Vermont Theatre

The town of Vermont, Illinois had three different theatres on Main Street. The Vermont Opera House was opened by 1914 when it was screening movies. It later became part of the Dale Kennedy circuit of 21-small town movie houses when was reopened as the Vermont Theatre screening lower cost 16mm films in 1940. Theatres in nearby Table Grove (just about five miles away), Astoria (8 miles away), and Blandinsville appear to be in that circuit. The 362 seat count auditorium was certainly enough to handle the traffic of Vermont, Table Grove and Ipava.

The 16mm operation appears to have failed fairly quickly and the theatre appears to have been equipped with or switched back to 35mm projection. And it out survived the Table Grove Theatre (ceasing operations in 1947). Like many small-town theatres, the Vermont Theatre scuffled in the TV age. Local businesses banded together to reopen the venue under the operation of K.C. Kessler in May of 1954. Shoppers could obtain free movie passes to attend films. But that failed and the theatre closed permanently in January of 1955.

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