The Gillioz Theater Restoration
- Madison Huffman
- 9 hours ago
- 14 min read
At the metaphorical crossroads of Route 66 and the Art Deco stylings of the 1920s, The Gillioz Theater is fondly remembered for its stunning craftsmanship and slice of history in an ever-changing community. The Gillioz brought the glitz and glamor of Hollywood to the center of Springfield when it opened on Park Central East in October 1926, living up to its opening day sobriquet “Theatre Beautiful.”
This coming fall will be the 99th year since the theater’s initial opening. The theater closed in 1980 and remained unused until 1990. It reopened in 2006 after 16 years and nearly $10 million of restorations. The reopening was marked with a week of events called Encore 2006.
The theater’s history is a long one, and one connected to how Springfield entertained itself and engaged with the arts. Today, the Gillioz is a 501(c)(3) non-profit theater hosting matinees, musicians, panel discussions, and history tours. Beginning as the Gillioz “Theatre Beautiful” to meet the entertainment needs of Springfieldians, now the Gillioz Center for Arts & Entertainment has the mission of “preserving the past, celebrating community, and making memories through art, education, entertainment, and advocacy.” Language from an ad that announced the theater’s opening in 1926 was re-run in the Springfield News-Leader in 2007 to celebrate one year of new operation. It holds the sentiment that kept the theater in people’s minds, and ultimately, drove the effort for its preservation and restoration:
The Gillioz Theater serves two purposes. First, to make Springfield proud of it; second, to serve the public. The Gillioz, without undue modesty, is proud of itself. Proud of its dazzling splendor, proud of its affiliations to secure the finest pictures and stage attractions. Proud to be located in Springfield, but proudest of all when Springfield is proud of it.
Have Your Tickets Ready!
M.E. Gillioz of Monett, Missouri was known for his commitment to the community. Establishing a construction company and a bank, and building movie theaters in both Joplin and Monett, Gillioz headquartered his business in his hometown. A tribute written by friend Albert R. Waters in Gillioz’s memory attests to his determination: “I am sure the M stands for Maurice. I do not know what the E stands for, but it ought to be Energy. If the G did not stand for Gillioz it could stand for Guts…”
The Gillioz Construction Company’s expertise was in bridges. So when the Gillioz Theater of Springfield was built in 1926, no wood was used aside from the doors and handrails. Built to stand for the entirety of the 100-year lease on the land, M.E. Gillioz built the structure as strong as a bridge. When costs were estimated for the restoration of the Gillioz Theater, consultants said that it would cost just as much money to tear down as it would to restore the theater to its original luster.
At 6 p.m. on October 11, 1926, the lobby doors opened under a marquee advertising the film Take It From Me starring Reginald Denny alongside a “deluxe stage show orchestra” conducted by Marvin Niles. Theater-goers lined the streets by the thousands, extending all the way to Park Central Square in one direction, and around Jefferson and onto Olive in the other. Finally, after securing a ticket at the box office and walking through the red double doors, the people of Springfield saw the stunning foyer of the Gillioz for the first time. Bouquets of flowers, sent to management in congratulations, lined the walls, complementing the turquoise, bronze, and gold of the outer lobby. The high ceiling revealed a balcony on the mezzanine floor above, letting guests below catch a glimpse of the more finely decorated inner lobby. Like a good show should, the Gillioz pulled its guests right in.
From the seminal work on the Gillioz and its history, The Gillioz “Theatre Beautiful,” James S. Baumlin writes the inner lobby was outfitted in maroon carpeting leading up a staircase to the mezzanine floor. Just before the stairs, a rotunda opened in the ceiling where guests would look up and see a chandelier and ornate molding. Baumlin continues, “Perfect for people watching, the mezzanine balcony overlooked the long outer foyer, while the mezzanine rotunda looked down upon the first floor inner lobby. Matching wrought-iron balustrades ran along the staircase, balcony, and rotunda.” The Gillioz Theater was built in a Spanish Colonial Revival style that was popular at the time. The style is characterized by ornate details in plaster and wrought iron, rounded archways, carvings, and spiral columns, all of which are easily spotted throughout the Gillioz.
Ready for the main attraction, patrons would enter the theater through the orchestra foyer, a smaller space to divide the standing-room lobbies from the theater room itself. “Architecturally the best came last, as the Spanish-inspired red, blue, and gold-gilt auditorium was meant to awe,” Baumlin describes. “The proscenium arch surrounding the stage dazzled with its riot of floral moldings and medallions. Flanking the shallow proscenium were pairs of gilt arcades with double arches and plaster grilles, behind which stood the theater’s organ pipes.” Ushers in tuxedo-style uniforms led guests to their seats to wait comfortably for the show to start.
As the lights turned down and the curtain lifted, the golden age of film began.
The Curtain Rises
The Gillioz was known as a legitimate and combination theater, with “legitimate theater” being the term for stage acts and live theater. From the start, the Gillioz put on both stage shows and films. The demand for movies and the high costs of producing live shows encouraged the Gillioz to solely show movies by the 1950s, causing the Gillioz to lose its legitimate theater status, though Springfieldians did not seem to mind it at the time.
In 1941, the Gillioz and select theaters in the surrounding Ozarks were granted an early showing of Shepherd of the Hills starring Betty Field, John Wayne, and Harry Carey. Director Henry Hathaway wanted to know what Ozarkians thought about the film adaptation of the book that was so near and dear to their hearts. Reviews were mixed. For folks who had read the book, a kinder reviewer said of the film, “It has the title, and it has the name of some of the characters. But therein the resemblance ends.” The major complaint was that the Ozark mountains portrayed in the film were those of San Bernardino. To Ozarkians, there was no mistaking the west coast for their hometowns.
This convergence of Hollywood and the Ozarks ended on a sour note, but it was not unexpected. Before the 1941 production of Shepherd of the Hills, as Baumlin writes, “the Ozarks remained wary of ‘outside’ depictions of the region, its characters, and its ways. ‘Whatever we are,’ one might imagine an Ozarker saying back then, ‘we aren’t that.’”
Star-studded excitement was abuzz again in June 1952 with the premiere of The Winning Team at both the Gillioz and Fox theaters. Starring Ronald Reagan as the St. Louis Cardinals pitcher Grover Cleveland Alexander, the film kicked off a week of festivities for the
35th Division Reunion — the guest of honor being President Harry S. Truman. Truman arrived in Springfield only minutes before the premiere was to start and was not able to attend that evening. The Hollywood stars Ronald Reagan, Nancy Davis (later Nancy Reagan), Doris Day, and Gene Nelson arrived in front of the Gillioz at 8 p.m. in convertibles to a crowd of thousands.
Lester E. Cox, businessman and philanthropist, played a supporting role at this event as well. After the showing of The Winning Team, a private dinner was held for the 35th Division Reunion at the Kentwood Arms Hotel. There, Cox, chairman of the reunion, presented Ronald Reagan with the Ozark Hillbilly Award. Reagan’s acceptance was paraphrased in the June 7 Springfield Leader and Press: “…it is good for Hollywood personalities to get away from their place of work once in a while and meet people. ‘We’re all from places like Illinois and Indiana and Missouri,’ he said, ‘and we’re trying to be good citizens.’ [Reagan] said he would treasure this hillbilly award as a souvenir of his trip here.”
Swan Song
The last movie on the Gillioz screen was shown on July 15, 1980. The film was The Amityville Horror, and reportedly, the theater was like a ghost town. Attendance at movie theaters across the country was on the decline since the 1960s. Then, the prevalence of home TVs were to blame. Generally, it was convenience that steered audiences away from downtown theaters like the Gillioz, Landers, and Fox (Electric) theaters and toward drive-ins and mall theaters.
The Battlefield Mall and the Tower Theater often take the blame for the Gillioz’s closure. As Springfield expanded through the ’60s and ’70s, the population and economic center of town shifted from Park Central Square to the intersection of Sunshine and Glenstone. The Tower Theater and the Springfield Drive-in, both a stone’s throw from the new city center, offered theater-goers an easier movie experience. At the Tower Theater, patrons parked right in front of the theater. No cruising for a parking spot in a crowded downtown! At the Springfield Drive-in, there was no need to even leave the car.
The Battlefield Mall opened in Springfield in 1972 with 61 stores and the Century 21 Theatre. The same economic formula the Gillioz used for its successful opening years still worked for Century 21; after some shopping, people liked to relax with a movie. The main difference being the customer never had to walk outside at the Battlefield Mall or hunt for parking downtown.
Convenience and comfort were at the forefront of this theater’s opening. Explaining why the Century 21 had fewer seats than the Gillioz or Fox (just over 1,200), regional manager George Hunter said, “Americans today are more comfort-conscious than ever before. These theater chairs are constructed according to scientific principles of posture control that assure the patron complete comfort throughout the show.”
The Curtains Close
Long before the Gillioz’s last screening, plans were set to give the theater one final hurrah. Calling back to the Gillioz’s days as a live theater, the Springfield Regional Opera put on Giuseppe Verdi’s La Traviata. Before they could prepare the stage for the opera, the stage had to be unearthed. An article that ran in the July 6, 1980 edition of the Springfield Leader and Press by Bil Tatum notes, “Digging the legit house out from under the accumulated debris and clutter of three decades of strictly movie business involved a large crew of opera supporters. Behind the screen at the huge Spanish-Moroccan decorated auditorium were dozens of damaged seats, out-of-use ‘Sensurround’ sound equipment… and ‘just a whole lot of dirt and junk,’ according to one cleanup man.”
Members of the Springfield Regional Opera were awe-struck by the theater’s design and detail, and wanted it restored to its former glory. But one fact remained: the stage was much too small. For La Traviata’s grand finale, where dozens of dancers are to be twirling wildly across the stage, the Gillioz stage could only accommodate two. A rather disappointing ending for what, at the time, was the last show on a once-dazzling stage.
Behind the Scenes
With the doors shuttered and the marquee crumbling to the sidewalk below, Springfieldians wished better for the Gillioz. People like Nancy Brown Dornan, Sam Freeman, and Jim D. Morris did something about it. Freeman, attorney to Jim D. Morris and founder of the Center City Development Company, was in the business of rejuvenating downtown Springfield. Freeman knew the first hurdle to making any progress in the old Theater Beautiful was to get the property under one name. The lobby and auditorium were owned by two different families. Morris was able to first purchase the lobby, and through a quiet title lawsuit, then acquire the auditorium.
In 1991, The Gillioz Theater was accepted into the National Register of Historic Places, opening up hundreds of thousands of dollars in grant opportunities and rehabilitation credits. Nancy Brown Dornan, Gary Ellison, and others formed the Springfield Landmarks Preservation Trust to buy the Gillioz building back from Morris at a steep discount. With the building, funds, and determination all in the same set of hands, the long work of restoration could begin.
The 1990s in Springfield, Republic, and Ozark saw many groups working on downtown revitalization efforts. Needing private donations in addition to federal loans, the Springfield Landmarks Preservation Trust took the public’s interest in a lively downtown as a good sign. Especially as the estimated cost of restoration kept climbing.
Downtown offered a counter culture to the mass production found at the Battlefield Mall. Clothes and home goods purchased from the mall are one-of-many, whereas boutiques and specialty stores in downtown Springfield are home to one-of-a-kind treasures. Restoring the historic downtown and its connection to Route 66 helped the Springfield Landmarks Preservation Trust secure private donations for the Gillioz project.
The work to restore the Gillioz to its 1926 opening day condition started not with paint scrapers and brushes, but with historical research. Bringing the Theatre Beautiful back to life meant sifting through archived photographs and newspapers to catch glimpses of the theater’s original motifs. The interior had been repainted in the 1940s, covering the gilding, plaster work, and wrought iron details in an inoffensive beige. Through careful paint removal and lab analysis, the original pigments could be color-matched and restored.
Slowly but surely, the original details of the Gillioz were restored. Outside, the crumbling marquee had been replaced with a reproduction of the original three-sided facade, gifted to the Gillioz by Midwest Neon. It was installed in 1996 with a relighting ceremony. The Gillioz had replaced the original marquee with a triangular one in 1939, and this excerpt was printed in the Springfield Leader and Press:
A rather elderly woman was passing the Gillioz theater the other day, and she paused to survey the pile of debris around the front door which resulted from tearing down the old marquee. She marched up the box office, and with an I-knew-it air, said to the cashier: “Y’know, when my husband and I were in here one night last week, I told him this place was going to fall down some day.” And with a triumphant toss of her head she marched away, probably to tell her husband about how the Gillioz fell down.
The Gillioz didn’t fall in 1939, not when it closed in 1980, nor when the new-old marquee was installed in 1996. Soon the Gillioz will be standing for a century, and Springfield’s dedication to the Theater Beautiful will keep it standing for a long time to come.
Encore!
To celebrate the completion of the 16-year renovation, Missouri State University, in collaboration with the Springfield Landmark Preservation Trust, put on a week of events in a kickoff called Encore 2006. Like theater-goers did in 1926, people lined up on the street outside the Gillioz to be one of the first to see the new theater.
Through the red double doors, the inner lobby’s gryphon motif plasterwork stood out against a vibrant blue background. Above, the rotunda opened on a view of a crystal chandelier hanging from the gold ceiling of the upper floor. After passing under the mezzanine, the lobby opens into an anteroom just outside the auditorium. Staircases lead to balcony seating and the mezzanine that overlooks the lobby. From there, one can see the original stained glass “G” over the marquee. Miraculously, it had gone undamaged in the 80 years since its opening.
Through another set of double doors, the auditorium opens wide in comparison to the narrow entrance of the lobby. The sense of scale and space before reaching the stage is transportive. At either side of the stage are wrought iron screens covered in gold leaf and decorated in red and blue patterns. When there was an organ providing music for the Gillioz shows, its pipes were concealed behind the screens. Now, they are a piece to remember the theater’s history as one of the first movie palaces of the Midwest.
The ceiling nearest the proscenium is rounded, checkered, and bordered with molding. Paint restoration had revealed a blue cross patterned stencil that had been covered by dark paint. At the 2006 reopening, the theater shone bright like the Theatre Beautiful did in 1926.
The first night of events was a re-creation of the opening night of the Gillioz. Theater history professor Chris Herr portrayed M.E. Gillioz himself to receive a wreath presented by city leaders as congratulations for the theater’s opening. MSU theater students acted out Broadway scenes and comedy sketches and concluded with a performance of “You’re a Grand Old Flag” with banners streaming through the audience.
Over 4,000 people attended opening festivities at the Gillioz with several shows and events lined up for the upcoming months. The last event of Encore 2006 ended with filling a time capsule with memorabilia from the Gillioz restoration project. Included in the time capsule were student predictions for the Gillioz of the future, Gillioz Board minutes, and a copy of the book The Gillioz: “Theatre Beautiful” by James S. Baumlin among other artifacts. The capsule will be opened in 2031.
For Further Reading
Bagley, Mary. (1984). The Front Row: Missouri’s grand theatres. Gateway Publishing.
Baulim, James S. (Ed.). (2006). The Gillioz "Theatre Beautiful": Remembering Springfield’s theatre history, 1926-2006. Moon City Press.
John Canning & Co. (2019, April 24). What happens during a historic paint investigation. https://johncanningco.com/blog/what-happens-during-a-historic-paint-investigation/
Missouri State University & Springfield Land Preservation Trust. (2009). The Gillioz: Springfield’s Vaudeville Movie Palace [Film]. Sprockethole Productions.
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