Fox Theatre
999 Willamette Street,
Eugene,
OR
97401
999 Willamette Street,
Eugene,
OR
97401
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Related Websites
Downtown Athletic Club (Official)
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Evergreen State Amusement Corp.
Firms: Lewis & Lewis
Functions: Conference Center, Gymnasium, Restaurant
Previous Names: Rex Theatre, Majestic Theatre, Progressive Theatre, National Theatre
Nearby Theaters
News About This Theater
- Mar 2, 2010 — Happy 45th, "The Sound Of Music"
Opened in 1912 as the Rex Theatre, this 850-seat theatre on Willamette Street has also been called the Majestic Theatre, the Progressive Theatre, the National Theatre, and in its final years in operation, in the 1960’s, the Fox Theatre.
Today the building houses the Downtown Athletic Club and Conference Center. It also houses a restaurant.
Contributed by
Bryan
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Recent comments (view all 10 comments)
There are some old photos of the theater on the Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society website at http://www.pstos.org/instruments/or/eugene/rex.htm
Opening as Fox on August 24th, 1955 is on page 8 of this newspaper at View link
Opening as National on June 11th, 1971
Microfilm at View link
The grand-re-opening as the National was on June 9, 1971, not June 11. The street address given in the National ads was 969 (not 999) Willamette.
From the late 1930s a photo postcard view of the Rex Theatre in Eugene.
Nice ad.Always enjoy looking at them.Thanks guys.
From the very early 1900s a view of the Rex Theatre..Vanishing Movie Theaters in Eugene
I remember the beautiful neon Fox sign that jutted out over the street in the 1960s and up until the Eugene sign code banned all the big signs. Seems like when the sign came down, that was about the time the name changed. I don’t think there was ever one of those generic tiny signs for The Fox. Would be really surprised if it had been renamed the Fox again as the caption says, in the end, and also the address of the theater is next door to where that athletic club is now. Fox was not on the corner it was (as another comment mentioned here) at 969 Willamette. I think that was a shoe store on the corner. And, as I mentioned, the theater did not have it’s “final days” in the 1960s. I was back briefly in Eugene in about 1985, and I think it was still open then (as The National). The last movie I saw there was in 1981.
Circa 1962 postcard added courtesy of Craig Addams.
The Rex Theatre must have been this project described in the June 8, 1912, issue of Pacific Builder & Engineer:
Notices about the project in other issues of the journal indicate that it was located on Willamette Street, and that the theater would be operated by J.J. Bryan and Mrs. M.E. Watson. The PSTOS page for the Rex says that the house “…originally had a 2/10 Estey organ (opus #1078) installed in 1912.”Finding the identities of the architects, Lewis & Lewis, has been rather tedious, there having also been two other architects with that surname active in Portland around this time, both of them quite active, but it turns out that the less-well-known construction-architecture firm Lewis & Lewis consisted of English-born builder William P. Lewis and his son, Robert Lewis. The firm was founded in 1898 and dissolved in 1913.
1952 photo added, source unknown.