Chichester's Opera House

The village of Brimfield had an opera house fairly common in a town of around 700 people in the 1890s. It was a second floor venue leased at a handshake above one of the town’s two hardware stores of the era. The venue was used as a skating rink, a dance hall, and - most of all - a live event house. Seating was cramped and there was no raked floor making sight lines challenging.

Harry E. Chichester, local farmer and farm implement salesperson, took on the programming and the venue’s name became Chichester’s Opera House. His biggest innovation was bringing moving pictures to Brimfield. The venue had a single projector leading to delays between reels but patrons didn’t seem to mind. The Opera House even scored the Paramount Films exhibition contract during World War I. The village’s proximity to Peoria - about 20 miles away - likely helped in this notable contract.

The Paramount contract made it easier to acquire product as the Opera House was required in such a “block booking” contract to play all of the Paramount features and short subjects. This was preferable to traveling to Chicago and Peoria to get product for such a small theatre. And with film operation just two days a week - there would be enough new product year-round in Brimfield.

With the contract came controversy as the hardware store was aware of the dealings and it wanted its own hard contract with a lease and monthly payments. The math didn’t add up as the Opera House would be a money loser for sure. According to all reports of the day, this made the “entire town” quite “angry.” They banded together - including 265 of the now fewer than 600 residents in 1917 - to buy stock in a new Community Building that would house the opera house and be a memorial to all Brimfield citizens lost and to be lost during World War I.

That building was built in 1918. The Community Theatre within the complex was completed and opened in April of 1919. Chichester’s Opera House vacated the second floor opera house immediately and the movie projector was moved. It’s not clear if the former opera house space was ever recaptured for other usage - fairly unlikely - and the building has since been razed. Take that, hardware store!

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