Spokane’s Scenic Theatre opens on June 13, 1907

On June 13, 1907, the Scenic Theatre in Spokane opens at 419 First Avenue. The house was designed by architect Alfred D. Jones, who also retained a financial interest in the venue, operating it under the banner of the Spokane Scenic Theater Company.

The Scenic was a modest theatre seating about 200 patrons and specialized in motion pictures interspersed with illustrated songs. The venue’s claim to fame on opening day was showing films using a new viascope projector machine, sourced from Chicago. This machine was manned by operator William H. Bell, also from Chicago and the man who may have recommended the unit to ownership. The viascope was “said to do away with the ‘flicker’ [of pictures], which has been the main objection to this class of amusement” observed the trade paper Moving Picture World. (See “The Scenic Theater, Spokane…,” Moving Picture World, 22 June 1907, Page 248.)

It’s not clear how long the Scenic continued operating, whether under that name or a revised moniker. It was still in business as of 1912, when it was sold to new ownership. 

Both Jones and Bell would remain fixtures of the Spokane entertainment scene, at least for the next few years. Though an architect by trade, Jones retained part ownership of the Scenic and later became president of the Arcade Amusement Company, which built both Arcade (412 Riverside) in 1908, and Empress (249 Riverside) theatres in Spokane. (See “Alfred D. Jones (1872-1915),” Washington State Department of Archeology and Historic Preservation website (https://dahp.wa.gov/historic-preservation/research-and-technical-preservation-guidance/architect-biographies/bio-for-alfred-d-jones), accessed 17 December 2025.)

Bell, on the other hand, only worked at the Scenic briefly before moving his services over to another new picture theatre in Spokane, the Empire (326 Riverside), in 1908. He eventually went on to become the first president of the Spokane operator’s union, IATSE No. 9, which was chartered in the spring of 1909. (“Operators’ Union in Spokane, Wash.,” Moving Picture World, 23 May 1908, Page 457.) Bell would leave the projectionist trade altogether in 1910 to open the Northwestern Amusement Supply Co., one of the region’s first comprehensive film supply businesses.