When built, the People's Theatre was the largest motion picture theater on the island outside of Hilo, and the first to accommodate talkies. Its six-hundred-seat auditorium included canec walls and a thirty-foot-high paneled ceiling. It was one of three motion picture theaters in town; the other two were located at 45-3551 Mamane Street and 45-3610 Mamane Street. This building added another attraction to solidify Honokaa's role as the commercial and social hub in the Hamakua district. The theater closed briefly in the late 1980s, but reopened in 1992. Jitsuo Tanimoto built four rural theaters on the island of Hawaii, including the Aloha Theatre in Kainaliu (HA11).