Home›Places›Salt Lake City, UT›Kingsbury Hall
Historic place

Kingsbury Hall

1395 Presidents Circle, Salt Lake City, UT

The University of Utah's 2,009-seat hall, dedicated in 1930, started Ballet West and Utah Opera and hosted Eleanor Roosevelt.

📅 1930–present🏛️ TheaterStill here
Open on the mapSlide back to 1930

The story

Kingsbury Hall was dedicated in May 1930 and named for Joseph T. Kingsbury, university president from 1897 to 1926. Edward O. Anderson and Lorenzo Snow Young designed it in a neo-classical style with Egyptian revival influence. It seated 2,009. It began as extra classroom space, a student assembly hall and home to the Theater Program and Speech Arts Department. The first production was the play Bluebird, which the Utah Chronicle described as the largest event the university had hosted to that date.

Later it became one of Utah's largest concert venues. Visitors have included Eleanor Roosevelt, Carol Channing, Vincent Price and Harry Belafonte. It was the starting place for Ballet West and Utah Opera. A renovation reported in 1996 gave it a stagehouse nearly four times its original size and dressing rooms for 77 performers. It is one of the buildings on Presidents Circle listed on the National Register of Historic Places.

What's There Now

Kingsbury Hall remains a University of Utah performing arts venue.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

The velvet stage curtain cost $2,000 in 1930.
Its lighting was described as the most elaborate in the city.
The 1996 renovation gave the stagehouse nearly four times its original size.

Nearby history

Ute Stadium (Robert Rice Stadium)

451 S 1400 E · 721 m away
A $133,000 timber-and-earth stadium opened in 1927 and ran for 70 seasons before the Utes tore it down.

Hires Big H

425 S 700 E · 1.8 km away
A former grocer built a cinder-block drive-in near the University of Utah in 1959 and put a family pink sauce on the bur

Bill and Nada's Cafe

479 S 600 E · 2.1 km away
A 24-hour cafe that served brains and eggs, kept Nada's name for decades after her death, and closed with Bill in 1999.

Oak Hills Drive-In

2775 E 1000 S · 2.1 km away
A drive-in just southeast of Hogle Zoo let neighbors pay $50 for a speaker hookup and watch from home.

Trolley Square (Utah Light and Railway car barns)

602 E 500 S · 2.1 km away
E.H. Harriman spent $3.5 million on streetcar barns here; the last trolley left in 1945 and a mall opened in 1972.

Salt Lake City Hall (Council Hall)

120 E 100 S · 3.1 km away
City hall where Utah woman cast the first woman's vote in 1870, then moved stone by stone in 325 numbered slabs.

Know something about Kingsbury Hall? An old photo, a date, a memory of what stood here before?

Add it on the map
Sourceshttps://utahcommhistory.com/2018/12/17/a-brief-history-of-kingsbury-hall/