Historic Desoto Theatre

The DeSoto Theatre is located in downtown Rome. The DeSoto Theatre was the first theater in the southeast to display Sound Movies. The building's exterior and Georgian interior stylishly housed a number of recent movie palace innovations. Designed as a "talkie" theater, it was the first venue in the South to be designed and built for sound pictures. Rome's new house boasted a Vitaphone sound system.

Lam named his new movie palace for Hernando DeSoto, who was thought by many historians to have passed through the area that is now Rome in 1600. Today this theatre seats 498 patrons and it stages dozens of plays year round. It is also one of the venues for the annual Rome International Film Festival.