A beloved fixture in downtown Taylor, the Howard Theatre traces its roots to the city’s early days of moviegoing. The current theater opened as the Rita Theatre in 1940 and became the Howard in 1959, carrying forward the name of an earlier theater located across Main Street. After decades of entertaining local audiences and a recent period of closure, community supporters rallied to revive the historic cinema. Today, the Howard is once again showing movies and welcoming audiences beneath its distinctive neon marquee.