1931 Art Deco movie palace in downtown Aurora with two named resident ghosts — Jerry and Mickey — still apparently minding the house
23 E. Galena Blvd, Aurora, IL 60505
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Show tickets required for most events; lobby visible during business hours; ghost tours run separately by American Ghost Walks starting at $30/person
Access
Wheelchair OK
Downtown street-level venue with lobby access; seats 1,885
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1931 · National Register of Historic Places · Rapp and Rapp Architecture · Art Deco Theater · Aurora Downtown History
J. J. Rubens commissioned Chicago theater architects C.W. and George Leslie Rapp — the Rapp and Rapp firm — to design a movie palace for downtown Aurora. The result, which opened in September 1931 with a budget of one million dollars, featured an Art Deco exterior and a Venetian Gothic-inflected interior that set it apart from the utilitarian cinema houses of the era.
The opening program was a statement of ambition: the Marx Brothers, Jack Benny, Jeanette MacDonald, and Burns and Allen all performed in the inaugural run. The theater also claimed to be the first air-conditioned building constructed outside of Chicago, a novelty that drew audiences on its own during Illinois summers.
The venue seated 2,125 at opening, a capacity later reduced to 1,885 to comply with fire codes. It closed for an extended renovation in 1976 and reopened April 19, 1978. The National Register of Historic Places added it on September 10, 1986. A lobby expansion was completed in 2006. Today the theater operates under the Aurora Civic Center Authority and anchors the cultural activity of downtown Aurora's Stolp Island district.
Sources
The Paramount Theatre's two named ghosts, Jerry and Mickey, appear consistently in Aurora ghost tour material as former employees who worked at the theater during their lifetimes and apparently declined to leave afterward. The accounts do not specify the circumstances or dates of their deaths, and the theater itself does not formally promote the haunting claims.
The Paranormal Answers Research Team (PART) investigated the Paramount, armed with video cameras, audio recorders, and K-2 meters. Staff at the venue acknowledged during that investigation that they believed spirits were present in the building, particularly in backstage areas and the main theater. The investigation preceded a wave of ghost tour inclusion that made the Paramount a standard stop on downtown Aurora haunted history walks.
Reported phenomena at the theater center on the backstage zones and the main hall: objects found moved from where they were left, unexplained sounds when the building is otherwise empty, and equipment behaving erratically. The specific identities of Jerry and Mickey — which positions they held, when they worked, and when they died — remain undocumented in sources reviewed for this entry. The names are tour lore that may have originated from internal staff tradition or from early paranormal investigation reports.
Notable Entities
American Ghost Walks includes the Paramount Theatre as a featured stop on the Aurora Hauntings Ghost Walk, a two-hour evening tour running Fridays and Saturdays at 8 PM. Participants use EMF meters while guides cover the stories of Jerry and Mickey and other downtown Aurora haunting lore.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Joliet, IL
The Rialto Square Theatre opened May 24, 1926, designed by Chicago firm Rapp & Rapp for the six Rubens brothers. Its Neo-Baroque interior — modeled in part on the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles — earned it a place on the American Institute of Architects's '150 Great Places in Illinois' and a listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
Tucson, AZ
The Fox Tucson Theatre opened on April 11, 1930, as a combined vaudeville and movie house. After closing in 1974 and standing vacant for 25 years, the building was purchased in 1999 by the non-profit Fox Tucson Theatre Foundation for $250,000 and reopened in 2006 following a multi-year, multi-million-dollar restoration.
Cripple Creek, CO
The Butte Theater on Bennett Avenue is a historic Cripple Creek opera house rebuilt after the April 1896 fires that devastated the city. Associated with the Imperial Casino, it has operated as a performance venue for more than a century and is reportedly haunted by a ghost named Jack, linked to the nearby fire department.