Scrap Metal Drive, 1943

The Rowena Theater held a scrap metal drive during World War II, offering a free movie to children who brought donations

New military equipment, including ships, tanks, planes, and weapons, required massive amounts of metal. While metal was being rationed, people were encouraged to recycle their excess metal items at scrap drives. Individuals and organizations organized these drives in their towns across the country. Joe and Alice Woods offered a free movie at the Rowena Theater to children who donated their scrap metal.

In 1932, the building at 81 West Boston Street was purchased by Joe and Alice Woods, who named their theater “Rowena,” after Joe’s mother. The Rowena was designed to be the most elegant in town. In the early days, Joe Woods operated the projector and Alice sold the tickets. Alice Woods recalled in later years that many prominent guests of the San Marcos Hotel came to see movies there. She told the Phoenix Gazette in 1984, “back then they actually dressed up in tuxedoes and gowns to dine at the San Marcos. Then afterward they would all parade down to the Rowena. My husband would have the loge in the back roped off so that it would be reserved for them.”

Among the guests were actors Errol Flynn, Clark Gable, baseball commissioner Kennesaw Landis, boxer Gene Tunney, and artist Fritz Werner. For a time, architect Frank Lloyd Wright and his students were regulars. Alice recalled, “I remember them going to the Rowena Theater and my husband would say, ‘Oh yes, that tall man with the beanie on his head and all his boys with the beanies on their heads were at the theater today.’” Some Chandler residents remember sitting in the Rowena on December 7, 1941, when the lights came on and the bombing of Pearl Harbor was announced.

The Woods family closed the Rowena in 1960 and focused their attention on the Parkway Theater on San Marcos Place. Since the Rowena Theater the building has housed businesses include Rasco Department Store, diSciacca, and Sasha’s Kitchen and Cocktails.