. I assumed that Miss Taylor was probably getting ready for church herself.

The 1920s Elite Theatre (subsequently called the State Theatre), where silent movies were shown. A piano player accompanied the movie from the balcony. (Photo courtesy Fillmore County Historical Society)

My recollection of the shows I went to see at the State Theatre were usually westerns or musicals or comedies.

I do remember one epic called The Pirates of Tripoli. After seeing it, we made swords out of old lath boards and reenacted the fight scenes the rest of that summer. Except for some splinters, no one was hurt in the battles.

One of the other features was the strange candy sold at the concession stand: Dots, Sno-Caps, Boston Baked Beans and Junior Mints. I don’t think these were available at the candy counter in the local Five and Dime.

In the mid-1970s I visited my mother in Lanesboro and was surprised to see the State Theatre was closed. At the time, Lanesboro seemed like a ghost town.

I could have bought the theatre for $2,000 but it would have been a losing proposition. The farmers had gone broke, and Secretary of Agriculture Earl Butz was telling them to “Get big or die.” Not very encouraging.

The State Theatre after it was remodeled around 1940. (Photo courtesy Fillmore County Historical Society)

In the mid-1980s my mother told me that the defunct Milwaukee Road rail line from La Crosse through Lanesboro and beyond was being turned into a bike trail.

As it turns out, people were buying up the old, Victorian mansions for a song. No one had wanted to pay the cost of heating those “old barns.” But suddenly a liability had become a tourist attraction, and the rest was history.

I visited in the early 1990s and was amazed at the new vitality the old town was showing.

The Other Country Ensemble performs at the St. Mane Theatre in March of 2025. (Photo by Delia Bell)

Today, the St. Mane Theatre provides a home for Lanesboro Community Theatre and various offerings from Lanesboro Arts.

Turns out it was a worthwhile investment. The building has been repaired and restored and is now an important asset of the community.

I wonder if they will stage The Pirates of Penzance?