Empire Theatre
327 Court Street,
Pekin,
IL
61554
327 Court Street,
Pekin,
IL
61554
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Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 2 comments)
According to my mother’s memories the Empire was the theater in Pekin that mainly showed b westerns like Roy Rogers and Gene Autrey. A 1949 history of Pekin has an ad for the Empire Pekin and Rialto theaters in Pekin.
I believe that this is the theater ad that Paladin referred to.
On this page of the same book begins a brief history of Pekin’s theaters. It says that the first Empire Theatre was built in the 1850s on the same site as the later Empire theater. The original was a second-floor house above a dry goods store. After the Turner Opera House was built in 1890, the Empire declined and was eventually converted into a movie house.
The book indicates that the Empire Theatre that was operating in 1949 had replaced the original building, but doesn’t say when that happened.