Hillsboro Theatre

M. A. Lightman Sr. of Malco Theatres and his father, Joseph Lightman, opened the Hillsboro as a silent movie house in 1925 with what was called the largest stage in the city. The Grand Ole Opry used that stage from 1934 to 1936, and the Opry's years there shaped the radio show's format. In November 2007 a nonprofit coalition of arts activists bought the theater for $1.4 million, operating as Belcourt Theatre Inc. It closed on December 24, 2015, for renovation and reopened on July 22, 2016, with a new screening room and an elevator.

What the plaque says

Hillsboro Theatre In 1925, the Hillsboro Theater opened as a silent film house with its entrance on 21st Avenue South. The stage arch was decorated by Italian craftsman, Raffaelo Mattei. It was the home of the Children's Theatre of Nashville after 1931, the Grand Ole Opry between 1934 and 1936, and the Nashville Community Playhouse after 1937. It became the Belcourt Cinema in 1966.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Fort Negley — 1.6 mi
  The largest inland stone fort of the Civil War, built in 1862 on St. Cloud Hill by more than 2,700 conscripted Black laborers, hundreds of whom died.
• Civil Rights Room at the Nashville Public Library — 2.1 mi
  A room in the downtown library with a circular lunch counter, a timeline and oral histories of the 1960 Nashville sit-ins, a few blocks from the stores where they began.
• National Museum of African American Music — 2.1 mi
  A downtown Nashville museum, opened in 2021, tracing gospel, blues, jazz, rhythm and blues and hip-hop through Black history from 1619 to 2016.
• Ryman Auditorium — 2.1 mi
  The 1892 brick tabernacle in downtown Nashville that was the Grand Ole Opry's home from 1943 to 1974, now a National Historic Landmark and working concert hall.

More markers nearby

• Belcourt Theatre Est. 1925 — steps away
• Roger Williams University — 0.2 mi
• Battle of Nashville: 21st Avenue South — 0.4 mi
• Ward- Belmont College — 0.4 mi