From the gaslit vaudeville stage of 1914, where Pantages Circuit acts took the spotlight, to the garish marquee of the 1970s advertising a very different kind of entertainment, the Liberty Theatre in Pasco lived more lives than the plain stucco shell of its later years ever let on. Though a devastating fire in 2013 delivered the final curtain call, the building’s historic exterior was saved. Today, the restored facade stands as a stubborn sentinel on Fourth Avenue, where the echoes of applause and the phantom scent of buttered popcorn still linger behind the modern storefronts of the Tri-Cities former “palace of play.”
Boomtown Beginnings and Theatrical Ambition: Pasco’s Early 1900s Transformation
The Liberty Theatre’s story begins in the feverish growth years between 1907 and 1915, when Pasco’s population exploded from roughly 400 residents to more than 3,000. Railroad construction, irrigation speculation, and aggressive promotion by the Pasco Reclamation Company pulled settlers, investors, and dreamers into the region. Fourth Avenue shifted from open land to a corridor of new commercial ambition.
Among the early developers was V.B. Cox, who operated his investment company from a wood-frame office at Fourth and Lewis. By 1912, Cox and partner George Cord envisioned something Pasco didn’t yet have: a large, modern theater capable of hosting the kind of touring shows and motion pictures sweeping the country. Pasco already had the Empire and the Crystal near the railroad tracks, but this new venue would be different and grander, more ambitious, and planted firmly in the city’s expanding new district.
Construction began with community buy-in, quite literally. Pasco residents were asked to invest $15 each, a significant sum for heavily taxed citizens to fund new schools, a courthouse, a library, and civic infrastructure. The enthusiasm was real, but the money wasn’t enough. As early resident E.L. Collins later recalled to the Tri-City Herald in 1947, the project “went broke before the basement was even completed.” The unfinished pit sat for two years, deep enough to swallow Sheriff J.W. Hays and a fleeing burglar during a chase, both men climbing out and continuing the pursuit as if falling into a construction hole were just another Tuesday.
The Cord Theatre Rises: 1914 and the Promise of Big-City Entertainment
In 1914, salvation arrived in the form of E.G. Kerfoot and Gerard Ryczek, who financed the completion of the theater. Under architect J.E. Doughty, the building took shape in reinforced concrete and featured all the hallmarks of early 20th-century theatrical ambition, including a 30-by-60-foot stage, a proscenium arch stretching 26 feet wide and 23 feet high, balcony seating for the well-to-do, and dressing rooms tucked beneath the stage. Investors included Kerfoot, Ryczek, Cord, C.M. Barr, and a Mr. Kleeb, though Cox had quietly exited the venture.
The newly christened Cord Theatre officially opened on October 11, 1914, with much fanfare and the promise of world-class entertainment. Management secured a lease with Klaus and Erlanger Theater Management Company of New York, operators of an impressive theater chain throughout the Northwest, which meant Pasco could anticipate seeing famous performers like David Warfield, John Drew, Julian Eltinge, Maude Adams, and Billie Burke.
The opening night was planned with special premium seating starting at $5 and $10 seats to help finance the furnishing of the theater, yet disappointingly, the event fell flat. Movies alone couldn’t fill the seats, as the town wanted something more. It wasn’t until December 29, 1914, when a traveling road company brought the musical “December Morn” to town, that the Cord Theatre finally found its audience. That show drew capacity crowds and proved that live entertainment was the ticket to success.
The Liberty Era: A New Name and a Golden Age
With live shows now proven popular, new management kept the bookings coming. Variety shows, concert artists, vaudeville acts, and touring Broadway companies all performed at the theater through the late 1910s and 1920s. Eventually, E.J. Reynolds purchased the Cord Theatre in 1917 and changed its name to the Liberty Theatre. Reynolds had also acquired the Empire Theater the previous year and consolidated both under one manager.
In the end, Reynolds would prove to be more than just another owner, as he was a visionary who understood that a theater could be more than a place to watch movies. In the decades that followed, the theater evolved into a true civic hub, hosting school plays, high school graduation ceremonies, recitals, and benefit shows. Ultimately, it would become Pasco’s civic auditorium and the place where the community gathered to celebrate its milestones and share in its culture.
Reynolds also understood atmosphere and thus invested heavily in improvements that transformed the Liberty into something truly special. At one point, he installed a magnificent pipe organ to accompany silent films, filling the theater with music that swelled and soared with the action on screen.
Then, in 1924, he turned the unfinished basement into a combination auditorium and dance hall, even adding an outside entrance so dancers wouldn’t have to traipse through the theater lobby. Opening as The Bungalow on October 14, 1924, the maple dance floor quickly became the envy of Eastern Washington as word traveled far and wide of its unusual springiness. Theories abounded about what gave it that bounce, with locals theorizing everything from cork underlayment, buggy springs, or three layers of two-by-four studs stacked just so. Whatever the secret, the magical formula remains a delightful mystery even today.
The Bungalow turned the Liberty into a true social center. Bands rolled in from Yakima, Walla Walla, and Seattle, with names like Fat Kerman, the Idaho Strollers, and the Kings of Syncopation, who kept audiences moving for hours. Upstairs, you could catch a movie or a live show. Downstairs, you danced until your feet hurt. For a town the size of Pasco, it was a remarkable amenity.
Golden Age Glamour and a Spanish Makeover: The 1929 Renovation
The late 1920s brought not only prosperity but also spectacular modernization. In late 1927, the Junior Amusement Company of Walla Walla (later renamed the Inland Theater Company) purchased the Liberty, bringing with them the resources and ambition to completely renovate the aging structure. By July 1929, the work was complete, and Pasco residents got their first glimpse of the newly reimagined Liberty Theatre, no longer reminiscent of a Grecian Temple but transformed into a Spanish-style palace complete with stained glass windows lit from within and a confectionery parlor on the ground floor.
The renovations went far beyond aesthetic updates. New, wider seats replaced the cramped originals, and the old stepped seating arrangement gave way to gently sloping floors for better sightlines. More importantly, the theater was retrofitted to accommodate the revolutionary innovation of sound pictures, with a massive undertaking that included modifications to the projection room, special acoustical plaster and a new screen.
From Depression Era Bank Nights to the Post-War Fade
The 1930s brought the Great Depression, but the Liberty kept the crowds coming. Uniformed ushers directed patrons to their seats. Special promotions offered distractions from hard times. The most popular was Bank Night, a weekly event where a name was drawn each Thursday for a $25 prize. If the winner wasn’t present, the pot grew. And grew. Sometimes it climbed past $400 before someone finally showed up to claim it. The ticket line on Thursday nights stretched around the corner, snaking down the sidewalk as Pasco residents gambled on being the lucky name drawn.
The theater remained a powerhouse through the 1940s, providing a much-needed escape for workers from the Hanford Atomic Works and the nearby Naval Air Station. The Liberty and the Bungalow dance hall remained popular through the war years, packed with servicemen and defense workers looking for entertainment.
However, the 1950s brought the glow of the television set into Pasco living rooms, and the magic of the big screen began to dim. By the 1960s, attendance had plummeted. In a colorful and controversial chapter in the 1970s, the theater was purchased by Roger Forbes and converted into an “adult” movie house, a move that eventually led to a legal standoff with the city. The marquee finally went dark in 1989, and the building sat vacant, a silent sentinel of a bygone era.
Fire on Fourth Avenue: Rising From the Ashes
For over two decades, the Liberty Theater stood cold and empty, its “Bungalow” floorboards slowly disintegrating. Tragedy struck on August 14, 2013, when a massive fire gutted the interior. As smoke billowed over downtown Pasco, it seemed the building’s history would end in a pile of rubble. The structure that had survived economic depression, changing tastes and decades of neglect appeared to have finally met its match.
While the roof and the interior were a total loss, the reinforced concrete walls held firm. The city and the owner opted for “structural salvage,” stabilizing the shell and installing new roof trusses in 2014. Rather than being leveled, the building was reborn. The facade was restored with a new veneer that mimicked its historic Spanish-style aesthetic, and the cavernous interior was subdivided into modern retail spaces.
Theater people have a saying that the show must go on. The Liberty Theatre took that advice to heart. What remains today is not the bustling venue that once drew crowds for vaudeville, musicals and dancing the night away, but a storied structure that has outlasted booms, busts, and a fiery inferno that should have ended it. While the Liberty may no longer command a stage, its persistence on Fourth Avenue is in a way its own kind of final performance, as a quiet encore that asks nothing of its audience except to remember this former “palace of play” in the Tri-Cities.
