Kimmel Theatre
213 8th Street,
Cairo,
IL
62914
213 8th Street,
Cairo,
IL
62914
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This 600-seat theatre shared a building located on 8th Street with the much smaller Bijou Theatre. Both theaters opened in 1911. The Kimmel Theatre closed in 1917, and moved to another location on 8th Street (later becoming the Jackson Theatre, and finally, Rogers Theatre when the Rogers Theatres chain took over in June 1921.). The Bijou Theatre survived until 1931. The structure that housed the first Kimmel Theatre and Bijou Theatre was still there with a modified facade in 2022, in use as an Elks building. It had collapsed or razed by 2023.
Contributed by
Bryan Krefft & Ken Roe
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Recent comments (view all 3 comments)
Google Earth shows the Kimmel repurposed as the Elks lodge as recently as 09/2022 - the theater’s pediment, although all the ornamentation was removed, retains its distinctive shape.
The theatre has collasped as shown in google images
Jun 03, 1921: BUYS THREE THEATERS.
Poplar Bluff Man Adds Cairo Playhouses to String.
POPLAR BLUFF, Me., June 2.-I. W. Rodgers of this city has secured control of practically the entire moving picture business in Cairo, Ill., adding three theaters to the string of theaters in Missouri that he now owns. The deal at the neighboring city was consummated with H. B. McFarland, owner of the Tokio Theater at Morehouse. It includes the outright purchase of the Gem Theater, Cairo’s largest moving picture and vaudeville house. Leases standing were secured on the Cairo Opera House, the largest and best legitimate stage house between Memphis and St. Louis, and the Kimmel Theater, the handsomest theater in Southern Illinois. The string of theaters that Mr. Rodgers owns controlling Interest in are the Criterion, at Poplar Bluff; the Cairo Opera House, the Gem Theater, Cairo; the Kimmel Theater, Cairo: the Fraternal, Poplar Bluff; the New Grand, Hope, Ark.; the Dixie and the Liberty, Caruthersville, Mo., and an interest from the co-partnership in Mr. McFarland’s theater in Morehouse, the Tokio. Rodgers is indeed a pioneer in the picture game. He is one of the first three men in the United States who introduced moving pictures 24 years ago.