The Ioka Theatre and Mayer Building
The Mayer Building on Water Street preserves the setting of a new form of entertainment that arrived in Exeter during the early twentieth century. Built in 1915 for the Ioka Theatre, it brought a purpose-built moving-picture venue to the commercial heart of town. The building’s name and surviving IOKA lettering recall that original role.
Judge Edward Mayer announced the project in January 1915, promising a theater equipped for motion pictures. Its construction placed Exeter within the expanding world of cinema, when audiences increasingly gathered to watch stories unfold on a screen. The theater opened that November.
Its early programming also reveals a troubling chapter in American popular culture. The Ioka screened The Birth of a Nation, a film that glorified the Ku Klux Klan and promoted racist portrayals of African Americans. According to the Exeter Historical Society, the local engagement was advertised by two riders wearing Klan costumes. While the NAACP protested the film in major cities, the local newspaper account recorded no comparable objections in Exeter.
The venture soon encountered financial difficulties. By March 1916, the theater was bankrupt, and Mayer had left town to avoid creditors. Despite that unstable beginning, the Ioka continued beyond its founder’s involvement and became an enduring downtown landmark.
The building’s tan brick and restrained Colonial Revival ornament distinguish it from Water Street’s more elaborate Victorian blocks. Its history adds another dimension to Exeter’s downtown: the rise of commercial entertainment and the ability of motion pictures to bring people together.
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