HISTORY

The Fox Theatre brand has a rich history. Our Historic Centralia Fox Theatre is no exception.

The Fox Theatre Brand

Fox Theatres was a large chain of movie theaters in the United States dating from the 1920s either built by Fox Film studio owner William Fox, or subsequently merged in 1929 by Fox with the West Coast Theatres chain, to form the Fox West Coast Theatres chain. Fox West Coast went into bankruptcy and was sold to The National Theatres Corporation, led by Charles Skouras, on November 20, 1933 for $17,000,000.00. Eugene V. Klein later became CEO of National, and turned it into the conglomerate National General. Mann Theatres bought National General’s theatres in 1973.

Many of these grand “movie palaces” were built with a mishmash of architectural styles drawn from Asian, Indian, Persian, and Moorish influences.

Source: Wikipedia

The Historic Centralia Fox Theatre

Centralia’s Fox Theatre opened its doors on September 10, 1930.  The ornate, 1200 seat art deco member of the Fox West Coast Theatre chain cemented Centralia’s significance as the Hub City of Washington State.  The Fox was the biggest theatre between Portland, OR and Tacoma, WA and brought the glamour and glitz of Hollywood to the rough and tumble “Little Chicago’ as Centralia was often called.  The Fox was built in the tradition of the great movie and vaudeville theaters for which Fox had become so well known and was as well suited for live performances as it was for talking pictures.  The theatre put Centralia square on the national map of touring shows and in line for the latest blockbusters from Hollywood.

The Fox instantly became the center of small city life. Centralia was populated by loggers, miners, intellectuals, devout Christians, union members and fiercely loyal Veterans.  The downtown bustled with shops, hotels, theatres, restaurants and some infamous houses of gambling and prostitution.  Only 11 years earlier the town had been ripped apart by the Centralia Massacre, pitting the Union Wobblies against the Veterans of the American Legion and ending in bloodshed.  But despite such diversity and adversity, the Fox was the gathering place for everyone in the community.  It was a source of great pride and a respite from what were becoming very challenging times at the onset of the depression.  This is the snapshot of American life in 1930 preserved in the still viable, but badly in need of restoration, Fox Theatre.

The Centralia Fox Theatre was built by Seattle architect, Frank Wynkoop, who was working out of the office of Robert Reamer best known for his Old-Faithful Lodge and other buildings in Yellowstone National Park as well as the opulent Fox Theatre in Spokane, WA.  Marcus B. Priteca, who built many of the theatres in the Pantages Theatre chain, also served as a consultant on the project.  The result was ornate art-deco meets Western simplicity with elaborate carved plaster overlayed in precious metals, decorative plaster step-ups graduating into the theatre from the proscenium, and sleek art deco chandeliers in gold, silver, and bronze.  Centralia’s most famous resident, the great modern dance pioneer, Merce Cunningham, once mentioned in an interview that the two things he remembered most about his boyhood home in Washington were the Cascade Mountains and the Fox Theatre.