This KC theater opened in 1921 with an elevator to get large animals on stage
In 1921, when the Mainstreet Theatre opened at the corner of 14th & Main Streets, movies were just beginning to push vaudeville aside.
But not in this 3,000 seat theater, which at the time was the largest in town.
The Mainstreet was part of the so-called Orpheum Circuit. Prominent Chicago architects Rapp & Rapp designed a flashy front for it, with curved windows, a sleek marquee and most notably, a Byzantine dome.
Equally impressive were the things people couldn’t see, like the large basement spaces where animal acts would await their turn—complete with an elevator stout enough to haul elephants.
Underground tunnels were said to connect the theater with the nearby President Hotel, where many of the performers often stayed. Legend has it that they also served as escape routes for bootleggers during Prohibition.
From the outset, both vaudeville acts and motion pictures played at the Mainstreet. But after the advent of sound films in 1927, the tide turned quickly.
In 1938 the theater shut down, then reopened after WWII as the RKO Missouri. A few years later, it got a new name—the Empire.
The building changed hands again in the early 1960s. This time, under the leadership of Stan Durwood, the Empire’s space was split into two, then four different screens.
By 1985, the company that had become AMC decided that movies were no longer viable at the Empire, and closed its doors permanently. The structure’s decay was captured in numerous photos, and demolition seemed imminent when the decision was made to rebuild it in conjunction with the new Power & Light District.
The Mainstreet Theatre opened in April 2009. A few years later AMC relocated its headquarters to Johnson County, and sold the six-plex to the Alamo Drafthouse. The Austin-based company programmed the theater until COVID-19 pushed the chain to the edge of bankruptcy.
Since 2021, the Mainstreet KC has once again been showing movies downtown, thanks to the locally-owned B&B Theatres.
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