Ritz Theatre
134 S. Veto Street,
Chenoa,
IL
61726
134 S. Veto Street,
Chenoa,
IL
61726
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The Ritz Theatre has been demolished. Just uploaded a before/after photo from 2009 and 2021. The top image shows the theater sitting vacant along with The Finish Line Sports Bar to its right. The bottom image shows that The Finish Line has replaced the Ritz with a new structure.
In March 1977, the Ritz briefly caused a stir when it began showing X-rated movies. Business was better than it had been in years, but many of the residents were predictably unhappy, and the theater was even the target of an attempted firebombing within days of the new policy. Finally, a local businessman took matters into his own hands by purchasing the theater (in December of that year) and eliminating the X-rated movies.
The Ritz Theatre at Chenoa, Illinois, was listed as a new theater in the May 21, 1936, issue of The Film Daily. The only earlier reference to a specific theater in Chenoa I’ve found in the trade journals is an item in the August 5, 1916, issue of The Moving Picture World saying that “Charles E. Hawkins of Mahornet is remodeling the Rex theater, which he recently purchased from Arch C. Howard.”
The most complete history of movie theaters in Chenoa is from a Centennial history published in 1954, but it’s wording is rather ambiguous. It never explicitly states that the Lyceum and the Ritz were one and the same, but doesn’t say they weren’t. It does say that the Rex was on the site of the Ritz:
In this Bing Maps bird’s eye view, the Ritz Theatre building can be seen on the west side of South Veto Street just north of East Owsley Street.The Ritz Theatre is next door to the Finish Line Sports Bar (134 S. Veto Street) and is on the corner of Veto and East Owsley Street. It currently looks vacant.