AKA: Orpheum Theater #1, Seattle, WA

Structure Type: built works - performing arts structures - theatres

Designers: [unspecified]

Dates: [unspecified]

Seattle, WA

OpenStreetMap (new tab)
Google Map (new tab)
click to view google map

Building Notes

This building, known as the Orpheum, operated before the Great Seattle Fire of 1889. It served multiple purposes, only occasionally as a theatre. It was the first "Orpheum" building listed in Appendix I of Eugene Clinton Elliott's A History of Variety-Vaudeville in Seattle from the Beginning to 1914, (Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1944, p. 66).

Building Notes

According to E.C. Elliott, A History of Variety-Vaudeville in Seattle from the Beginning to 1914, there were five separate theatres that had the name "Orpheum" before 1914. (See Eugene Clinton Elliott, A History of Variety-Vaudeville in Seattle from the Beginning to 1914, Appendix I, [Seattle: University of Washington Press, 1944], p.66-67.) While the Orpheum Theatre #5 at 919 3rd Avenue (designed by William Kingsley) was also operating, Polk's Seattle City Directories between 1918-1920 also listed the former Moore Theatre at 1934 2nd Avenue as the "Orpheum Theatre." (The Moore/Orpheum became the sixth theatre to have the Orpheum name.) Between 1885-1927, the name "Orpheum" was applied to a total of seven different theatrical venues in Seattle. The seventh was a design by B. Marcus Priteca (1889-1971) was located at 505 Stewart Street, erected in 1926-1927.

PCAD id: 18217