Coos Bay's Egyptian Theatre

When King Tutankhamun's tomb was discovered in nineteen twenty-two, Egyptian motifs swept through American popular culture, and the owners of a Coos Bay garage seized the moment. In nineteen twenty-five Portland architect Lee Arden Thomas converted the garage into the Egyptian Theatre, one of only about four surviving Egyptian Revival movie houses in the entire United States.

The interior is remarkable: piers decorated with papyrus blossoms, ceiling lights shaped like hooded cobras, stairways flanked by eight-foot pharaoh statues, and a Wurlitzer organ whose pipes still sit in chambers beside the stage. The theatre opened November nineteenth, nineteen twenty-five, with a dinner on stage for local dignitaries and Hollywood studio representatives. After decades of decline it was added to the National Register of Historic Places in twenty ten and reopened in twenty fourteen through a community preservation effort.