Bailey Theater

A regional chain headed by Robert Lee Bailey took over the Palace Theatre and put his own name on it. The building dates to 1916, though the survey of Marksville's historic district puts it at about 1915. Lake Charles architect John Milton Gabriel altered it in 1951; it held 379 seats on one screen. Accounts differ by a year on the closing, 1974 or 1975. It then stood empty and deteriorating until the late 1990s, when it was extensively remodeled and reopened as a bar, restaurant and live music venue.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Avoyelles Parish Courthouse: Solomon Northup Marker — steps away
  The Marksville courthouse where Solomon Northup was freed in January 1853, with a marker and a 2026 bronze that shows him rising from the mud.
• Tunica-Biloxi Museum — 1.1 mi
  The Tunica-Biloxi Tribe of Louisiana's own museum at Marksville, built around the Tunica Treasure that the tribe won back in court.
• Epps House: Solomon Northup's Gateway to Freedom — 21 mi
  The Creole cottage Solomon Northup helped build for the man who enslaved him, moved twice and now a small museum on the LSU Alexandria campus.
• Arna Bontemps African American Museum — 26 mi
  The restored Alexandria house where the Harlem Renaissance writer Arna Bontemps was born in 1902, on the Louisiana African American Heritage Trail.

More markers nearby

• Founding Of Marksville — steps away
• Solomon Northup, "Twelve Years a Slave" — steps away
• The First Bowie Knife — steps away
• Louisiana's Atchafalaya Basin — steps away