The Ioka was built in 1915 in downtown, Exeter, New Hampshire, during the heyday of silent films and Vaudeville Theater. It was constructed on the site of the old Dow Building by Edward D. Mayer, a judge for Rockingham County, to a design by architect H. Gordon Robb, of Boston, MA, and built by the Kelly brothers from Haverhill, MA. The Kelly's and Robb had both done work for Louis B. Mayer at his three theaters on River Street in Haverhill.
The name “Ioka” was reportedly coined through a local contest by a local Camp Fire Girl, Jessie Griffin — believing the name meant "Indian Playground” – though the archives of the Exeter Historical Society show many debates on that subject. (According to former owner, Jim Blanco, “There's no question about the origin of the name. People will contest it, but I personally spoke with James Rathbone, first manager of the theatre in 1973, at the Eventide Nursing Home, and he was quite clear. He said he'd been plagued by the alternative stories for years.") As built, the Ioka originally seated 725 people, with 425 seats on the main floor and an additional 300 in the balcony. The orchestra pit at the base of the stage held musicians who played accompanying music to the silent films. It opened on November 1 with the full-length controversial classic “Birth of a Nation,” directed by D.W. Griffith, which was considered Hollywood’s highest-grossing and first ‘blockbuster’ movie. Publicity for the film’s opening included two horsemen riding around town in Ku Klux Klan costumes, reflecting the storyline of the film, which was based on the novel “The Clansmen.”
To support the theater, Mayer leased the upstairs office to a local businessman and he intended to rent the basement floors of the building to the Rockingham County YMCA, where there would be a small swimming pool, bowling alley, recreation room and gym for the community. The YMCA ultimately backed out of the deal. Jim Blanco attests, however, that “there was unequivocal evidence that the basement was used as a gym, for quite a time, early on. There was a swimming/lap pool made of cement, with a galvanized metal insert, that ran 3/4 of the length of the building, and there were two lanes of a bowling alley with hand set pins. There was also evidence of dart boards and pool tables present.”
A short four months after opening, Mayer was in debt. His creditors wanted to keep the new theater running and named attorney John Scammon as the manager. When a petition for bankruptcy was served on March 21, 1916 to Mayer, his creditors discovered he had left town. The theater closed briefly, reopening on May 5, 1916 under the management of Charles W. Hodgson on behalf of the creditors. The profits of the theater would subsequently be paid back to the local businessmen and bank who were owed by Mayer. “If you help this theater, you will help the town,” said John Scammon in the May 5, 1916 edition of the Exeter News Letter. He went on to suggest renaming the Ioka to “such a name that the people of Exeter suggest.” On June 16, 1916 the management of the theater was transferred from Hodgson to a local manager, and movies such as Charlie Chaplin and the Keystone comedies were being shown as well as live entertainment.
A year later, the theater was sold by auction to Ralph Pratt for $20,200. The Ioka was in competition with Exeter’s other theater further up Water Street, The Opera House, until Pratt bought it at auction in 1919. One week and one day later, the Opera House burned to the ground. Later that same year Pratt opened the Bowling Alley and Pool Room in the basement under the theater to the public. Upstairs, silent movies were accompanied by a piano player and sometimes a small orchestra. Other acts included musicals, Vaudeville shows, minstrel shows, and community benefits.
The Ioka stayed steady through the mid-twentieth century as the motion picture business peaked in the country. In 1927 a new “Aeolian Organ” was installed at a cost of $25,000 only to be outdated two years later by the installation of wiring for sound to support the new “talking pictures.” Harold Jenkins played the organ for its first public performance. It was a very bad and untimely move, although no one could have known it at the time. 1927 was the same year that "The Jazz Singer" was released. Due to the huge expenditure ($1.00 in 1927 had the buying power of $33.00 of today's dollars!), talking pictures didn't come to Exeter until 1929. The first talkie at the Ioka was "The Cocoanuts," with the Marx Brothers.
The impact of television on the movie industry and subsequently upon movies theaters became increasingly evident after the 1940s. Weekly movie admissions declined by $60 million between 1938 and 1978, leaving small-town cinemas such as the Ioka struggling to cover operating costs. Pratt remained the owner until his death in 1921. Pratt’s heirs, the Mulcahy family of Newburyport, MA, owned the theater through a trust and kept it operating, including installing a new marquee (the current one), electric lights, a larger screen and comfortable seats in 1936. Mulcahy and Fred Markey were all involved in the invention, development and proliferation of the Dodgem Cars, the home office of which was located in Lawrence, MA. All of the business dealings for the Dodgem Corp. were handled out of the office behind the marquee by Fred Markey along with his daughter for all of the years he ran the Ioka from 1933 until his death in 1963. Admission during the Depression was 15 cents for a lower level seat and 20 cents for a spot in the balcony.
In 1965, the theater closed for about six months until it was re-opened by Edward Callahan who ran it with his wife Mary and their four sons. Callahan worked for 20th Century-Fox as a film distributor. He told Jim Blanco that he had little interest in the theater, but knew the business, and had a large family. His purpose in leasing it was to train his kids to work. (Putting up the marquee taught them to spell, running the counters taught them how to make change and deal with the public, no friends or fun 'til the work was done, etc.) The last film to play in 1972, at the end of the Callahan family era, was Peter Bogdanovich’s “The Last Picture Show.”
Fred J. Schaake took ownership of the Ioka from the Mulcahy Trust. Schaake also owned what is now known as the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom on Hampton Beach. For more than two years, the theater remained vacant until January 1975 under the management of Ron Cloutier from Chelmsford, MA. Ron Cloutier, Andy Bickford and Jim Blanco refurbished and reopened the theater in September of 1975. Jim Blanco recalled, “It was in terrible shape when Callahan got done with it, and it had been closed. It took the three of us, part time, the better part of a year and a half to get it re-opened. I spent my entire summer of 1975 screwing seats to the floor, and lugging projector parts up three flights of stairs! For my pre-opening efforts, I became the first ticket ripper, the head marquee putter-upper, and the relief projectionist, and kept the job until I went into the Army in 1978.” New seats, paint, curtains, and a sound system were installed for the long-awaited reopening. Kevin Heffernan replaced Cloutier as manager in 1980, and in the next few years management changed frequently and the quality of the theater offerings declined.
In 1987, under Schaake’s ownership, Jim Blanco was hired back to complete the ‘orderly closure’ of the theater while running films during the summer. By the end of the summer, a number of the movies turned a profit, and the set closing date continued to be pushed out. In March 1988 the blockbuster “Batman” kept the Ioka seats filled for weeks. After a string of well-attended films, Blanco decided he didn’t want it to close and worked at improving the theater, expanding marketing and press coverage, and running classic vintage films such as “Gone with the Wind” and “The Wizard of Oz” using vintage projection systems.
By late 1989, owner Schaake had deemed the theater unprofitable and announced plans to sell. Single-screen historic cinemas around the country were struggling to compete with multi-screen complexes and the increase in people renting or purchasing movies to watch at home. Slated to go to auction with a minimum bid of $500,000, the Ioka building and land was assessed at $298,000. Schaake stated that if no buyer was found, he would develop the theater into a “suite hotel,” unless a community group came forward to purchase the building. He offered to finance part of the amount if the group could come up with the down payment.
In 1990, the ‘Friends of the Ioka’ was formed to save the Ioka Theater as a non-profit and to “preserve the Ioka Theater as a motion picture house, a theater, and a cultural center for the Exeter-area community and to provide facilities for the performing and lively arts,” but the group's efforts never took root. Schaake, distracted by renovations at the Hampton Beach Casino Ballroom, stopped paying attention to the Ioka though it was always on the market. Blanco was committed to keeping the Ioka history alive, expanding the historic memorabilia, and providing entertainment to the community, and kept up for five more years as manager. In 1995, Blanco purchased the theater outright from Schaake, and continued the long tradition of keeping up with changing technology through equipment and facility upgrades. He also converted the lower floor of the theater into an Art Deco-style club that held a smaller, second screening room. During his ownership, many first-run movies were shown, including “Titantic,” complete with a sinking ship perched above the marquee.
In 2004, Blanco sold the Ioka to Roger Detzler. By December 2008, the last movie played in the Ioka was “It’s a Wonderful Life” before the owner lost the theater occupancy permit due to lack of a sprinkler system. The theater remained on the real estate market and there was some interest. A non-profit group, the “Exeter Theater Company,” formed late in 2008 and made a failed attempt to purchase the theater with another partner. Marc Murai, a west-coast transplant and film producer, rallied the community in 2009 to come up with a $10,000 deposit to purchase the theater, but plans fell through. The Exeter Theater Company stayed organized and continued to look for viable partners. Some activity continued at the basement club, there were “Zumba” classes in the now-chairless theater, and food was sold out of the concession stand, which had a new small kitchen attached. On December 1, 2011 the Ioka was auctioned through foreclosure by the bank.
- Carol Walker Aten, with thanks to Barbara Rimkunas, Curator, Exeter Historical Society and Jim Blanco, owner of the Ioka Theater 1995-2004 [December 17, 2011]