HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Early 1900s Salisbury opera house that cycled through six names and a dozen owners before Piedmont Players revived it — underground tunnels and disembodied footsteps included.
213 S Main St, Salisbury, NC 28144
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Performance ticket prices vary by show; ghost walk fee for evening paranormal stops
Access
Wheelchair OK
Downtown theater with street-level entrance; interior accessibility per venue
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1900 · Early 20th Century Opera House and Cinema · Downtown Salisbury Entertainment History · Underground Tunnel Network Connection · Piedmont Community Theater Restoration
The theater at 213 S Main Street has one of the more convoluted identities in Carolinas entertainment history. Cinema Treasures, which maintains a database of American theatrical venues, documents the building's successive names: it operated as the Bijou, Fotosho, Colonial, Strand, State, Center, and Towne Cinema at various points across the twentieth century, reflecting both ownership changes and the broader industry shifts from live performance to film and back.
The building sits within Salisbury's historic commercial core, which developed atop a network of underground tunnels connecting several downtown properties. The exact original purpose of those tunnels has been debated — utility passages, Prohibition-era routes, and pre-Civil War use have all been proposed — but their existence is documented and has become a fixture of the city's dark tourism narrative.
Piedmont Players Theatre, Salisbury's community theater company, took over the venue in 1992 and restored it as a working performance space. The organization operates the Meroney as its main stage for a full season of productions. WFAE's 2022 coverage of the Salisbury Ghost Walk references the Meroney area in connection with the tunnel network, and the ghost walk itself includes the theater as a regular stop.
Sources
The Meroney's paranormal reputation draws primarily from acoustic phenomena: guides and walk participants describe hearing footsteps from unoccupied sections of the theater during tours and after-hours visits. The reports are not tied to any specific historical figure or event documented in the building's operational record.
The underground tunnels running beneath this block of S Main Street give the site additional atmospheric weight. WFAE's coverage of the ghost walk mentions the tunnel network in the Meroney area, and guides connect the subterranean passages to the theater's overall dark history presentation.
Piedmont Players operates an active performance season at the Meroney, meaning the building is regularly occupied and maintained — a context that makes the footstep reports more notable to those who collect them, since the building is not derelict.
The Meroney's S Main Street facade reflects its many-layered commercial and entertainment history. The building sits above documented underground tunnels that connect several downtown Salisbury properties.
The Salisbury Ghost Walk includes the Meroney Theatre on its route, with guides covering the building's performance history and reports of disembodied footsteps heard in the theater and references to the underground tunnel network beneath this block.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
Salisbury, NC
The building at 212 S Main St in downtown Salisbury was constructed in 1922 as a Baptist church. It later converted to use as a community theater and now operates as the Old Courthouse Theatre, one of Salisbury's primary performing arts venues.
Burlington, NC
Burlington's Paramount Theatre opened in 1928 as the Grand Theatre, built by J.R. Qualls. The name changed to the Paramount in 1929 and the venue has operated continuously as a downtown entertainment anchor ever since, surviving the decline that closed many single-screen theaters.
Gainesville, GA
Pearce Auditorium at Brenau University dates to 1878, making it one of the older surviving performance venues in northeast Georgia. The university itself was established in 1878 as a women's institution and has remained a women's college at its undergraduate level. The auditorium has been an active venue for university performances throughout its history.