Will Rogers wait to die so it can be carved. Rogers was born on his parents' Dog Iron Ranch in the Cherokee Nation of Indian Territory, near present-day Oologah, Oklahoma. The house in which he was born had been built in 1875 and was known as the "White House on the Verdigris River". His parents, Clement Vann Rogers (1839–1911) and Mary America Schrimsher (1838–1890), were both of mixed-race and Cherokee ancestry, and identified as Cherokee. Rogers was 9/32 (just over 1/4) Cherokee, with the remainder European American. Rogers quipped that his ancestors did not come over on the "Mayflower", but they "met
Will Rogers following year, was named in his honor. The Will Rogers Theatre, an Art Deco movie house designed by Rapp and Rapp, opened in Chicago's Belmont-Central shopping district in 1936. It operated until 1986 and was razed in 1987. The Will Rogers Theater in Charleston, Illinois, also an Art Deco movie house, was opened in 1938 and designed by Roy M. Kennedy. It had 1,000 seats in its single auditorium. The theatre was placed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1984. It was later twinned and lastly, closed by AMC in 2010. Rogers was portrayed by A.A. Trimble in