Fox Theater (Spokane, Washington) facts for kids
Fox Theater in 2023
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| Full name | Martin Woldson Theater at the FOX |
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| Address | 1001 W. Sprague Ave. Spokane, Washington |
| Coordinates | 47°39′25″N 117°25′36″W / 47.65694°N 117.42667°W |
| Public transit | Spokane Transit Authority Bus: Routes: 6,20,43,60,61,66 |
| Owner | Spokane Symphony |
| Operator | Spokane Symphony |
| Type | Theatre |
| Genre(s) | Concerts, movies, theatre |
| Capacity | 1,715 |
| Construction | |
| Opened | September 3, 1931 |
| Renovated | November 2007 |
| Construction cost |
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| Architect | Robert C. Reamer |
| Tenants | |
| Spokane Symphony | |
| Built | 1931 |
| Architect | Robert C. Reamer |
| Architectural style | Art Deco |
| MPS | Movie Theaters in Washington State MPS |
| NRHP reference No. | 01001287 |
| Added to NRHP | November 30, 2001 |
The Fox Theater in Spokane, Washington is a beautiful Art Deco building. It opened in 1931 as a movie theater. Today, it's a popular place for live shows and is home to the Spokane Symphony.
The theater was designed by a famous architect named Robert Reamer. He also designed the Old Faithful Inn in Yellowstone National Park. The Fox Theater was once part of the Fox Film Corporation, started by William Fox. It showed movies for many years, from its opening on September 3, 1931, until it closed on September 21, 2000. The last movie shown was Gladiator, starring Russell Crowe.
Contents
History of the Fox Theater
How the Theater Was Planned and Built
Back in 1927, people in Spokane heard that William Fox's company, Fox Film Corporation, wanted to build a huge "million-dollar movie palace." Fox's company bought a large piece of land in downtown Spokane. At that time, Spokane already had many theaters. But it didn't have a big theater from a major movie company.
The first plans for the theater showed a "Hispano-Italian" style. However, the project was delayed because Fox Film Corporation faced money problems after the stock market crash in 1929. The company then changed its name to Fox West Coast Studios.
Even with delays, Fox still wanted to build the theater. In late 1929, they hired Robert Reamer as the architect for the Spokane project. Reamer had designed other famous theaters like the 5th Avenue Theatre in Seattle. The Spokane company, Whitehouse & Price, helped with the design. A designer from Los Angeles, Anthony Heinsbergen, worked on the inside of the theater.
A final design was shared in July 1930. It showed a more "modern" Art Deco style. This was a big change from the earlier Italian-style plans.
Building the Fox Theater
Construction finally began in early 1930. About 200 people worked on the project. The building was made mostly of poured concrete. The outside walls and decorations were all concrete. They were finished very quickly, in just ten days! The outside of the building has cool designs, like eagles on one side and butterflies on another.
During the Great Depression, the Art Deco style was a good choice. It helped save money on decorations compared to older, more fancy styles. The budget for the project was lowered to $750,000. This meant the outside looked simpler, and the lobby had less fancy decorations than first planned.
Heinsbergen's interior designs mixed the sharp angles of Art Deco with the flowing style of Art Nouveau. The Fox Theater's look was a Hollywood version of Art Deco. It combined modern and Art Nouveau ideas from Europe. The theater's design also used ideas from Cubism and Fauvism art styles, as well as Persian and other unique building styles.
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The carpets in the theater look like the ocean. The first floor and lobby feel like an underwater scene. The second floor and balcony look like treetops. The ceiling has decorations that look like stars. Heinsbergen's murals inside the theater are like illustrations from children's books of that time.
The most amazing part of the theater's inside was a 60-foot (18 m) wide light fixture. It was made of etched glass and plaster and looked like a sunburst. There were also nine smaller chandeliers that looked like stars.
The Fox Theater was built to show both movies and live stage shows. It had a movie screen, a full stage, an orchestra pit, and dressing rooms. It also had a Wurlitzer pipe organ. When you entered, there were two lobbies leading to decorated hallways. These hallways led to the main floor of the auditorium. Grand staircases from the hallways led up to the mezzanine and balcony levels.
The total cost of the building was often said to be $1 million. But the actual costs were about $350,000 for the land, $400,000 for building, and $200,000 for equipment and furniture. When it was finished, Fox executives told reporters it was the most artistic and modern theater in their chain.
Opening Day and Early Years
The Fox Theater opened its doors on September 3, 1931. It had seats for 2,350 people. Many famous actors, like Anita Page and George O'Brien, came to the opening night party. A huge crowd of about 20,000 people gathered outside. They watched a free outdoor show and tried to see the celebrities.
People were surprised by the theater's sleek, modern Art Deco outside. It was very different from the Italian-style drawings they had seen before. The inside decorations received a lot of praise. One newspaper said the design was "so unusual, so bizarre and so futuristic." The inside used aluminum and glass instead of traditional marble and wood. It had hand-painted murals of undersea plants and etched glass light panels.
The Fox opened with a live variety show called About Town. After that, they showed the movie Merely Mary Ann. People with tickets also saw acts by Laurel and Hardy. This mix of live shows and new Hollywood "talkies" (movies with sound) was part of the theater's plan. Movies were a cheap way to escape during the Great Depression.
After a few years, the live variety shows stopped because people preferred movies. But the Fox still hosted live performances. It was the main place for performing arts in Spokane for many decades.
Famous Performances and Movies
In 1934, the theater started its "Community Concerts" series. This brought famous musicians from all over the country to the Fox. In 1935, the Hoboken Four, which included Frank Sinatra, performed there. In 1937, Bing Crosby, a famous person from Spokane, hosted a national talent show at the Fox.
The theater showed Disney's record-breaking film Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs in 1938. It set a 7-day attendance record with 40,000 people! This record was broken in 1939 by Gone with the Wind. That record then stood until 1943, when the musical This Is the Army brought in even more people.
Changes and Decline
In 1953, the theater added a bigger screen, 3-D effects, and a CinemaScope projector. It showed its first 3-D film, Bwana Devil, that same year.
The large Wurlitzer organ that was installed in 1931 was removed in 1961. It was sold to a collector in Los Angeles. Starting in 1968, the theater began hosting the Spokane Symphony. The Symphony became a regular tenant until 1974, when they moved to the new Spokane Opera House.
In 1969, the theater stopped its "Community Concerts" series. This series had brought many famous artists over the years, like Vladimir Horowitz and Marian Anderson. In 1975, the Fox Theater was divided into three smaller screens. It had one main screen downstairs and two smaller screens upstairs in the balcony. By 1989, the theater started showing second-run movies for only $1 per ticket. Nine chandeliers were removed from the ceiling to make these changes.
When Regal Cinemas built a new 12-screen movie theater at NorthTown Mall, they sold half of their eight Spokane theaters, including the Fox. The very last movie, Gladiator, was shown on September 21, 2000. A small ceremony marked the sale of the theater to the Spokane Symphony.
Saving and Restoring the Fox
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A nearby club wanted to buy the Fox Theater and tear it down to build a parking garage. But when they learned the Spokane Symphony wanted to buy it for a concert hall, the club supported the Symphony instead. The theater was saved when the Spokane Symphony bought it for $1.1 million in June 2000.
The Symphony started a big "Save the Fox" fundraising campaign. They needed a lot of money to restore the theater. A generous person named Myrtle Woldson gave $1 million. Then she offered another $2 million if others would match her donation. About a quarter of the restoration money came from federal and state sources. This included an $8 million grant and $2.5 million from the Washington state government. Important parts of the theater were renamed to honor big donors. The theater also has a "Walk of Stars" outside to thank those who support it. The theater was added to the National Register of Historic Places on November 30, 2001.
The Restoration Process
NAC Architecture of Spokane designed the restoration, and Walker Construction of Spokane was the builder. Workers carefully cleaned, painted, and rebuilt lost architectural details and light fixtures. Some changes were made to the outside of the building. The stage area was made larger on the west side of the theater. A new concrete wall was built there, and a new vertical sign was put on top of the building. The original stage was changed to a thrust stage, which extends into the audience.
Inside, the walls that divided the theater into three screens in 1975 were removed. A new inner lobby was created, which reduced the seating from 2,350 to 1,727. A hole had to be cut into the south side of the building to install new steel beams. These beams support equipment for modern features like heating and air conditioning.
Specialists from EverGreene Architectural Arts helped restore Heinsbergen's original interior designs. They also fixed the sunburst and chandelier light fixtures. The theater also got new heating and air conditioning systems. Soundproofing was added to make the acoustics perfect for a symphony. The building's original glass was cleaned, and some parts were remade using old techniques. The metal frames in the leaded glass were replaced with shiny zinc to keep the Art Deco look.
The total cost of the renovations was $31 million. The project was finished in November 2007. It even won a national preservation award in 2010 from the National Trust for Historic Preservation.
The theater was renamed the Martin Woldson Theater at the Fox. This was to honor Myrtle Woldson's father, who was a railroad pioneer and gave $3 million for the renovations.
The theater re-opened as the home of the Spokane Symphony on November 17, 2007. Washington Governor Christine Gregoire was there for the opening. A special celebration included a performance by Tony Bennett on November 19, 2007. The detailed restoration was shown in a film called "Spokane's 21st Century Fox."
