Isis Theater

The Isis Theater is best known as the theater where Carl Stalling met Walt Disney. At Isis, Stalling played the organ to accompany silent films. While Disney illustrated commercial slides for the theatre. Walt Disney later recruited him to be Disney’s first musical director where he composed 19 or the first 20 Disney cartoons. Eventually, the two went their separate ways. Stalling went to Warner Brothers and Disney to own his own production company.[1]

Opened August 21, 1918 at the southwest corner of E. 31st and Troost Avenue, the Isis Theater was considered in the “suburbs.” It featured first-run films and in the 1920s, newspapers advertised the theater as “irresistible.”[2] It was designed in the Egyptian style and located in the impressive Wirthman Building which housed a drug store, shops, and other businesses. Unfortunately, the Isis was damaged by three major fires in January 1928, March 1939, and April 1954.[3] Despite the damage caused by the fires, the theater continued showing first-run movies until 1968. That year they switched to showing adult movies. At this time, crime was increasing in the neighborhood and the theater was robbed multiple times. Finally, on May 2nd, 1970, the theater closed permanently. Then, in 1997 the Wirthman Building, which housed the defunct theater, was demolished.[4] Although no longer standing, the Isis Theater continues to exist in community memory. 

[1] Brian Burnes, Dan Viets, and Robert W. Butler, Walt Disney's Missouri: The Roots of a Creative Genius, 10.

[2] Mary Jo Draper, Kansas City's Historic Midtown Neighborhoods, 104.

[3] Draper, Kansas City's Historic Midtown Neighborhoods, 104.

[4] Draper, 105.

Content Provided by

Hunter Albright, student at the University of Missouri Kansas City as part of Dr. Sandra Enriquez’s Urban History Class.