The Electric Theatre

Looking pretty nice these days. All pics from atlas obscura. 

When I was a teenager, a good friend of mine worked at the theatres in St.George, and was promoted to manager.  Now back then they were all owned by the same person, so this means he was a manager of ALL the movie theatres there. So, every now and again, I'd pal around with him and bug him at work and goof off in the projection rooms, including the one in the old Electric Theater at 68 E Tabernacle St. I had a lot of good memories of getting cool movie posters, big parties, all sorts of shenanigans in the theatres down there.

The lobby looks vastly different than in the 90s, in that it's not run down and trashy anymore.

It was still operating as an actual theatre then, and boy was it run down. Little did I know, that unlike most things in Southern Utah, the history of it is pretty interesting. Built in the year of 1911, it was the first theatre built in the southern end if the state and was THE first building in the city to incorporate early refrigeration/air conditioning. 

The historic marker that doesn't mention the recent renovation. 

1999 was it's last year of operation as a theatre and shuttered it's doors. Later, in 2013, it was bought by the City of St. George as a project to create an art district along with a couple of neighboring buildings. It took nearly $3 million dollars to both modernize the building and restore it to it's more original look that it currently has. After having reopened in 2015, today it is host to a number of live performances, mostly by locals. You can check out their schedule at their website here: https://www.sgcity.org/arts/artsfacilities/electrictheater.