A Gem Long Forgotten

In historic downtown Cairo, IL (pronounced care-oh) is a weathered old building, a Gem long forgotten by the community and time! The Gem is a theater that sits eerily quiet and abandoned on 8th street. There are no cheers or applause from happy crowds, no smells of fresh buttered popcorn. Just a long abandoned, empty shell of what it once what was.

At the very Southern end of Illinois one will find a town with quite a past. Cairo has quite the storied past. The town tells it all from famous people such as mark twain, steam boats and even major racism and murder. Through it all, the one thing this town had plenty of was theaters. It had the Opera House (very nice place) that opened in 1881 with seating up to 1256 on Commercial a block over. The Opera House burned Feb. 7th 1947.

The Gem Theater opened to the public in October of 1910 with a seating capacity of 685. For it’s first opening act, it featured that of of singing and dancing ladies as well as a few photoplays. The newly built Gem was on borrowed time sadly enough. The Gem caught fire and burned. A new theater was built in it’s shell (I have read other theories about this tale) to the tune of upwards of $200,000. It is said in 1934 another fire broke out and once again the Gem burned. The fire is said to have started in a dressing room. Others tell the tale of it starting in the furnace room. This time the theater would be rebuilt once again in art deco style with seating for around 900. The theater reopened in 1936.

Here is a quick comment I read on a website http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/2668/comments

Joe Vogel on May 8, 2010 at 3:17 am

An article in Boxoffice of January 16, 1967, gives a somewhat different history of the Gem than that currently presented here. According to Bill Griffin (the subject of the article, and former assistant manager of the old Gem and manager of its replacement) the original Gem did not burn down, but was demolished to make way for the new Gem. It was the new Gem which suffered the fire.

Although the Box-office item says that Griffin watched “…the beautiful new Gem Theatre burn to the ground,” the façade that survives today doesn’t look like anything that would have been put up in the 1930s. My guess would be that the fire only gutted the theater and it was rebuilt within the old walls. Griffin arrived in Cairo in December, 1926, so the original Gem was demolished after that. My guess, judging from the architectural style of the newer building, is that the ill-fated second Gem was built in the late 1920s.

Gem Theatre. Cinema Treasures. (n.d.). Retrieved November 16, 2022, from http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/2668/comments

The Gem Theaters Fate Was Sealed

The Gem had ran it’s course in town and shuttered in 1978 for good. The building sat vacant for some time. A video rental business moved in and operated out of the lobby of the Gem Theater. After the video sores closure, the building was donated to the city of Cairo. This is where things go from bad to worse for the theater. The city had good intentions of reopening the theater and use it for movies as well as cultural arts, but….

What really happened to the Theater?

Around 96 work began on the theater assisted by the Peace Corps. At this point in time, the lobby was remodeled, the roof was replaced and the marquee was restored. The lobby was proudly shown to the public after it was restored during a local festival. As I write this I feel the need to insert my Opinion disclaimer. It is of my opinion, that this was a money grab by corrupt local politicians. I stand corrected if I am wrong but look at what happened down town and I don’t believe that I am.

The federal government gave through a grant, $436,000 via EDA to the city of Cairo. Half of that was supposed to go to the theater. The state kicked in cash for the theaters stage and the city itself kicked in upwards of $70k . Suddenly the resto is put on hold in the 2000’s. Oddly enough, the downtown got some beautiful sidewalk lighting installed around all the dilapidated buildings that needed torn down.

Serious help is needed

Serious help is needed for a gem long forgotten but sadly enough it has ran out of time. This building is slated to be torn down as it is in serious disrepair. You can see various pictures and videos online as well as pictures of a tree busting through the wall. Through the course of time, major damage done by vandals as well as weather and time.

Then

And Now