Vogue Theatre

622 Broadway Street,
Lincoln, IL 62656

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Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on August 27, 2025 at 12:35 pm

There was a movie theater shown at this address on the October, 1914 Sanborn map of Lincoln, and as a house called the Star is listed in the 1914-1915 AMPD, I suspect this was it, and we have the opening year wrong. This house was on the ground floor of the building housing the Knights of Pythias lodge hall upstairs.

I’ve been trying to track down information about a movie house called the X-Ray Theatre, operating in Lincoln in 1911 and 1912, and suspect that it might have occupied this space before the Star. The January 28, 1911 issue of The Film Index had this item:

“X-RAY PHOTOPLAY THEATRE MOVES.

“The X-Ray theatre, owned by Meyer & Osterman, who have been operating a motion picture show on West Broadway, Lincoln, Ill., have closed a lease for the Bates room, on Broadway, near Kickapoo street, formerly occupied by the Racket store. Work has already commenced on repairs, which will be rushed so the new occupants of the room can take possession about Jan. 20. A new steel ceiling will be placed, the room repapered and painted, the floor raised and a new entrance built, so the room will be up to date and equal to any in the city. With the moving of the X-Ray closer to the square the owners anticipate a large increase of business.”

The October, 1914 Sanborn doesn’t show any other theaters but this one on Broadway near Kickapoo Street, but the October, 1909 Sanborn, shows a confectionery in the later theater space, not Racket store (which was apparently a kind of variety store.) It should also be noted that there were several suitable store buildings closer to Kickapoo Street which could have housed the X-Ray, but in the absence of any maps or other sources from between 1909 and 1914, I can’t say for sure that the Star/Vogue building ever housed the X-Ray Theatre, but it’s an interesting possibility.

Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on August 31, 2021 at 11:37 pm

A house called the Star Theatre was one of the five movie houses listed at Lincoln in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. As the Directory doesn’t provide its address, I can’t be positive that it was the same theater that later became the Vogue.

MichaelKilgore
MichaelKilgore on August 30, 2021 at 12:47 pm

The Pantagraph (Bloomington IL), Jan. 18, 1949: “Purchase of the Vogue theater by Steve Bennis was announced Monday (17). M. A. Kirkhart who had owned the Vogue for the past 10 years has purchased a bowling alley in Taylorville and Mr. Bennis will be given possession March 1. Bennis who also owns the Lincoln and Grand theaters plans to continue operation of the theater.”

MichaelKilgore
MichaelKilgore on June 23, 2021 at 6:25 pm

(Decatur IL) Herald and Review, Jan. 3, 1939: “LINCOLN - The Reinheimer Amusement Co. of Chicago Friday announced the sale of the Vogue theater, 622 Broadway, to M. A. Kirkhart of Litchfield. Dillon Kelly, present manager of the theater of the theater, will be transferred to Chicago as manager of the Parkway theater. Mr. Kirkhart, a former employe of the Frisina Amusement Co. and Litchfield theater manager, will move to Lincoln with his family. The change in ownership will become effective Jan. 1.”

kencmcintyre
kencmcintyre on December 18, 2008 at 5:06 pm

This is a 1943 photo. It looks like the marquee was reworked in the ten years before the photo immediately above.
http://tinyurl.com/4n3ooh