HEBRON, N.D. — City folks who step inside the Mayer Theatre in Hebron for the first time may find the experience as entertaining as the movie itself.
First, there’s the old-school ticket booth, where ticket taker Bonnie Brekke will smile and tell you they only take cash or checks.
“We get modern people in here who want to pay with credit cards,” Bonnie said, laughing. “And we have to turn them down.”
Next there’s the concession stand, where candy sells for just $2 a box, and a gleaming 75-year-old popcorn machine pops up corn like it just rolled off the assembly line.
Then there’s the fact that it’s a one-screen theater, which seems to baffle those who have only seen multiplexes.
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“They come in here sometimes, the people who are not used to small-town theaters, and they ask which door do we go in?” Bonnie said, with a smile. “We say, ‘Whatever.’”
Finally, there’s the overall vibe of this little western North Dakota gem, with its multi-colored neon marquee, carefully restored Art Deco interior and ultra-crisp Dolby picture and sound.
“It's not about the money. It's a labor of love," said Jerry Brekke, who bought the deteriorating theater in 2010 and now runs it with sister Bonnie. The siblings are Hebron natives who felt an allegiance to the 75-year-old theater and the town's 775 residents.
Jerry knows a thing or two about the theater business, as he worked at the Mayer in high school and now owns the Grand 22 Theatres in Bismarck, an hour east of here.
“I just come out here to get away from it all,” Jerry said. “So what did I do? I bought another theater.”
Now he drives the 114-mile round trip from his Mandan residence every weekend to help operate the complex digital projector so they can show first-run movies. Bonnie is always there to take tickets and help with day-to-day operations.
A devoted group of volunteers help with concessions and whatever else is needed.
As they say, the show must go on.
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And so it does, every Friday, Saturday and Sunday at 7:30 p.m.
Once upon a time in America
Nancy (Mayer) Sailer likes to joke “I had my name in lights.”
She actually did.
Her parents, Arnold and Irene Mayer, owned the Hebron theater, with its glittering "Mayer Theatre" marquee, for 36 years.
Today, Sailer is a 70-year-old grandmother who lives in Fargo and winters in Florida. But her memories of growing up in the theater are as clear as Dolby Cinema 3D.
After serving in World War II, her dad returned to his hometown and began showing movies at the town’s City Hall.
“When he started in that theater, he said he needed a popcorn girl, so he married my mother,” Sailer said.
In 1949, Arnold, a carpenter, and his dad, Reinhold Mayer, built the theater from the ground up, using the city’s famed Hebron brick (where the city got its nickname "Brick City").
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The theater featured modern amenities like a balcony “crying room” for young families, an intercom system between the projection room and lobby, and a refrigerated air conditioning system that cooled with city water. (It worked until last summer, when it was replaced with a ductless mini-split system.)
“He was quite the little entrepreneur,” Sailer said. “I wish today I could ask him where he got his inspiration for the design of that theater. He did a wonderful job with that.”
The look was upscale, with glass block, elegant wall sconces and the neon marquee with chasing traveler border bulbs.
A plasterer by trade, Reinhold designed one wall with a decorative, arched niche to highlight the poster for the latest movie.
The Mayers invested in a Manley popcorn machine, which cost $850 (that’s over $11,000 in 2024 dollars).
They got their money’s worth. Built like a Sherman tank, the cream, red and chrome machine has uncomplainingly popped countless bags of popcorn in its 75-year history and only recently needed an electrical switch replaced, Bonnie said.
In the days before every home had a TV, lines formed down the block to see the latest show for just 35 cents. The Mayers showed three different movies a week, with the giant film cans arriving by Greyhound bus.
The theater was central to the family’s life. The Mayers even lived in a little apartment by the projection room until Sailer’s oldest brother was 6.
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Sailer remembers her first job at the theater: taking tickets “when I was barely old enough to stand.”
She eventually worked almost every job there, save for running the projectors. Her two brothers, Ron and Neal, did work as projectionists, along with other high school kids looking to make extra money.
“It was such a fun time for us, although we did get sick of working every weekend,” Sailer recalled.
As cable TV became more popular and people began driving to larger cities to see films in multiplexes, the Mayer’s draw wavered.
Although some films still packed them in, Sailer said, “there would be some nights when my dad didn’t even know if he should run the movie or not, because there were hardly any people there.”
The Mayers retired and sold the theater in 1985, although Sailer said it was hard for her dad to let it go.
A man from Lemmon, South Dakota, bought the theater, but didn’t keep it open long.
In 1998, Bob Spangelo, the local funeral director, purchased the deteriorating structure, which had a leaking roof and mold creeping up the walls.
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Spangelo fixed up the theater and ran it until 2006. It was run, off and on, by different people until Jerry stepped in.
Restoration
Jerry had long held fond memories of the Hebron moviehouse. His parents used to take the family there twice a week and Jerry later worked there as a projectionist.
Arnold Mayer taught him how to run the temperamental machines. “I didn’t want to do that,” Jerry recalled. “But he said, ‘Well, if you’re going to be in the theater business, you’re going to have to learn how to run projectors.'”
Jerry would go on to open the Showboat Cinema in Mandan and later built the Grand Theatre in Bismarck in 1984.
Jerry didn’t need to take care of another theater. But when he heard talk that someone planned to buy the Mayer and convert it into something else, he knew the town would lose a half-century of history and memories.
He also had someone to help: Bonnie, who had lived on the family farm since 2003, when she left her accounting job in Bismarck to help their ailing mom.
So they bought the 220-seat theater and set about restoring it. “By the time we took over, it needed a brand-new roof and the interior needed to be repainted. I did it in the winter, on my days off from the Grand,” Jerry said.
He chose a teal-and-burgundy color palette, which matched the Art Deco decor.
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The original wall sconces were crusted with rust from the leaky roof, but Jerry scrubbed them of decades of grime and oxidation.
The gold, wheat-patterned theater curtain was a lucky find from when Jerry traveled to the old Linton, North Dakota, theater to buy its projectors for the Grand.
While there, he spotted the curtain on stage and asked if they had any plans for it. They told him to just take it.
He had no idea if the dimensions would fit in the Mayer, but the curtain fit perfectly. His technical crew from the Grand rigged it up so it now automatically opens and closes with a push of a button.
Another major change was replacing the old film projectors with a digitized projection system in 2011. The transition was costly but necessary, as all film companies had moved to a digital format.
The result is state-of-the-art picture and sound. “The only thing you need to start a movie is to click a mouse,” he said.
Jerry not only wanted to restore the theater, but improve it. One such upgrade was adding period-appropriate doors inset with half-moon windows.
“The funny thing is we went through all that work, and then we had to close the theater for a whole year because of the pandemic,” Bonnie said. “Are we Norwegian or what?”
Risky business
They survived the pandemic but have found, as have many businesses, it turned Americans into homebodies.
“There’s lots of competition out there. People with their Netflixes and their home theaters,” Bonnie said. “We’re just taking in what we can get.”
Care of an aging building is costly. They’ve replaced the roof twice. Neon repair was done several times. Last summer, they installed a new furnace and air conditioner.
Jerry said his other theaters help keep the Mayer open. They pay a minimum of $250 to rent a movie, but sometimes show movies to one or two people a night.
After much consideration, the Brekkes bumped up their price of admission from $7 to $8 for an adult ticket.
Bonnie wonders aloud if they will get to the point where they'll need to ask the community to sponsor movies, like they’ve done in nearby towns like Mott, North Dakota.
At the same time, they love the community. If there's a technical snafu, moviegoers will wait patiently — or even run up the stairs to see if they can help.
Bonnie smiles as she remembers a young boy recently hesitating to buy the final box of $2 candy from the candy counter after telling her, “I didn’t want to take the last one.”
“They’re so nice around here,” Bonnie said. “They’re very understanding. It’s like they don’t want the theater to have problems.”
And there’s a core group of supporters who try to volunteer and attend movies whenever they can. “Yes, I’m a regular,” said Joanie Conlon, a lifetime resident. “There’s not much for entertainment in a small town, so having the theater is great for Hebron and the surrounding area, for all to enjoy.”
(Not) the last picture show
Last summer, the Sailer family planned a trip to Medora with their grandkids. Nancy contacted the Brekkes in advance to ask if they could stop on their way.
The Brekkes made popcorn and downloaded a vintage Tom and Jerry short for them to watch.
“They absolutely loved it,” Sailer said.
Sailer’s voice thickens with emotion as she recalls the experience. “When I took my grandkids and saw them all sitting in the front row — with that bag of popcorn and watching ‘Tom and Jerry’ — it just touched my heart. I just got teary-eyed. That was my heritage.”
She remains grateful that another family has taken the time to preserve that heritage.
“And then our little angels Jerry and Bonnie bought it, just because he had such wonderful memories of it. They just keep it going for the community. Bless Jerry’s heart … I am so proud of what he has done to that theater.”
Editor's note: This story is the first in a series about vintage theaters in North Dakota and Minnesota. Contact tswift@forumcomm.com if you have a theater you'd like to suggest.
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