At first glance, Lisbon’s historic Scenic Theater probably doesn’t look all that different than any other small-town movie house. A statement marquis lights up the quiet street around it. Inside, a Pepsi-branded letterboard lists concessions and their prices. A glass case offers easy candy-viewing for eager kids. However, if you take the time to look around, you’ll notice that the lobby practically serves as a museum of the building’s past.  

It is the oldest continually-operating theater in America, after all.  

The leftmost wall boasts a shadow box with old memorabilia. Next to the women’s bathroom hangs a movie-poster-sized frame, with before-and-after photos of the theater’s renovations, as well as the names of those that helped fix it up. And to the right of that there’s a long list – so long it was printed on multiple pieces of paper and taped together – of everyone who contributed to the “Save Our Scenic” fundraising campaign.  


























Behind the counter are Alfred “Al” Michels and his wife, Betty, who purchased the theater 22 years ago. Their daughter has joined them to help out with concessions for the evening.  

To their right proudly stands the centerpiece of the lobby: an 80-year-old popcorn machine that hardly shows its age. It’s in fantastic condition, save for a burnt out lightbulb or two and a jerry-rigged part that’s no longer made.  

“When we came into the theater, you couldn’t even see into the thing. It took four people about four days to get that clean so you could see through it,” Al explains. The machine makes popcorn that the likes of West Acres Cinema and even the Fargo Theatre can’t compare to.  













































Betty offers us some as soon as we walk in, and we happily take her up on it.  

The Scenic is one of the few theaters around that uses real butter to top their popcorn – but honestly, you don’t even need it. It’s good enough to eat straight out of the machine.  

















We embark on a tour of the building, our retro-printed bags of popcorn in tow as Al leads us inside the auditorium for the first time. I’m surprised at just how large it is. It’s long but narrow – only five seats on either side of the center aisle. There are even a few rows of stadium seating at the back of the room. 

“Stadium seats were added,” Al begins as a smile spreads across his face, “because it seemed like every time we came to a movie, somebody big and tall with a cowboy hat would sit in front of Betty.” 

He gestures toward the wall and tells us how when they repainted it, they “followed the same [original] pattern but put more modern colors on it.”  


























Then he shows us the lights. “We found them in pieces in the basement,” he says. “There are 21 light bulbs, five different colors in each. The colors change depending on what movie we’re running, what holiday it is, things like that. Now it’s all computer controlled.” Each light took hours to repair and piece together.  

Next, Al takes us up to the projection room. The quiet whirring of the giant projector greets us, along with countless rolled up movie posters and old film reels. Children’s drawings adorn the wall. They’re accompanied by sweet, grammatically incorrect sentences about how much the artist/author loves the movie theater. Al tells us that they’re from his grandchildren. 
















 










He then points out the sealed off hole in the wall that served as a fire escape back when a projectionist would have to spend the length of the movie swapping out film reels. He gives us a run down of how that process worked. Now, he tells us, they just get hard drives in the mail with movies loaded onto them. 

Not long ago, this little theater faced its biggest obstacle yet: the switch from film to digital. Even though the building is only home to one single screen, it was going to cost more than $100,000 to purchase the equipment needed to keep the theater open. A hundred thousand dollars that Al and Betty did not have. That’s when the community stepped in, and “Save Our Scenic,” or S.O.S., was born.  

“When the city approached us to see what we were gonna do when we had to switch, that was a hard choice, because we knew we couldn’t afford to put another $120,000 into equipment. They asked us if they could raise the money, would we keep running it, and we said ‘yeah, we’ll run it as long as we can.’” 

The patrons of the Scenic made it their mission to keep this historic theater’s doors open.  

Within the first week of accepting donations, the initiative raised $8,000. It only took three months in total to reach their goal. The whole town helped out – kids sold lemonade and donated the proceeds; burgers and brats were cooked up outside the theater’s front doors; profits from root beer floats after a dance recital went straight to the fund. Anything and everything the people of Lisbon could do, they did. 

And it worked.  

We walk back down the steep stairs to the lobby, where people have started to file in for the movie. They’re showing “The Lost City” this weekend. Al has to step away for a moment to help make some more popcorn and accommodate for the rush. A large bucket will only set you back six dollars here, so it’s no wonder they go through so much. Some people even stop by on movie nights just to grab a bucket to go. A fifty-pound bag of kernels sits behind the counter. Betty tells us that it really doesn’t last that long, especially when they have a busy weekend.  



 













Once it slows down again, Al takes us over to the stairs that have been roped off with a plastic white chain, one end wrapped around the railing and the other binder-clipped to part of the wall. He comments about how silly it looks, but I think it’s fitting.  

“This is brand new down here, so the public hasn’t seen this yet,” Al tells us as he leads us down the steps. We land in the basement, a brightly lit room decorated with all sorts of movie memorabilia. Old projectors and film splicers sit on display atop some recently-installed shelving. Packages of unused 3-D movie glasses sit next to factory-sealed boxes of crayons. Al explains to us his plan to turn this room into an event space, targeted toward children’s birthday parties. He hopes to be able to install a pizza oven or two.  

The basement will also serve as a retail space. The Michelses have more posters, vintage film reels, and even rolls of film than they know what to do with. So, Al came up with the idea to offer them for sale. He’s got a cabinet toward the front of the room that holds the more expensive stuff, like “Star Wars” reels.  

We sit down at one of the high-top tables. I let my eyes wander around the room. There’s a life-sized Wonder Woman cutout in one corner. On the walls hang a selection of framed posters from popular movies, like “Cars” and “Iron Man 2.” Al says he tried to choose ones with lots of faces.  

 

 













The space is impressive, truly, and it becomes even more so after Al tells us about what it used to look like.  

He points to where we came down the stairs.  

“That area there used to be the bathrooms,” he says, “and this side,” where we sit, “was full to the floor joists with plastic containers, pop flats, candy boxes. The old owner would not pay the city’s garbage fees, so he put all that kind of garbage down in the basement, and whatever sweepings he got he put in a little garbage bag and took home with him.”  

It’s almost impossible to believe the room we’re sitting in used to be so neglected. 

That goes for most of the theater. Al tells us about everything they’ve done since acquiring it. The lobby was a disaster – it used to consist of a countertop that was set on top of pop crates. The lights in the auditorium were mostly just exposed wires. Burlap curtains hung along the walls. 

“When we pulled them down, it was so dusty we couldn’t see from one end of the theater to the other,” he tells us. One curtain even had a hole burned in it from the aforementioned exposed wires.  

There were two couches at the front of the theater. These were a hot commodity – kids used to fight over who got to sit there. When it came time to move them, they wouldn’t budge. They were practically glued to the floor with suckers, hair, pop, and dead mice. They had to use ice scrapers to get all the gunk off the floor. 

A “wedge of sludge” was the source of an off-putting smell that Al noticed when he was just a patron of the Scenic. There was a gap between some pipes in the bathroom, and anytime the toilet was flushed, it added to the mess. We asked if they had to clean that up after buying the theater. They did.  

“We did everything ourselves, except for installing the furnace and the wiring.”  

We spend more time chatting before heading back upstairs. By this time, the movie is almost finished, but it still feels hard to leave. There’s so much history to soak up at the Scenic.  

Betty offers us more popcorn for the road. We can’t pass that up.  

“The drinks in the cooler there should be cold, help yourselves to something before you go,” she insists.  

I ask if I can take a photo of them together before we leave. Betty is a little hesitant, but she humors me anyway. I take a few before we engage in a good old-fashioned Midwest Goodbye. 

 

 













We chat about their kids and their grandkids, one of which I went to high school with. “Small world,” Betty and I say at the same time.  

I thank them for letting us come visit. 

“It’s wonderful that you guys care so much about his hard work,” Betty says as she nudges her husband.  

We insist that it’s truly been our pleasure, and that we admire how much time and effort they’ve spent on keeping the Scenic alive. 

“It’s his passion project, really,” Betty says. “I’m getting too old for this.”  

They’ve both been retired from their respective careers for some time.

We learn that the theater is for sale. Not too many people are interested in taking over, apparently. It’s been up for sale for a while. The couple hopes to run it for a few more years and then hand it over to a civic group so that everybody can continue to enjoy it.  

When the conversation dwindles, Al asks if he can have a hug before we go. Betty gets one too and we thank them for the thousandth time. I tell them we’ll be back sometime this summer with our friends in tow.  

As we get into the car, I can’t help but stare at the sweet little theater. Generations of people have had their first movie-going experience in that very room. I think about the marquis outside, and the work Al put into restoring it. He built the light box from scratch with scraps from a job he used to work. He built it in his backyard, then transported it to the theater in pieces. The vertical sign is original to the theater, but Al had to strip 14 layers of paint off of it to get to the original design before touching it up with the theater’s 1940s colors.  

I think about the first time I visited. I had to make sure to snap some photos of the building’s exterior before heading home. Al came out after me. He wanted to make sure I knew that the Scenic’s success is not just thanks to him. So many people – friends, family, even strangers – helped the Michelses make the theater what it is today.

He had to make sure I knew that.  

I take another moment to soak in the amber glow of the marquis before I shift into drive. I can't take my eyes off the theater as we pass it. I ponder the fate it could've had instead. The odds have always been against it, and yet, there it stands.  

As the lights of Lisbon’s main street blur into the night sky behind us, I reach for a handful of popcorn, and I can’t help but smile.  

This precious piece of American history couldn’t be in better hands.  

Behind the counter are Alfred “Al” Michels and his wife, Betty, who purchased the theater 22 years ago. Their daughter has joined them to help out with concessions for the evening.  

To their right proudly stands the centerpiece of the lobby: an 80-year-old popcorn machine that hardly shows its age. It’s in fantastic condition, save for a burnt out lightbulb or two and a jerry-rigged part that’s no longer made.  

“When we came into the theater, you couldn’t even see into the thing. It took four people about four days to get that clean so you could see through it,” Al explains. The machine makes popcorn that the likes of West Acres Cinema and even the Fargo Theatre can’t compare to.  

Betty offers us some as soon as we walk in, and we happily take her up on it.  

The Scenic is one of the few theaters around that uses real butter to top their popcorn – but honestly, you don’t even need it. It’s good enough to eat straight out of the machine.  

We embark on a tour of the building, our retro-printed bags of popcorn in tow as Al leads us inside the auditorium for the first time. I’m surprised at just how large it is. It’s long but narrow – only five seats on either side of the center aisle. There are even a few rows of stadium seating at the back of the room. 

“Stadium seats were added,” Al begins as a smile spreads across his face, “because it seemed like every time we came to a movie, somebody big and tall with a cowboy hat would sit in front of Betty.” 

He gestures toward the wall and tells us how when they repainted it, they “followed the same [original] pattern but put more modern colors on it.”  

Then he shows us the lights. “We found them in pieces in the basement,” he says. “There are 21 light bulbs, five different colors in each. The colors change depending on what movie we’re running, what holiday it is, things like that. Now it’s all computer controlled.” Each light took hours to repair and piece together.  

Next, Al takes us up to the projection room. The quiet whirring of the giant projector greets us, along with countless rolled up movie posters and old film reels. Children’s drawings adorn the wall. They’re accompanied by sweet, grammatically incorrect sentences about how much the artist/author loves the movie theater. Al tells us that they’re from his grandchildren. 

He then points out the sealed off hole in the wall that served as a fire escape back when a projectionist would have to spend the length of the movie swapping out film reels. He gives us a run down of how that process worked. Now, he tells us, they just get hard drives in the mail with movies loaded onto them. 

Not long ago, this little theater faced its biggest obstacle yet: the switch from film to digital. Even though the building is only home to one single screen, it was going to cost more than $100,000 to purchase the equipment needed to keep the theater open. A hundred thousand dollars that Al and Betty did not have. That’s when the community stepped in, and “Save Our Scenic,” or S.O.S., was born.  

“When the city approached us to see what we were gonna do when we had to switch, that was a hard choice, because we knew we couldn’t afford to put another $120,000 into equipment. They asked us if they could raise the money, would we keep running it, and we said ‘yeah, we’ll run it as long as we can.’” 

The patrons of the Scenic made it their mission to keep this historic theater’s doors open.  

Within the first week of accepting donations, the initiative raised $8,000. It only took three months in total to reach their goal. The whole town helped out – kids sold lemonade and donated the proceeds; burgers and brats were cooked up outside the theater’s front doors; profits from root beer floats after a dance recital went straight to the fund. Anything and everything the people of Lisbon could do, they did. 

And it worked.  

We walk back down the steep stairs to the lobby, where people have started to file in for the movie. They’re showing “The Lost City” this weekend. Al has to step away for a moment to help make some more popcorn and accommodate for the rush. A large bucket will only set you back six dollars here, so it’s no wonder they go through so much. Some people even stop by on movie nights just to grab a bucket to go. A fifty-pound bag of kernels sits behind the counter. Betty tells us that it really doesn’t last that long, especially when they have a busy weekend.  

Once it slows down again, Al takes us over to the stairs that have been roped off with a plastic white chain, one end wrapped around the railing and the other binder-clipped to part of the wall. He comments about how silly it looks, but I think it’s fitting.  

“This is brand new down here, so the public hasn’t seen this yet,” Al tells us as he leads us down the steps. We land in the basement, a brightly lit room decorated with all sorts of movie memorabilia. Old projectors and film splicers sit on display atop some recently-installed shelving. Packages of unused 3-D movie glasses sit next to factory-sealed boxes of crayons. Al explains to us his plan to turn this room into an event space, targeted toward children’s birthday parties. He hopes to be able to install a pizza oven or two.  

The basement will also serve as a retail space. The Michelses have more posters, vintage film reels, and even rolls of film than they know what to do with. So, Al came up with the idea to offer them for sale. He’s got a cabinet toward the front of the room that holds the more expensive stuff, like “Star Wars” reels.  

We sit down at one of the high-top tables. I let my eyes wander around the room. There’s a life-sized Wonder Woman cutout in one corner. On the walls hang a selection of framed posters from popular movies, like “Cars” and “Iron Man 2.” Al says he tried to choose ones with lots of faces.  

The space is impressive, truly, and it becomes even more so after Al tells us about what it used to look like.  

He points to where we came down the stairs.  

“That area there used to be the bathrooms,” he says, “and this side,” where we sit, “was full to the floor joists with plastic containers, pop flats, candy boxes. The old owner would not pay the city’s garbage fees, so he put all that kind of garbage down in the basement, and whatever sweepings he got he put in a little garbage bag and took home with him.”  

It’s almost impossible to believe the room we’re sitting in used to be so neglected. 

That goes for most of the theater. Al tells us about everything they’ve done since acquiring it. The lobby was a disaster – it used to consist of a countertop that was set on top of pop crates. The lights in the auditorium were mostly just exposed wires. Burlap curtains hung along the walls. 

“When we pulled them down, it was so dusty we couldn’t see from one end of the theater to the other,” he tells us. One curtain even had a hole burned in it from the aforementioned exposed wires.  

There were two couches at the front of the theater. These were a hot commodity – kids used to fight over who got to sit there. When it came time to move them, they wouldn’t budge. They were practically glued to the floor with suckers, hair, pop, and dead mice. They had to use ice scrapers to get all the gunk off the floor. 

A “wedge of sludge” was the source of an off-putting smell that Al noticed when he was just a patron of the Scenic. There was a gap between some pipes in the bathroom, and anytime the toilet was flushed, it added to the mess. We asked if they had to clean that up after buying the theater. They did.  

“We did everything ourselves, except for installing the furnace and the wiring.”  

We spend more time chatting before heading back upstairs. By this time, the movie is almost finished, but it still feels hard to leave. There’s so much history to soak up at the Scenic.  

Betty offers us more popcorn for the road. We can’t pass that up.  

“The drinks in the cooler there should be cold, help yourselves to something before you go,” she insists.  

I ask if I can take a photo of them together before we leave. Betty is a little hesitant, but she humors me anyway. I take a few before we engage in a good old-fashioned Midwest Goodbye. 

We chat about their kids and their grandkids, one of which I went to high school with. “Small world,” Betty and I say at the same time.  

I thank them for letting us come visit. 

“It’s wonderful that you guys care so much about his hard work,” Betty says as she nudges her husband.  

We insist that it’s truly been our pleasure, and that we admire how much time and effort they’ve spent on keeping the Scenic alive. 

“It’s his passion project, really,” Betty says. “I’m getting too old for this.”  

They’ve both been retired from their respective careers for some time.

We learn that the theater is for sale. Not too many people are interested in taking over, apparently. It’s been up for sale for a while. The couple hopes to run it for a few more years and then hand it over to a civic group so that everybody can continue to enjoy it.  

When the conversation dwindles, Al asks if he can have a hug before we go. Betty gets one too and we thank them for the thousandth time. I tell them we’ll be back sometime this summer with our friends in tow.  

As we get into the car, I can’t help but stare at the sweet little theater. Generations of people have had their first movie-going experience in that very room. I think about the marquis outside, and the work Al put into restoring it. He built the light box from scratch with scraps from a job he used to work. He built it in his backyard, then transported it to the theater in pieces. The vertical sign is original to the theater, but Al had to strip 14 layers of paint off of it to get to the original design before touching it up with the theater’s 1940s colors.  

I think about the first time I visited. I had to make sure to snap some photos of the building’s exterior before heading home. Al came out after me. He wanted to make sure I knew that the Scenic’s success is not just thanks to him. So many people – friends, family, even strangers – helped the Michelses make the theater what it is today.

He had to make sure I knew that.  

I take another moment to soak in the amber glow of the marquis before I shift into drive. I can't take my eyes off the theater as we pass it. I ponder the fate it could've had instead. The odds have always been against it, and yet, there it stands.  

As the lights of Lisbon’s main street blur into the night sky behind us, I reach for a handful of popcorn, and I can’t help but smile.  

This precious piece of American history couldn’t be in better hands.  

At first glance, Lisbon’s historic Scenic Theater probably doesn’t look all that different than any other small-town movie house. A statement marquis lights up the quiet street around it. Inside, a Pepsi-branded letterboard lists concessions and their prices. A glass case offers easy candy-viewing for eager kids. However, if you take the time to look around, you’ll notice that the lobby practically serves as a museum of the building’s past.  

It is the oldest continually-operating theater in America, after all.  

The leftmost wall boasts a shadow box with old memorabilia. Next to the women’s bathroom hangs a movie-poster-sized frame, with before-and-after photos of the theater’s renovations, as well as the names of those that helped fix it up. And to the right of that there’s a long list – so long it was printed on multiple pieces of paper and taped together – of everyone who contributed to the “Save Our Scenic” fundraising campaign.  

How the Oldest Continually-Operating Movie Theater
in America Survived the Transition from Film to Digital