The Rialto Theater in Deer Lodge, Montana, was built in 1921 with 720 seats. The Beaux Arts theater featured extensive painted murals, artistic plaster designs, and a painted stage background. Fire destroyed much of it in 2006. The community rallied, restoring and reopening the Rialto in 2012. Here’s an early view.
By Kevin S. Giles
Everyone has a hometown, or should, because it figures strongly in matters of the heart.
Mine is Deer Lodge, a dab of humanity in a seam between two rambling mountain ranges. Deer Lodge is a dwindling place, even smaller than my long-ago days there, but it stands proud before a mighty promontory known as Mount Powell in western Montana. It’s here, in a town with a real Main Street, where memories sleep and the fictional Summer of the Black Chevy takes place.
My favorite postcards show the downtown district through the years. It’s less robust now, but the buildings remain much the same, like history stood still.