The Lincoln Theater

[Friday The 13th]

The Lincoln Theater,
located on North Main Street in downtown Decatur,
is one of only two of the city's grand theaters that remain standing today.
It opened in 1916 with a large seating capacity and a sprawling stage.
It was a labyrinth, and remains so today, with its mezzanine, high balcony, basements and sub-cellars.
The theater holds many secrets, and according to some, many ghosts.

The theater was not the first building to stand on the site that it now occupies in downtown Decatur.
Aside from frontier construction by the early settlers, the first real building on the site was the Priest Hotel.
W.S. Crissey opened it on the northwest corner of the Old Square in 1860,
although it was completed and operated for many years by Franklin Priest.
In 1880, Riley Deming took over the establishment and changed its name to the New Deming.
It was later purchased by Augustine Wait and in 1892; he changed the name to the Arcade Hotel.
Eight years later, he would remodel, expand, and call it the Decatur & Arcade Hotel.
There was a horrible fire in 1904, which destroyed the building,
but it was rebuilt on the same site a short time later.
It was in 1915 however, when disaster struck.

On April 21, 1915, a spectacular fire broke out and destroyed the hotel,
claiming two lives and damaging several of the surrounding structures.
The blaze was believed to have started because of some oily rags that were left near the hotel’s boiler.
A night watchman discovered them smoldering and tried to put them out,
but was driven back by thick smoke that began churning from the refuse.
The blaze quickly spread and while all of the fire equipment in the city arrived on the scene within minutes,
smoke was soon billowing from the lower windows.
Water began to be pumped from the trucks but because the smoke was to thick to enter the basement,
the firefighters had no idea of the exact location of the fire.
It was said that a roar came up from the crowd assembled
in Lincoln Square when the first flames appeared.

The fire came from the rear of the hotel and could be seen glowing through the front doors.
The firemen began dragging hose into the building but within ten minutes,
the blaze had entered the walls and was eating through the roof of the hotel.
At that point, Fire Chief C.W. DeVore began directing his men to turn
their attentions to the other buildings nearby,
as there was no hope for the hotel. The nearby structures,
including the Bachman Bros. & Martin Co. furniture store, the YMCA,
the First Presbyterian Church and the Odd Fellows Building,
were saved but as the north wall of the seven-story Arcade building collapsed,
it struck the Bachman Bros. warehouse with a tremendous crash and a loud explosion.
The furniture store was saved from heavier losses thanks to a heavy
firewall that refused to give in and a new sprinkler system.

The two men killed in the fire were
William E. Graham, an engineer for the Decatur Bridge Co. and C.S. Guild, a traveling salesman from Lockport, New York.
The bodies were found in the ruins, although several other hotel guests were never found.
Whether or not they escaped from the inferno is unknown.
What is known is that the disaster could have been much worse.
If it had not been raining before the fire broke out,
it's possible that the entire west part of downtown,
including many homes, could have been destroyed.
The hotel was never rebuilt and the Lincoln Theater took the older building's place.

Many have pondered the question as to whether or not the spirits
of the people killed in the hotel fire might walk in the dark corners of the Lincoln Theater.
It now stands directly on the location of the former hotel and many
have speculated that the ghosts could have passed into
the new building and may have taken up residence there.