🎭 DeSoto Theater

The DeSoto Theatre is a theater in downtown Rome, Georgia, in the United States. The DeSoto Theatre was the first theater in the southeast to display sound film. It is currently owned by the Historic DeSoto Theatre Foundation, a nonprofit organization created by the building's former owner and current resident theatre group, the Rome Little Theatre. The previous building was home to the Freedmen's Bureau of Rome. In early 1908 O. C. Lam, the owner of Lam Amusement Company, laid plans to construct a new movie theater in downtown Rome, Georgia. Lam wanted to build a movie palace, a luxurious theater modeled after New York's Roxy. Lam purchased a section of prime real estate on the main street of downtown Rome for $37,000.