State Journal-Register
William Walter “W.W.” Watts flopped the first time he opened a theater in Springfield. But his stepson-in-law persuaded Watts to try again, saying there was “big money in 5-cent picture shows.” The younger man was right.
Watts, an Ohio native, managed theaters in Chicago with his wife Emily until they accumulated enough money to set up their own small theater on South Sixth Street in Springfield in 1907.
William Dagon, Watts’ publicity director, described the couple’s early struggles in one of the most vividly written obituaries ever published in the Illinois State Journal. Watts’ problems at his first theater were obvious, Dagon wrote.
State Journal-Register
In segregated Springfield, the Pekin Theatre was the only movie house that not only catered specifically to African-Americans, but was managed by African-Americans as well.
The Pekin was at 811-15 E. Washington St., in the heart of Springfield’s African-American shopping and entertainment district.
The Pekin opened on Dec. 1, 1914. Opening announcements made no suggestion that the theater wanted to appeal mainly to African-Americans. But, in what may have been understood as code, an announcement in the Illinois State Journal emphasized that “the management will … guarantee the best of treatment, and will appreciate the patronage of one and all.”
State Journal-Register
When Elise Morrow critiqued Springfield for the Saturday Evening Post in 1947, local leaders reacted with wounded pride, insults and pompous denial.
Among their many complaints was Morrow’s passing reference to the city’s tolerance for gambling and prostitution.
“Springfield’s vice may be no worse than that of many American cities, but it is more obvious,” she wrote. “Gambling and prostitution blossom like the rose in Springfield. Within the city limits and lining the periphery of the town and county there is what one of the first citizens describes, with inverse pride, as probably the largest collection of taverns, joints, and low dives functioning in any city of less than 100,000 population in the country.”