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Elmo Theater
516 N. Main Street,
St. Elmo,
IL
62458
2 people
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The Elmo Theater opened in 1941 on Saint Elmo’s Main Street, to replace an earlier theater of the same name on the site which was destroyed by a fire in 1940.
It features a brick, fairly plain facade, but its signage is its real highlight. The triangular marquee, now missing its glass, exposing where the neon tubing once was, featured a large “E” on its front. The vertical sign was L-shaped, reaching up from the top of the marquee towards the facade, with the theater’s name at one time illuminated by neon lights.
The Elmo has been closed as a movie house since 1979. In 2006, the St. Elmo Historical Society began working on the renovation and restoration of the theater.
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Recent comments (view all 7 comments)
There are additional photos on this site:
http://tinyurl.com/2o7jf6
I live in Vandalia and I have worked in plenty of movie theaters….. if you need help with this one my husband and I would like to help out.
This will be such a nice place when it is done….
my email:
Wouldn’t the blaze that destroyed the original theater be called St. Elmo’s Fire? Maybe it was started by Emilio Estevez.
Here are photos from 1982 and 1985:
http://snipurl.com/ha4cz
http://snipurl.com/ha4gb
According to the link jwballer gave, the fire was in the flower shop next door, the theater suffered minor damage at most.
I bet it looked good back in the day.