On your right, look for the big, dark-brick, church-like building with a steep roof, tall buttresses along the sides, and green-tipped spires rising above the corner.
This is the Scottish Rite Cathedral… though these days it’s more often called the Scottish Rite Theatre, which is a pretty polite way of saying, “Yes, it looks like a church, but the show’s inside.” You’re standing by 400 Northeast Perry, right at the corner with Spalding, and this place is important enough to be a contributing part of Peoria’s North Side Historic District.
The Scottish Rite group that calls this home has been around a long time. They organized back in 1867 in Yates City, then shifted to Peoria in 1869, bouncing through three different downtown meeting spots before they finally planted their flag here.
Take a second and enjoy the Gothic attitude: those flying buttresses, the vertical lines, the stained glass meant to whisper in symbols instead of shouting in neon. The design was inspired by European travels, and the building went up under the architectural firm Hewitt, Emerson and Gregg for about $400,000 in the mid-1920s… call it roughly $7 million today. The cornerstone was set on May 7, 1924, and by January 13, 1925, they dedicated it with a public ceremony. Inside is an auditorium with a stage and around 900 seats… because mystery societies, apparently, love a good production number.
But big buildings come with big upkeep. Membership once neared 15,000, then dropped to about 1,200 by 2019, and the math stopped working. That year, a local buyer, Kim Blickenstaff, stepped in for $490,000, aiming to run it as a community venue while guaranteeing Scottish Rite members permanent access. COVID slowed the opening, but work kept going, and in 2020 the restoration team earned a historic preservation award. Then in early 2023, the venue announced it would close, and it went up for sale that spring… a reminder that even stone-and-brick institutions can feel fragile.
When you’re set, Cathedral of Saint Mary of the Immaculate Conception is an 8-minute walk heading southeast.
