Red Bud Theatre
116 East South 1st Street,
Red Bud,
IL
62278
116 East South 1st Street,
Red Bud,
IL
62278
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This theater was replaced by a cheap and tacky masonic building. It was just around the corner from the earlier theater, so was probably the same owner as the old one.
I’ve created a listing for another theater. I do not see an airdome on the April 1910 map, and there is only one theater (the same) on the 1921 and 1932 maps. The opera house appears on the 1910 map, but probably wasn’t showing movies, and it had closed by 1921. Not sure where the second theater was, or what the name of the one that does appear on the maps was.
There were two Red Bud theatres. The first theatre opened circa 1914 and closed when the new Red Bud theatre listed on this page opened at the address above. I have no address for the earlier Red Bud theatre.
A house called the Red Bud Theatre is mentioned in the theater trade journals at least as early as 1918. In the 1927 FDY it was listed with 200 seats, but in 1932 it was listed as closed, with 400 seats.
At least as early as 1911 Red Bud had a movie house called the Martin Airdome, operated by a J. H. Martin. A 1923 reference to a Martin Theatre in Red Bud names the new operator as a Sam Bradley, but makes no reference to it being an airdome, so it might have been enclosed at some point.
As Red Bud had at least two movie theaters in the 1920s, the fluctuation in the seating capacity of the Red Bud Theatre might have been the result of the name being moved from one house to the other.