Le Sueur’s movie theater officially closed its doors just nine years ago, but today, it looks like a home to ancient artifacts.
Like an archaeological dig, the theater appears as a dank, wet cave with fossils of its own: molding over film reels, a deteriorating glass refrigerator filled with long-expired Coke products and a silver screen looming before a seatless auditorium.
But this site has an archaeologist of its own in Katherine Elke, the most recent in a long line of owners in the Le Sueur Theatre’s 130 year history. Elke purchased the theater for $15,000 from Le Sueur County in 2016 and now she wants to restore it to even better than its old self.