The long-closed and empty (as of 2021) Lyric Theater opened as a one-screen movie theater in 1909 in Ellendale, a small town near the South Dakota border in the southestern corner of North Dakota. According to the Coleman Memorial Museum Web site, early films at the theater "were projected from a hand-cranked machine called a motiograph. They typically lasted for about an hour and came on ten-minute reels. The frequent intermissions gave the opportunity for live piano music and vocal accompanists, who also often performed during the films." Photo by Carol Highsmith, 2021