The
Historic DeSoto Theatre
In early 1928 O. C. Lam, the owner
of Lam Amusement Company, laid plans to construct a new movie theatre in
downtown Rome, Georgia. Lam wanted to build a movie palace -- a luxurious
theatre modeled after New York's Roxy. Lam purchased a section of prime
real estate on the main street of downtown Rome for $50,000.
The building's exterior and Georgian
interior stylishly housed a number of recent movie palace innovations.
Designed as a "talkie" theatre, it the first venue in the South to be
designed and built for sound pictures. Rome's new house boasted a Vitaphone sound system. And, the
theatre was heated and cooled by an
innovative blower-fan air conditioning and tubular boiler system.
Additionally, the theatre was equipped with state of the art fire safety
equipment. Fitted with many exits, the theatre could be emptied in two
minutes.
Lam named his new movie palace for
Hernando DeSoto, who was thought by many historians to have passed through
the area that is now Rome in 1540. The DeSoto was completed at a cost of
$110,000 and opened in August of 1929. At that time, the theatre seated
well over 1000 patrons, making it
one of the seven largest movie venues in Georgia at the time. The theatre
was an instant success and the pride of Rome. The DeSoto was one of the
main sources of entertainment for Northwest Georgia and Northeast Alabama
for the next fifty years.
