Lamar House Hotel (Additional Documentation)
About this property
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. 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. 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. 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.
Location
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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).
Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.
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Questions about this property
When was Lamar House Hotel (Additional Documentation) listed on the National Register?
Lamar House Hotel (Additional Documentation) was listed on the National Register of Historic Places on December 4, 1975.
What type of historic resource is Lamar House Hotel (Additional Documentation)?
Lamar House Hotel (Additional Documentation) is classified as a building in the National Register of Historic Places.
What is the period of significance for Lamar House Hotel (Additional Documentation)?
The period of significance for Lamar House Hotel (Additional Documentation) is recorded as the industrial era.
Can I research the history near Lamar House Hotel (Additional Documentation)?
Yes. Aubrey Research reports search National Register listings, battlefield records, land patents, and other primary historical sources within any radius of a US address. A report for an address near Lamar House Hotel (Additional Documentation) will include this listing and all other historical records in the area.
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