Outland Ballroom

History

The Outland Ballroom was the upstairs room of the Outland Complex in downtown Springfield. The complex's site says The Outland replaced the Southland restaurant in the late 1980s (the sign was missing the S and H, which supplied the name) and that the Ballroom, on the second floor with about twice the capacity, booked national and local acts; a 1959 Cadillac sat on the bar. The Springfield News-Leader dates The Outland's opening to September 1991 at 326 South Ave., by Craig Watkins, and the Ballroom's opening to early 2003 at 324 South Ave. by Yankton Sothern, who ran it until 2006. A Feb. 29, 2024 News-Leader story treated the complex's closure as the end of an era; Hour House in the old 326 South Ave. restaurant space was reported as remaining open because it was not part of the complex next door. (theoutlandcomplex.com/about; Springfield News-Leader, Feb. 29, 2024)