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Historic place

Criterion Theatre

118 W Main St, Oklahoma City, OK

A French-style movie palace with a Wurlitzer organ, it was the last building on the 100 block of West Main to fall.

📅 1921–1972🏛️ TheaterDemolished
Open on the mapSlide back to 1921

The story

The Criterion opened on April 27, 1921, on West Main, designed by Boller Brothers in a French style that the Oklahoma Historical Society called 'French DeLuxe'. It was run by the Paramount-Publix circuit and later the Cooper Foundation. Cinema Treasures lists 1,425 seats, while a Retro Metro OKC writer recalls about 1,900 originally and 1,650 after later remodels.

It had a three-manual, 16-rank Wurlitzer pipe organ. A Cinema Treasures commenter says the house closed for good on June 13, 1972. The organ was sold to Paul Haggard, who kept it running until 1974, then moved it to a French restaurant called The Showplace in the Meridian Tower. The theater was torn down in 1973 and was the last building on the 100 block of West Main to go. Its removal cleared space for the Century Center development.

What's There Now

The site was cleared for the Century Center Plaza development.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

On February 17, 1953, the Criterion showed Marilyn Monroe in Niagara.
The Wurlitzer organ later ended up in a Galveston pizza parlor and was damaged in the 2009 flood.

Nearby history

Huckins Hotel

22 N Broadway Ave · 104 m away
Rebuilt after a 1908 fire, it sold itself with a garage annex that let guests 'Drive Right Into the Huckins Hotel.'

Katz Drug Store

200 W Main St · 121 m away
In August 1958 Clara Luper led Black students to its lunch counter, and by the third day the counter served them.

Hales Building

201 W Main St · 124 m away
A 12-story bank building that owners fought to save for years was dynamited in 16 seconds, to clear a shopping Galleria

John A. Brown's Department Store

213 W Main St · 132 m away
Oklahoma City's biggest downtown department store spread across a block of Main and Park, and was torn down for a Galler

Cooper Cinerama Theatre (Liberty Theatre)

19 N Robinson Ave · 176 m away
Opened as the Liberty in 1915, it became the Harber and then the Cooper, where Cinema Treasures says Cinerama and Cinemi

Skirvin Hotel

1 Park Ave · 188 m away
A hotel that opened in 1911, sat empty for 19 years, and reopened in 2007 with a ghost story local reporters could not t

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Sourceshttps://cinematreasures.org/theaters/3702