In the days before radio, television, and Hollywood, public entertainment on the prairie came in the form of community bands, dances, and programs, and the occasional traveling moving picture show and theatre group. New Rockford boasted some of each in its formative years. Saad Hall hosted the first moving picture show in 1899, and the first opera house opened as an addition to the Brown Hotel in 1902. But as happened in many quickly-built communities, fires ripped through New Rockford’s nascent downtown with frightening frequency, razing the wooden buildings and encouraging the introduction of the brick buildings that still stand in the town today.
Source: DPRCA Continues Longstanding Theatre Tradition | High Plains Reader, Fargo ND