Over the last weekend, I visited the historic but closed Columbia Theatre in Paducah, Kentucky, with a small group of local historians and talented photographers. Developed by Leo F. Keiler, the 2,000-seat Columbia Theatre opened on April 18, 1927. The elaborately designed facility featured Palladian, Moorish, and Greek architecture with a facade of blue and white terra cotta tiles that included spiraled Byzantine-style columns, classical urns, busts of Greek goddesses, a name sign illuminated with 5,000 lights, and a marquee lit with 2,000 varicolored globes. Inside, the theater was furnished in fashionable shades of green, pink, tan, and blue, the woodwork finished in an antique grey, and the columns and ornaments outlined in gold leaf. The walls were adorned with Kentucky nature scenes, while the ceiling contained an art glass installation. Four thousand patrons attended two evening performances that were capped with Elinor Glyn’s feature motion picture “It,” which starred Clara Bow and Antonio Moreno. The Columbia was extensively remodeled with steel and bronze decorative sconces and framing and reopened to crowds on August 14, 1952. A second screen was created by enclosing the balcony, which opened on January 29, 1976. In 1982, the Kentucky Oaks Mall opened on the outskirts of Paducah, which included the construction of a ten-screen multiplex theater. Facing a projected $50,000 loss, owner Jack Keiler closed the Columbia Theatre in 1987. The first step towards the restoration of the theater came in 2004 when the facility was donated to the city by the Keller family, which…
Tag: Theater
The first impressions of the historic Proctor’s Palace Theatre included several floors of debris, seats, and metalwork piled high, stairs that had devolved into ramps devised out of plater and asbestos, and dingy darkness. But the second tier offered views of the theater’s mammoth size and its remarkable, intact features, such as the balconies, orchestra pit, and extensive stenciling.
From the window of my hotel room in Beckley, I could see the leaves billowing down the street among a fine rain punctuated by dark, gloomy skies. It was perfect road trip weather,