Marshall Public Library (Marshall, IL)

Class of 1979

Strand Theater
The building at 503-507 Locust Street that housed the Strand Theater was built in 1901 as the Knights of Pythius lodge hall and included a vaudeville theater called the Pythian Theater that featured visiting troupes of entertainers. The lodge was on the upper two floors. The ground floor theater entrance and lobby faced Locust Street and was flanked on each side by offices. The auditorium, balcony, and stage were at the back of the building facing south. In 1930 the theater was converted in order to show moving pictures, and a contest was held in 1943 to choose a new name. The Strand was the winner. The first movies that were shown were silent. Several local pianists including Helen Coldren (later Helen Moore) were employed to play along with the films.
The building housing the Strand Theater was destroyed by fire late at night on July 22, 1957, and a new K P Lodge building, minus the movie theater, was erected on the same corner a year later.

Burned Courthouse shell – A fire in the courthouse was discovered at 3:00 a.m. on December 31, 1902, by Officer Howard Handley and Mr. Allison, a night clerk at the Marshall House. They believed it must have been smoldering for several hours. The main theory about the source of the fire was that a meeting had been held in a room on the second floor the evening before, and it was believed that a cigarette or stub might have been mislaid. The roof and the floor and contents of the second story were completely destroyed, but the record books and most of the contents of the first floor were carried out of the building by volunteers and taken to several other buildings for safety.
Following the fire office space was rented in the Pythian Theater building and the Clark County Bank until a new courthouse could be built. This picture shows the remaining shell of the 1888 courthouse looking from south to north. The house in the background on the left is now the site of a laundromat and the building on the right was Grabenheimer’s (recently Tatum's).