Castle Theatre

The Castle Theatre was a silent era movie house in downtown Havana, Illinois whose roots dated back to the nickelodeon era. Its operational cycle all but ended when the Lawford Theatre made the transition to sound in June of 1929 and the Castle Theatre did not.

In the early-1900’s, Havana’s residents could pay a nickel for moving pictures at a variety of short-lived venues reported in the local newspaper and trade press that included the Dreamland, the Square, the Palace, the Crystal, the Varsity, and Dick Diamond’s Castle Theatre. But when the fancy Pullen Opera House pivoted to the Lawford Theatre, it decided movies were the place to be. That programmatic change wiped the nickelodeons. The Castle Theatre, in fact, appears to be the only nickelodeon-era house to have a meaningful run in the Lawford Theatre’s shadow.

The Diamond Theatre had two locations. Dick Diamond had moved to the “new” Diamond Theatre in 1914 at 306 West Main Street. Because the Lawford Theatre had entered the movie space in 1915, the Castle Theatre added an addition in 1916. Seating was increased to 400. From 1925 to 1927, an extensive number bookings were reported by manager William A. Clark when his Clark Enterprises began reporting box office performance.

Clark Enterprises was unable to make the conversion to sound in the late-1920’s and likely folded at the expiry of a 15-year leasing agreement. In 1930, the Castle Theatre was renamed as the Havana Theatre but it was only used for sporadic live events and under the aegis of the Lawford Theatre.

It is assumed that when Kerasotes Brothers Circuit took on the Lawford Theatre that it inherited the closed Havana Theatre. Kerasotes Circuit created a “new” Havana Theatre in an existing building a block away opening on Christmas Day 1936 that has a Cinema Treasure listing under its final name of the Kaye Theatre.

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