Detailed Information

The theatre was originally to be called the Palace Theatre however after the Paramount Publix chain of movie theatres stepped-in to provide the $800,000 required to build the theatre, the name was changed to the Paramount.

The 1,700-seat theatre opened mid-August 1929, the opening bill being an address by Sam Katz (President of Paramount Publix), a newsreel, a cartoon “Sidewalks of New York”, all followed by the main feature The Cocoanuts (1929)  starring the Marx brothers.

The theatre building was planned as part of a larger complex, with a seven story hotel and ballroom planned to adjoin the theatre building. The hotel building ended-up being three stories with the ballroom on the third (top) floor.

At its opening the Paramount was equipped with a theatre organ manufactured by the Page Organ Company of Ohio, and it’s now one of only three Page theatre organs still resident in their original location (the others are at the Avalon Theatre on Catalina Island, California; and the Embassy Theatre in Fort Wayne, Indiana). The organ wasn’t intended to accompany films (“the talkies” has started to take hold over silent films the year prior) rather it was featured in organ solo spot sing-a-longs as well as entrance and exit music for movie patrons. The organ was originally a 3-manual instrument with 7 ranks however in 1997 the organ was restored and enlarged to 12 ranks with a total of 966 pipes.

Eberson’s design for the Paramount’s auditorium was that of a Spanish villa or casa. The decoration includes plasterwork statuary, wrought iron gates, torchieres, and hidden cove lighting. The blue sky ceiling contained twinkling stars and had moving clouds projected onto it. The auditorium contains several stuffed birds – a trademark of Eberson’s Atmospheric theatre designs. The birds include peacocks, doves, and pheasants.

The Paramount was remodeled in 1947 but most of the 1929 features of the building remained, apart from the original marquee, which was replaced by one much larger with a two-story vertical sign above it. The original ticket booth was also replaced with one in the Art Moderne style.

The theatre closed in early 1985 and subsequently had a string of owners until it was proposed for demolition, planned to be replaced by a parking lot. Concerned citizens rallied to save the Paramount, coalescing into a preservation group called the Paramount Heritage Foundation. In 1989 Madison County took ownership of the theatre building due to non-payment of property taxes, and subsequently the Paramount Heritage Foundation was given ownership of the theatre.

The first focus for the theatre was restoring utilities including making the building weathertight. In 1991 the theatre was listed on the National Register of Historic Places. In 1995, with basic services and utilities taken care of, the theatre underwent a massive restoration and redevelopment project.

The 1995 restoration saw the theatre’s blue sky ceiling completely repainted. An artist from restoration specialists Conrad Schmitt Studios, Inc.  had seen a beautiful sunset as he looked to the West from his hotel room, and his goal became to duplicate that view in the theatre. The clouds were painted in two-and-a-half days.

The Paramount reopened in mid-August 1995 as a 1,458-seat theatre with performances by Sammy Kaye and the McGuire Sisters. The last seat had been bolted into place in the morning at 11:45am before rehearsals started at 12pm for a 7:30pm sold-out audience.