Crescent Nickelodeon

314 Main Street,
Peoria, IL 61602

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Crescent Theatre, Main Street, Peoria, ILL., c1909

The Crescent Theatre was destroyed in an explosion on May 3, 1909. The manager was killed, and the projectionist was severely injured. The manager, William Robinson, was also city editor of the Peoria Star. He died from smoke inhalation after remaining in the theater to guide the more than 300 patrons to safety. Remarkably, none of the patrons were injured.

After demolition, the 832 seat Apollo Theatre was built on the site in 1914.

Contributed by Ken McIntyre

Recent comments (view all 2 comments)

CharmaineZoe
CharmaineZoe on November 22, 2015 at 4:33 am

According to the book “Historic Movie Theatres in Illinois, 1883-1960” by Konrad Schiecke (pub.2006) the Crescent had cages of singing canaries that accompanied the sizeable pipe-organ.

tommyhenry
tommyhenry on June 12, 2019 at 4:47 pm

Short blurb from a Fire Engineering web site about the explosion: https://www.fireengineering.com/articles/print/volume-45/issue-19/features/picture-show-explosion-at-peoria.html

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