Former Laredo Performance Hall With a Fatal Stage Accident
2400 San Bernardo Avenue, Laredo, TX 78040
Age
All Ages
Cost
$
The auditorium was renovated into the LISD Performing Arts Center following the 2013 sale of the Civic Center to the Laredo Independent School District. Check current programming for event access.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Paved, urban, indoor performance space
Equipment
Photos OK
The Laredo Civic Center at 2400 San Bernardo Avenue served as the city's primary performance and civic gathering facility through much of the late twentieth century. The facility included a ballroom and an auditorium with a traditional theatrical fly system — the counterweight-based rigging used to move curtains, scenery, and equipment above the stage.
A fatal accident occurred in the auditorium when a counterweight assembly — the weights that control curtain movement — fell and struck a worker in the head, killing him. The accident left physical marks: cracks in the wall and floor in the second-floor dressing room area on stage left, described in local accounts as still visible years later.
In 2013, the City of Laredo sold the complex to the Laredo Independent School District for approximately $15.9 million. The Civic Center Ballroom was subsequently demolished. The auditorium was renovated and continues to function as the LISD Performing Arts Center.
Sources
The paranormal accounts at the Laredo Civic Center are grounded in a specific event at a specific location: the counterweight accident in the second-floor dressing room area, stage left.
Janitors working the building after evening events described hearing footsteps on the second floor when no one should have been present. The footsteps were reported as deliberate — not the random settling of a building but the sound of someone walking a known path.
More unusual were accounts of physical contact: janitors reported being pinched while working in the dressing room area on stage left, in the vicinity of the accident site. No figure was visible when this occurred.
The physical evidence cited in local accounts adds a concrete anchor: the cracks left by the falling weights in the wall and floor of the dressing room were described as remaining visible and unrepaired, providing a permanent reminder of the location of the accident.
The former Laredo Civic Center at 2400 San Bernardo Avenue was sold to the Laredo ISD in 2013, with the auditorium converted to a school district performing arts center. The second-floor dressing room area on stage left — where the fatal rigging accident occurred — remains part of the building. The site is an active school facility; public entry is event-dependent.
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