HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
1901 Opera House, Rebuilt 1924 After Fire
2911 Colby Ave, Everett, WA 98201
Research updated May 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Event-ticket pricing varies.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Restored 1901/1924 theater in downtown Everett
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1901 · Everett Opera House (1901) · 1923 Fire and 1924 Rebuild · Largest of Everett's Historic Theaters · Citizen Restoration 2000–2004
The Historic Everett Theatre opened in 1901 in downtown Everett, Washington, as the Everett Opera House. Architect Charles Herbert Bebb designed the $70,000 building for the Everett Theatre Company; the auditorium seated 1,200 and was the largest of Everett's former eight theaters. In the early twentieth century the stage hosted touring entertainment figures including Lillian Russell, Al Jolson, Eddie Foy and the Seven Little Foys, and George M. Cohan.
A disastrous fire in 1923 destroyed the building's interior and caused the front wall to partially collapse. The theater was rebuilt almost entirely and reopened in 1924 as the 1,200-seat New Everett Theater. Through the twentieth century the building shifted from opera and vaudeville to movie use.
In 1979 the owners chopped the balcony into two small auditoriums, triplexing the theater. The three-screen Everett proved unpopular and the theater closed within a decade. A citizens' group formed the Everett Theater Society and restored the theater to its 1924 appearance between 2000 and 2004. The venue went into foreclosure in 2014 and was slated for demolition; Craig and Curt Shriner purchased the building and renovated it for continued use as a live-performance venue.
The Shadowlands description placed the theater on Fairmount Avenue and tied it to a 1700s 'audience slaughter,' details that do not match the documented 1901 Charles Bebb building on Colby Avenue. The Boston state assignment in the Shadowlands record is also a clear data error; the venue's coordinates and history clearly identify it as the Historic Everett Theatre in Everett, Washington.
Sources
Local retellings tied to the Historic Everett Theatre — particularly during the building's post-1980s closure and decline before restoration — describe sensed presences and unexplained sounds in the empty auditorium. These accounts circulate in regional Pacific Northwest ghost-tour writing rather than in named-investigator publications.
The Shadowlands description of the venue references a 1700s slaughter of a sold-out balcony audience. The narrative is not historically supported: the building was constructed in 1901 by the Everett Theatre Company to a Charles Herbert Bebb design, suffered a 1923 fire that destroyed its interior, and was rebuilt in 1924. No documented mass-casualty event is part of the theater's history. The earlier retelling should be treated as folklore framing rather than as factual history.
The theater's primary present-day identity is as a working live-performance venue and a centerpiece of downtown Everett's historic district.
Attend a concert, performance, or screening at the Historic Everett Theatre, the largest of Everett's former eight theaters. The Charles Herbert Bebb-designed building opened in 1901 as the Everett Opera House and was rebuilt in 1924 after a 1923 fire.
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