Lighting Up the Night: Close to 500 attend Cricket Theatre marquee lighting ceremony in Collinsville

Lighting Up the Night: Close to 500 attend Cricket Theatre marquee lighting ceremony in Collinsville

Featured image: Almost 500 residents recently turned out to attend the ceremonial lighting of the new marquee at the historic Cricket Theatre in Collinsville.


By Joseph M. Morgan

Editor and Publisher

joseph@southerntorch.com

Editor’s note: Portions of the article below originally appeared in a print edition of the Southern Torch in November 2015. Southern Torch would like to thank the Collinsville Historical Association and Collinsville Public Librarian Jennifer Wilkins for assistance in researching the history of the Cricket Theatre in Collinsville and providing photos of the DeKalb County icon for use in our publication.

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Lighting up the night! The historic Cricket Theatre in Collinsville is reborn with a new marquee. Close to 500 turned out for the ceremony last week.

COLLINSVILLE, Ala.— To say last Thursday’s event in Collinsville to celebrate the recent restoration of the marquee sign at the historic Cricket Theatre in Collinsville was standing room only would be an understatement. Each one of the 140 surviving wooden theatre seats that line the front one third of the spacious movie gallery auditorium inside was taken. As were all of the 60 folding chairs lined up behind the rows of original theatre seating.

Then 200 more crammed into the room to sit on the floor and stand around the walls as 7 p.m. approached. And still they piled in—another hundred at least—standing in the back of the room or out in the lobby to peer in through the rear swinging doors at the back of the auditorium.

There wasn’t an empty seat in the house. But that did not matter. They piled into the unairconditioned room to be a part of something special. They came to see history in the making—or perhaps more accurately a remaking thereof.

In all, close to 500 residents from all over North Alabama and beyond turned out to attend the ceremony last Thursday night to celebrate the official lighting of the newly-restored marquee sign at the historic Cricket Theatre in downtown Collinsville

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STANDING (OR FLOOR-SITTING) ROOM ONLY. The Collinsville Historical Association's Cricket Theatre marquee lighting ceremony had a packed house last Thursday, with close to 500 attending the event. 

After purchasing enough concessions to feed 200 for the Cricket ceremony Thursday night, members of the Collinsville Historical Association (CHA) were concerned that they had overdone it. But instead of having to worry about taking home leftover popcorn and Coke, the CHA ran the popcorn machine for over an hour straight and eventually had to go out during the ceremony to purchase more beverages for the large crowd in attendance.

The CHA presented commemorative medallions to the first 200 attendees at the event to celebrate the lighting grand marquee sign. By 6:45 p.m. (the event kicked off at 7 p.m.), the CHA was out of medallions.  Needless to say, it was an exciting night in the small town of Collinsville.

Hosted by the CHA, the unveiling of the newly restored Cricket Theatre marquee and building front marks the completion of the latest phase of what has been a six-year project to restore the historic Collinsville landmark.
In addition to the marquee lighting, Thursday night’s celebration featured live entertainment, including a special performance from the "Little Collinsville Rockettes," a troupe that includes dancers from ages 3 to 11 years old, directed by Madison Chamblee from Auburn University and Allie Wills Jones, a teacher at Collinsville High School.

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SOLD OUT SHOW! Several minutes before the event even started, every seat in the house was taken last Thursday night at the Cricket Theatre marquee lighting ceremony in Collinsville.

The performance was followed by remarks from members of the theatre's founding family and community leaders and elected officials. The entertainment and speakers performed from the Cricket’s completely refurbished grand ornate wooden stage, recently built at no cost by local Collinsville master carpenters Nick Traffanstedt and Lance Arnold of Arnold Construction.

Located in the heart of downtown Collinsville on Main Street, the Cricket Theatre restoration, including the recent marquee lighting has been much more than a milestone to the people of Collinsville. To many it marks the resurrection of a building that has served as the proud symbol of the town for almost 70 years.
“I think everyone in attendance shared a sense of pride and excitement for our town,” Dr. John Morgan, Southern Torch faith columnist and pastor of Collinsville Baptist Church said. “It was overwhelming to see such a large outpouring of support from so many. It’s obvious that the restoration of the Cricket is important to our entire town. This is an exciting time for Collinsville.”
Prior to the Cricket Theatre’s grand opening in 1946, local newspaper headlines proclaimed:

“New Cricket Is Most Beautiful Structure in North Alabama.” The accompanying 1946 article stated: “Collinsville theatre goers can be justly proud of a magnificent structure, one of the strongest and best equipped theatres in the state...The front of the new Cricket sign will tower 40 feet in the air with six different colors of lighting and more than 300 feet of tubing; this sign and the neon lights can be seen for more than two miles.

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Collinsville Super Stars! The "Little Collinsville Rockettes," a troupe that includes dancers from ages 3 to 11 years old, directed by Madison Chamblee from Auburn University and Allie Wills Jones, a teacher at Collinsville High School, performed at the Cricket marquee lighting ceremony last week.

“The theatre’s name will be spelled out in dazzling neon lights, supported above the marquee by a giant V-type steel support, which will give off illumination for the entire town. With a seating capacity of 800, the building is comprised of 175,000 bricks, equivalent of 15 train car loads; five cars of sand; 25,000 concreate (sic) blocks; 100,000 lbs. of structure steel and better than 27,000 man hours of labor.”

Five years after the original 1946 construction, the Cricket Theatre’s architectural and historical significance to the town of Collinsville became absolute in 1951. After building a new county courthouse in 1951, the DeKalb County Commission voted to present as a gift to the city of Collinsville the large town clock that had adorned the roof of the courthouse for 25 years prior.

As the tallest building in the city, located directly in the middle of Main Street, the roof of the Cricket Theatre was far and away the best location to showcase the city’s new crown jewel—the town clock that eventually would become synonymous with the town of Collinsville.

The merger of the ornate antique clock and the beautiful new theatre in 1951 quickly created a symbol that represented to many the best of that which Collinsville had to offer. Years later, the Cricket Theatre became more than just a symbol when the city officially adopted the image of the town clock perched proudly atop the theatre as the town seal.

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The Cricket Theatre in its original glory soon after opening in 1946. Photograph compliments of Collinsville Historical Association.

The Cricket Theatre would go on to thrive for the next 20 years as one of the most popular entertainment venues in DeKalb County. The symbol of the clock atop the theatre became synonymous with the city of Collinsville itself. But when popularity of the theatre began to decline in the 1960’s, the building also began a slow decline.

By the late 1970’s and early 1980’s the theatre would close its doors and become abandoned almost altogether. As the theatre sat empty, its maintenance became less and less frequent. By the 1990’s the lack of maintenance and repairs resulted in leaks and progressively worse structural damage.

Collinsville iconic town clock stood for almost 40 years before being removed from the Cricket's roof in the 1990's after it was determined that the integrity of the structure was compromised and no longer safe to support the weight of the clock.

By 2004, the leaks in the roof were so bad the entire structure was in danger of collapse. Of concern to all was the stability of the clock that had actually begun to lean as the building deteriorated beneath it.

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Cricket Theatre circa 1994. It's amazing what a strong vision, generous donors, and six years of hard work can accomplish! See bottom left of page to compare the Cricket from 1994 to 2016! We've come a long way Collinsville! Photograph compliments of Town of Collinsville.

Later that year city leaders had no choice but to make the decision to remove the town clock by crane from the increasingly unstable theatre roof. With the clock now removed the Cricket sat in almost complete neglect for another five years.

After months of attempted and failed negotiations to purchase the theatre, CHA made the decision in 2009 to pay the private owner of the Cricket the $50,000 asking price with the bold vision of restoring the nearly completely dilapidated city icon to its former glory.

Prior to hosting the first major public event at the Cricket in decades last November, CHA Treasurer Martha Barksdale told Southern Torch that the importance of saving the building and working to restore it was far greater than the financial cost that will be required to make it happen.

“I’m a preservationist,” Barksdale said. “This building was the central focal point of our town at one time. It even became a part of the image that represented the entire town of Collinsville.” Restoration work began in 2010 with a new roof.”
Abandoned and in almost complete disrepair when purchased by CHA, the Cricket Theatre’s original construction in 1946 was seen as an architectural and technological marvel, immediately establishing the state-of-the-art theater as one of the nicest in Alabama.

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A DeKalb County icon gets a facelift. The Cricket Theatre's new marquee fully lit, in all its splendor at last week's ceremony in Collinsville. To see the progress, check out the photo of the Cricket circa 1994 above.

The CHA purchased the building in 2009 with the first round of renovations kicking off in 2010 with a new roof. CHA has literally invested thousands of hours over the past six years to slowly but surely bring the Cricket back to its former glory in a valiant effort save the DeKalb County icon.

CHA and the town of Collinsville will continue to work to raise money to finish the project.
“Donations are a big part of it,” Barksdale said. “The association has been awarded generous grants, donations, and fundraisers and we try to keep something going all the time. There’s wonderful community spirit here and there’s wonderful support.”
Next on the restoration agenda will be work to replace the air conditioning and ceiling inside the Cricket.

With no working AC and only one large floor fan to cool the room, the standing-room only crowd endured sweltering heat at the marquee lighting ceremony last Thursday night.

Collinsville Historical Association President Bobby Elrod, the keynote speaker for the event, used the high temperatures as an opportunity Cricket’s to remind those in attendance that there was still more work to be done and money to be raised.

“We turned up the heat tonight,” Elrod joked, “so that everyone would want to go ahead and donate to the fund to buy heating and cooling equipment for this old building.”

While the restoration of the Cricket Theatre’s marquee and building exterior is a significant step towards the restoration of the icon, there is still a good deal of costly work to be done. The CHA and the people of the town of Collinsville will continue to work to restore the Cricket. The group will be working in the weeks and months to come to repair the building's air conditioning and heating system, sound and lighting systems and the auditorium's ceiling.