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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Concordia, KS
Colonel Napoleon Bonaparte Brown, a Concordia banker, broke ground on the theater in April 1906 and hired Kansas City architect Carl Boller to design it. His son, Earl Van Dorn Brown, supervised construction after touring more than thirty opera houses for ideas. The theater opened September 17, 1907. Brown died in 1910; Earl died about four months later. Listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1973, the building was restored to its original appearance and reopened in 1980.
Cripple Creek, CO
The Butte Theater on Bennett Avenue is a historic Cripple Creek opera house rebuilt after the April 1896 fires that devastated the city. Associated with the Imperial Casino, it has operated as a performance venue for more than a century and is reportedly haunted by a ghost named Jack, linked to the nearby fire department.
Tucson, AZ
The Fox Tucson Theatre opened on April 11, 1930, as a combined vaudeville and movie house. After closing in 1974 and standing vacant for 25 years, the building was purchased in 1999 by the non-profit Fox Tucson Theatre Foundation for $250,000 and reopened in 2006 following a multi-year, multi-million-dollar restoration.