Built 1930 (1930) Opened 1930 Architecture firm Boller Brothers | NRHP Reference # 88001171 Architectural style Art Deco Added to NRHP 4 August 1988 | |
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Location 151 S Santa Fe Ave, Salina, Kansas | ||
The Fox-Stiefel Theater in Salina, Kansas is an Art Deco theater built 1930-1931. It opened in February 1931. It was listed on the National Register of Historic Places in 1988 as the Fox-Watson Theater Building.
History
The Fox-Watson Theatre, as it was then called, was opened in late February 1931. The theater was the brain-child of Winfield W. Watson, a local businessman and banker. He led the campaign to bring a movie house to Salina and donated the land for the theater. Fox West Coast Theatres built the art deco style movie house at a cost of $400,000. Boller Brothers, an architectural firm out of Kansas City, Missouri, designed the structure.
The opening feature was Not Exactly Gentlemen featuring Fay Wray. The theater was closed in August 1987 by then owners Dickinson Theaters, as competition from Dickinson's mall theaters made the downtown location unprofitable.
Dickinson gave the theater to the city in 1989. It was restored by a non-profit group over several years and reopened as The Stiefel Theatre for the Performing Arts on March 8, 2003. Since then, the theater has booked a variety of acts.