The Rex Theater with 420 seats and ornate decorative terracotta opened in February 1917 as the state’s first major theater, hosting traveling vaudeville performances and silent films. After 94 years of use and surviving a name change to the Romance Theater in 1935, the Great Depression, and the Teton Flood in 1976, the theater closed. The City of Rexburg, after purchasing the Theater in 2005, has invested more than $175,000 into the restoration of the building and plans to reopen the Romance Theater as a center of cultural arts and community entertainment.