Paramount Theatre
104 S. Seventh Street,
Wyoming,
IL
104 S. Seventh Street,
Wyoming,
IL
2 people
favorited this theater
Marion Bodwell opened the Paramount Theatre in 1934 in a building in downtown Wyoming that dated to 1881 and had previously housed a bank, a grocery store and a cigar factory. Bodwell added a wonderful Art Deco-style marquee spelling out the theater’s name in elegant, neon-lit lettering, as well as an outdoor ticket booth. The theater sat around 280 and would continue to be a popular feature of Wyoming’s downtown for decades.
The Paramount closed in 1969, several years after Marion Bodwell handed over the operation of the theater to his son Tom. Though the family briefly reopened the Paramount on a limited basis in 1987, it closed once more not long after.
In the late 90s, the Paramount was sold to Barry Sprout and reopened, but closed once more in 2000. This beauty unfortunately remains closed today, and is up for sale.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft
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Recent comments (view all 5 comments)
Here is a 1988 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/crmy25
This is a close-up shot from 1988.
Here is a 2009 photo.
For a long tiome it siad now playing Gone With the Wind on the marquee.
The lawn mower shop is actaully in what was an ice cream stand next to the theatre that also doubled as the theatre concessoon stand. Non theatre patrons could get refeshments with oiut entering the theatre when it was in operation.
The seats from the theatre are in a vacnt store front a couple of doors down from the theatre. A few years ago someone bought the place and started working on fixing it up even had volunteer work days to get local people to help but they ran out of money before it was done. from what I undertand a lot of major structural work was done before they ran out of funds.
Pictured in this 1937 trade report: Boxoffice