HauntBound archive · catalog record
Reported phenomena — as catalogued
Restored 1920 vaudeville and movie house in Moundsville with a disconnected phone said to ring in the booth
512 Jefferson Avenue, Moundsville, WV 26041
Research updated June 2026
Age
All Ages
Cost
$$
Ticket prices vary by event. The Strand hosts plays, musicians, and films; see the theatre's website for the current calendar and pricing.
Access
Wheelchair OK
Restored multi-level theater building on a downtown Moundsville street
Equipment
Photos OK
Est. 1920 · 1920 vaudeville and movie house · Listed on the National Register of Historic Places (1995) · Restored and reopened in 2014 by the Strand Theatre Preservation Society
The Strand Theatre opened in 1920 at the corner of Fifth and Jefferson streets in Moundsville, built as an 1,100-seat vaudeville house. As live vaudeville faded, it transitioned to showing movies, and it operated as a downtown cinema across several decades of the twentieth century before closing in 1996.
The building sat empty until a community effort revived it. The Strand Theatre Preservation Society, a nonprofit established in 2002, oversaw a restoration funded in part by the State Historic Preservation Office and the National Trust for Historic Preservation, and the theatre reopened in 2014. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1995.
Today the Strand operates as a community performing-arts venue, hosting plays, live musicians, and film screenings. The ghost accounts attached to the building come from people involved in its restoration and from a paranormal investigator, and they are told in the spirit of the preservation architect's own summary of the place: it is an old building, and stuff happens.
Sources
The Strand's ghost stories center on the projection booth. In the best-known account, a preservation architect and his teenage daughter were in the booth during a winter visit when the dusty phone on the desk began to ring. When the daughter asked whether he would answer it, the architect pointed out that the phone was not connected to anything.
The second account comes from a paranormal investigator who later worked in the same booth and reported capturing an electronic voice phenomenon, a recorded voice with no audible source at the time, that growled the words get out. Both stories are tied to the upper-floor booth rather than the auditorium.
The people who tell these stories are careful not to oversell them. The preservation architect summed the building up with the line that gave a published account its title: it is an old building, and stuff happens. The Strand does not run ghost tours; the accounts are part of the lore that has gathered around a century-old theater brought back to life.
The restored Strand Theatre hosts plays, live music, and films. Attending a scheduled event is the way to see the interior, including the building tied to the venue's ghost stories. Check the theatre's website for the current calendar and to buy tickets.
Every HauntBound history is researched from documented sources. We clearly separate verified historical fact from paranormal folklore.
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The Acme Theater was built in the 1920s in Riverton, Wyoming by Belle Mote, one of Riverton's most prominent businesswomen. Originally hosted live stage shows, vaudeville, and penny shows before transitioning to modern movie theater operations.
Philipsburg, MT
Prominent businessman Angus A. McDonald built this two-story masonry theater in 1891 to entertain the silver-mining towns of Philipsburg and nearby Granite. It is described as Montana's oldest operating theater. Renamed the Granada Theatre in 1919, it later screened films for decades and continues today as a live performance and movie venue.
Laconia, NH
The Colonial Theatre opened on Main Street in Laconia in 1914, a roughly 1,200-seat house designed for movies and vaudeville. It ran as a cinema until 2002, was later carved into a multiplex, and sat vacant before a 2016-2021 restoration reversed the subdivision and reopened it as a single-auditorium performing-arts venue of about 750 seats in August 2021.