&sq=Facebook&lang=en&file=File:Bijou-theater-lamar-house-tn1.jpg) Exterior view of the theatre (c.2010) | |
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| Former names | Wells Auditorium (planning/construction) Wells Bijou Theatre (1909-35) Bijou Art Theatre (1935-75) |
|---|---|
| Address | 803 S Gay St Knoxville, TN 37902-1711 |
| Location | Downtown Knoxville |
| Coordinates | 35°57′44″N 83°55′0″W / 35.96222°N 83.91667°W |
| Owner | Bijou Theatre Foundation |
| Operator | AC Entertainment |
| Capacity | 757 |
| Construction | |
| Broke ground | May 1908 |
| Opened | March 8, 1909 |
| Closed | 1975-2005 |
| Construction cost | $150,000 ($5.09 million in 2023 dollars[1]) |
| Architect | Oakley of Montgomery |
| General contractor | Thomas and Turner, Inc. |
| Website | |
| Venue Website | |
Lamar House Hotel-Bijou Theatre | |
| Built | 1817, 1909 |
| Architectural style | Federal; Georgian |
| NRHP reference No. | 75001763 |
| Added to NRHP | December 4, 1975 |
The Bijou Theatre is a theater located in Knoxville, Tennessee, United States. Built in 1909 as an addition to the Lamar House Hotel, the theater has at various times served as performance venue for traditional theatre, vaudeville, a second-run moviehouse, a commencement stage for the city's African-American high school, and a pornographic movie theater. The Lamar House Hotel, in which the theater was constructed, was originally built in 1817, and modified in the 1850s. The building and theater were added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1975.[2]
The Lamar House Hotel was built by Irish immigrant Thomas Humes (1767–1816) and his descendants, and quickly developed into a gathering place for Knoxville's wealthy. In 1819, Andrew Jackson became the first of five presidents to lodge at the hotel, and in the early 1850s, local businessmen purchased and expanded the building into a lavish 75-room complex.[2] During the Civil War, the Union Army used the hotel as a hospital for its war wounded, among them General William P. Sanders, who died at the hotel in 1863. Following the war, the hotel became the center of Knoxville's Gilded Age extravagance, hosting lavish masquerade balls for the city's elite.[2][3]
In 1909, the rear wing of the building was replaced by the Bijou Theatre structure, entered through a new lobby cut through the hotel building from Gay Street. The theater opened on March 8, 1909, and over the next four decades would host performers such as the Marx Brothers, Dizzy Gillespie, John Philip Sousa, the Ballets Russes, Ethel Barrymore, Alfred Lunt and Lynn Fontanne, John Cullum, and Houdini. After a period of decline in the 1960s and early 1970s, local preservationists purchased the building and renovated the theater.[2]
- ^ 1634–1699: McCusker, J. J. (1997). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States: Addenda et Corrigenda (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1700–1799: McCusker, J. J. (1992). How Much Is That in Real Money? A Historical Price Index for Use as a Deflator of Money Values in the Economy of the United States (PDF). American Antiquarian Society. 1800–present: Federal Reserve Bank of Minneapolis. "Consumer Price Index (estimate) 1800–". Retrieved February 29, 2024.
- ^ a b c d Dean Novelli, "On a Corner of Gay Street: A History of the Lamar House—Bijou Theater, Knoxville, Tennessee, 1817 – 1985." East Tennessee Historical Society Publications, Vol. 56 (1984), pp. 3-45.
- ^ Knoxville: Fifty Landmarks. (Knoxville: The Knoxville Heritage Committee of the Junior League of Knoxville, 1976), p. 15.