HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
A 1916 Springfield cinema built in the shadow of a devastating 1913 fire, now a history museum where apparitions in period dress have been reported and annual haunted history tours run each fall.
154 Park Central Square, Springfield, MO 65806
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Museum admission applies for regular hours. Haunted History Bus Tours are separately ticketed each fall; see historymuseumonthesquare.org for current pricing.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Ground-floor museum spaces are accessible. Bus tours use motorcoach with step access.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1916 · Opened on site of 1913 downtown fire · Major Springfield cinema 1916-1982 · Now the History Museum on the Square
The 1913 fire that swept through the northeast block of Park Central Square destroyed most of what stood there, including commercial buildings that had defined that corner of downtown Springfield for decades. Three years later, on October 8, 1916, the Electric Theatre opened at 154 Park Central Square with roughly 1,800 seats — one of the largest cinema houses in the region at the time.
The venue was renamed the Fox Theatre in 1928 as part of the Fox chain's Midwest expansion. For over five decades it was a central gathering point for Springfield moviegoers. Operations as a cinema wound down in 1982, after which the building stood largely unused until the History Museum on the Square took over the space.
The museum has made the building's layered history — fire, entertainment, civic gathering — the subject of its public programming. Annual Haunted History Walking Tours and bus tours organized by the museum treat the Fox Theatre's block as a focal point, drawing on the 1913 fire, the deaths associated with the square, and reported experiences in the building itself.
Sources
Visitors and staff have described seeing figures in period clothing inside the Fox Theatre — apparitions that don't match anyone present and that disappear when approached or when attention turns to them directly. The reports don't cluster around a specific room or documented event but appear across different parts of the building.
The museum's own programming has leaned into the building's reputation. The Haunted History Bus Tours treat the Fox Theatre block as a site of genuine historical weight: the 1913 fire that killed the previous buildings, the decades of human traffic through the cinema, and the specific deaths on the square across a century and a half. The building is a few dozen yards from the Wild Bill Hickok shootout site and from the location of Springfield's first city morgue, which lends the entire square block an unusual density of documented dark history.
Seasonally ticketed tours operating each fall, organized by the History Museum on the Square. Tours cover downtown Springfield's darkest historical episodes including fires, crimes, and deaths tied to specific buildings, with the Fox Theatre as a featured stop.
The museum occupies the former Fox Theatre, opened in 1916. Collections cover Springfield and Greene County history across the building's multi-floor exhibition spaces.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Washington, NC
Built around 1913 for proprietor C. A. Turnage — who incorporated the enterprise as New Theatre Inc. — the Turnage Theatre originally combined a shoe store on its ground floor with a vaudeville theater above. A separate 'talkie' theater was constructed behind the original structure in 1928. Adaptive rehabilitation in the 1990s restored the complex, and it now houses Arts of the Pamlico in a 32,000-square-foot facility with two theaters.
St. Louis, MO
The Fabulous Fox Theatre opened in January 1929 as one of five 'Fox' picture palaces commissioned by film magnate William Fox. Designed by C. Howard Crane in a 'Siamese Byzantine' style, the 4,500-seat auditorium was the second-largest in the United States at its opening. After decades of decline the theatre closed in 1978 and was restored by the Fox Associates beginning in 1981, reopening in 1982 as the centerpiece of Grand Center.
Poplar Bluff, MO
The Rodgers Theatre opened in 1949 at 204 N. Broadway in Poplar Bluff, built by impresario I.W. Rodgers and designed by architects Hugo K. Graf and Stephens, Edgar & Sons. It is a three-story Art Deco and Streamline Moderne building with a distinctive ziggurat marquee tower, added to the National Register of Historic Places in 2001.