Showing posts with label Poplar Bluff MO. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Poplar Bluff MO. Show all posts

Wednesday, December 21, 2011

Snapshot - Staircase ruins, Poplar Bluff, Missouri

Google Map
An ornate staircase built across from the Poplar Bluff train station in the early 1900s. The stairs were a symbolic gateway between the railroad and the heart of the city - and you can see how long that symbolism lasted. The station is similarly dilapidated.

Sunday, January 23, 2011

Poplar Bluff I

Poplar Bluff is a town through which we drive every time we go visit Jenna's family in Illinois. Actually, though, the highway takes us on a gentle curve around the actual city, so recently we stopped there for a look-around. It being historically relevant, there were plenty of things for my little eyes to see.



I saw the peak of the Rodgers Theater from over the rooftops of other buildings in downtown Poplar Bluff. It's a truly glorious downtown theater - obviously in need of some work, but apparently still in working order.

The building was put up in 1949 by I.W. Rodgers, who evidently took over most of the theaters in town at some point (this is, I think, the only old one left). It had capacity for 1,160 folks and included a "crying room," an enclosed area with sound-proof glass so emotionally unsound viewers could continue watching people being devoured by triffids whilst not disturbing the other film-goers.

A closer shot of the Rodgers:



More to come.

-Jonesy