A restored 1930 movie palace that runs its own seasonal ghost tours through the building's hidden spaces.
2001 H Street, Bakersfield, CA 93301
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Ghost tour tickets are sold per event, typically in October. General programming (concerts, films, community events) is ticketed separately by show.
Access
Wheelchair OK
A historic theater building; the ghost tour reaches normally inaccessible back-of-house and upper areas that involve stairs.
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1930 · 1930 Movie Palace · Spanish Colonial Revival Architecture · S. Charles Lee Design
The Fox Theater opened on Christmas Day 1930 with a screening of the film Just Imagine. Architect S. Charles Lee designed the building in a Spanish Colonial Revival style, with a Mediterranean-themed interior and a tall corner clock tower at H and 20th streets that became a downtown landmark.
The theater operated as a movie house through the mid-twentieth century before the decline of single-screen palaces left it dark. A community restoration effort returned the building to use, and it reopened as a nonprofit performing-arts venue operated by the Fox Theater Foundation.
Today the Fox hosts a wide range of programming, from ballet and community events to film screenings and contemporary concerts. The restored marquee and neon signage remain among the most recognizable features of downtown Bakersfield.
In addition to its regular calendar, the Foundation runs seasonal ghost tours of the building, leading visitors into back-of-house and upper-level spaces that are normally closed to the public. The theater is one of two downtown Bakersfield buildings most often named in local ghost-tour coverage, alongside the Nile Theater.
Sources
The theater's ghost-tour programming foregrounds a presence tour guides identify as Vilmos, framed in tour materials as a figure tied to the Fox theater chain. Local tellings also attach a story to the building's clock tower, where an apparition is sometimes described moving near the clock face.
These accounts circulate mainly through the theater's own ghost tours and the local news coverage that promotes them. The Fox Theater Foundation presents the tours as a mix of building history and reported phenomena, using the restored back-of-house spaces as the setting. Local television and press have covered the events, naming the Fox as one of the two most-cited haunted theaters downtown.
The Wikipedia record of the building documents its architecture and restoration but does not list a haunted history, so the paranormal accounts here rest on the tour program and local journalism rather than on the building's formal historical documentation. Visitors curious about the stories experience them as part of the seasonal tour rather than as ongoing public claims.
Notable Entities
A seasonal guided tour, hosted by the Fox Theater Foundation, that takes visitors through normally inaccessible areas of the 1930 building. Guides cover the theater's history and its haunted reputation, including the figure tour-goers know as Vilmos. Tours are usually offered around late October.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Joliet, IL
The Rialto Square Theatre opened May 24, 1926, designed by Chicago firm Rapp & Rapp for the six Rubens brothers. Its Neo-Baroque interior — modeled in part on the Hall of Mirrors at Versailles — earned it a place on the American Institute of Architects's '150 Great Places in Illinois' and a listing on the National Register of Historic Places.
Ashland, KY
The Paramount Arts Center opened September 5, 1931 in Ashland, Kentucky as one of the first movie palaces purpose-built for sound film. Designed by Rapp and Rapp, the theater closed in 1971 and was rescued from demolition by the Greater Ashland Foundation, reopening as a performing-arts center in 1972.
St. Louis, MO
The Fabulous Fox Theatre opened in January 1929 as one of five 'Fox' picture palaces commissioned by film magnate William Fox. Designed by C. Howard Crane in a 'Siamese Byzantine' style, the 4,500-seat auditorium was the second-largest in the United States at its opening. After decades of decline the theatre closed in 1978 and was restored by the Fox Associates beginning in 1981, reopening in 1982 as the centerpiece of Grand Center.