Fort Armstrong Theatre is a historic building located in downtown

Rock Island, Illinois Rock Island is a city in and the county seat of Rock Island County, Illinois, Rock Island County, Illinois, United States. The original Rock Island, from which the city name is derived, is now called Rock Island Arsenal, Arsenal Island. The popul ...

, United States. It opened in 1920 and it was individually listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the United States federal government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures and objects deemed worthy of preservation for their historical significance or "great artistic v ...

in 1980. In 2020 it was included as a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic distri ...

in the Downtown Rock Island Historic District. It was commonly referred to as the Fort Theater. The theater was named for

Fort Armstrong A fortification is a military construction or building designed for the defense of territories in warfare, and is also used to establish rule in a region during peacetime. The term is derived from Latin ''fortis'' ("strong") and ''facere'' ...

, a fortification that sat in the middle of the

Mississippi River The Mississippi River is the second-longest river and chief river of the second-largest drainage system in North America, second only to the Hudson Bay drainage system. From its traditional source of Lake Itasca in northern Minnesota, it f ...

near the present location of the

Rock Island Arsenal The Rock Island Arsenal comprises , located on Arsenal Island, originally known as Rock Island, on the Mississippi River between the cities of Davenport, Iowa, and Rock Island, Illinois. It lies within the state of Illinois. Rock Island ...

History

The Fort Armstrong Theatre opened on January 19, 1921. ''Midsummer Madness'', a silent movie by

William C. deMille William Churchill deMille (July 25, 1878 – March 5, 1955), also spelled de Mille or De Mille, was an American screenwriter and film director from the silent film era through the early 1930s. He was also a noted playwright prior to moving into ...

, played opening night. A ten-piece orchestra accompanied the film, and there were other musical and comedic presentations.

Lila Lee Lila Lee (born Augusta Wilhelmena Fredericka Appel; July 25, 1905 – November 13, 1973) was a prominent screen actress, primarily a leading lady, of the silent film and early sound film eras. Early life The daughter of Augusta Fredericka Appe ...

, who starred in the movie made a personal appearance. Congratulatory telegrams were received from

Paramount Pictures Paramount Pictures Corporation is an American film and television production company, production and Distribution (marketing), distribution company and the main namesake division of Paramount Global (formerly ViacomCBS). It is the fifth-oldes ...

President

Adolf Zukor Adolph Zukor (; hu, Zukor Adolf; January 7, 1873 – June 10, 1976) was a Hungarian-American film producer best known as one of the three founders of Paramount Pictures.Obituary ''Variety'' (June 16, 1976), p. 76. He produced one of America's ...

Cecil B. DeMille Cecil Blount DeMille (; August 12, 1881January 21, 1959) was an American film director, producer and actor. Between 1914 and 1958, he made 70 features, both silent and sound films. He is acknowledged as a founding father of the American cinem ...

, and comedian Roscoe “Fatty” Arbuckle. Adult admission on opening night was 36 cents, plus four cents tax, and a child's admission was 20 cents. The theater was originally owned by Rosenfield, Hopp and Company. In 1976, the theater was purchased by Denny Hitchcock and remodeled. It reopened in 1977 as the Circa 21 Playhouse, a dinner theater. In 1977, the building was listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

Architecture

The theater was designed by the Rock Island architectural firm of Cervin & Horn and the

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

firm of Brawn & Ermling. It is a three-story

Art Deco Art Deco, short for the French ''Arts Décoratifs'', and sometimes just called Deco, is a style of visual arts, architecture, and product design, that first appeared in France in the 1910s (just before World War I), and flourished in the Unite ...

style building. The exterior of the structure is faced in Indian red brick and polychrome

terra cotta Terracotta, terra cotta, or terra-cotta (; ; ), in its material sense as an earthenware substrate, is a clay-based unglazed or glazed ceramic where the fired body is porous. In applied art, craft, construction, and architecture, terracotta ...

. The terra cotta was designed specifically for the theater by Rudolph Sandberg and produced by the Midland Terra Cotta Company of Chicago. The

façade A façade () (also written facade) is generally the front part or exterior of a building. It is a Loanword, loan word from the French language, French (), which means 'frontage' or 'face'. In architecture, the façade of a building is often t ...

features a curved northeast corner, tympanum-like areas above each window, and terra cotta decorations in Illinois and Native American themes. Ivory is the main color for the terra cotta frame and it incorporates details in yellow, bright blue, green, and brick red. The marquee is a replica of the original. The original seating capacity of the main auditorium was 1,566. It featured five sections of seats and four aisles. The stage is deep. The ornamentation on the

proscenium arch A proscenium ( grc-gre, προσκήνιον, ) is the metaphorical vertical plane of space in a theatre, usually surrounded on the top and sides by a physical proscenium arch (whether or not truly "arched") and on the bottom by the stage floor ...

features spiral columns and Native American motifs. There are three large Indian heads at the extremities of the arch.

References

{{NRHP in Rock Island County, Illinois Theatres completed in 1920 Art Deco architecture in Illinois Buildings and structures in Rock Island, Illinois National Register of Historic Places in Rock Island County, Illinois Theatres on the National Register of Historic Places in Illinois Movie palaces Culture of the Quad Cities Tourist attractions in Rock Island, Illinois 1920 establishments in Illinois Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in Illinois

History

Architecture

See also

References