The story
The Centre Theatre opened December 24, 1937, with Carole Lombard and Fred MacMurray in True Confession. Paramount and Intermountain Theatres built it, Percy A. Eisen and A. R. Walker designed it, and it was considered one of Salt Lake's finest Art Deco buildings. Its most distinctive feature was a 90-foot tower. It opened with 1,623 seats, and a 56-foot-wide screen installed in 1959 cut that to 1,174.
Commenters on Cinema Treasures recall the 1977 opening of Star Wars there, and a 1983 flood that sent the 70mm print of Return of the Jedi to another theater for a spell. In 1989 Cineplex Odeon let its lease run out so the owners could demolish the building. An office tower and a six-screen multiplex were built on the site.
What's There Now
An office tower and a multiplex were built on the site.
Everything that was here
- 1937–1989
Centre TheatreTheater
An Art Deco movie house with a 90-foot tower opened Christmas Eve 1937 on the site of the old Knutsford Hotel and was gone by 1989.
See the map in 1938 → - 1891–1935
Knutsford HotelHotel
A six-story, 250-room granite hotel at State and Third South; later housed a department store and a Sears before demolition.
See the map in 1892 →
Did you know?
Nearby history
Auerbach's Department Store
Newhouse Building
Keith-O'Brien Building
Quarters Arcade Bar
Hotel Newhouse
Walker Bank Building
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