El Rey Theatre

Joe Vogel on February 25, 2005 at 4:30 am

The El Rey is being closed, after being sold to Eric Hart, owner of the nearby Senator Theater. Though the Senator is slowly being restored, the historic El Rey building is to be converted into an office-retail and parking complex after the interior of the building has been gutted.

This theater is older than I had thought. It opened in 1905 as a vaudeville house called the Majestic, but it began showing movies along with the stage shows soon after opening. In 1926, it was remodeled by the Sacramento architectural firm of Starks and Flanders, for the new owners, the National Theaters Circuit, and the theater was renamed the National. It was remodeled again in 1939, and the name changed to the American Theater. In 1946, a fire caused severe damage to the building and destroyed the marquee. The interior of the theater was rebuilt, and the present art moderne murals of the auditorium date from this time. At about the same time, fire destroyed an Oakland theater called the El Rey, but spared its marquee, which was subsequently moved to this theater in Chico, giving it its final name.

The closing of the El Rey not only ends nearly a century of movies in this grand old house, but leaves the city of Chico with only two operating movie houses- Cinemark’s 14 screen Tinseltown complex, and the very small, single screen downtown art house, the Pageant. I believe that the El Rey was the last big, single screen theater operating in the central valley north of Sacramento, and it was certainly the oldest.

Joe Vogel on January 30, 2005 at 3:41 pm

This is actually a fairly old theater. I have an old newspaper article about it, but I can’t find it at the moment. If I recall correctly, the El Rey was opened in 1926 as the National Theatre, was owned by the Valley Empire Theatres Company, and was designed by the firm of Stark and Flanders.

I believe this to be the last big, single screen theater in the northern Sacramento Valley still operating as a movie house. It has survived this long largely due to its location almost next door to the campus of California State University at Chico.

FLEABttn on September 14, 2004 at 6:37 pm

I believe Regal paid for those black reclining seats in there as well.

The walls inside the theater are nicely painted, but have faded with time and water damage.

The function of the theater isn’t completely correct. The theater shows first runs movies as its primary function (and it obtains exclusive screening rights for these movies in Chico, as in the movie being shown there won’t be shown at the 10 screen downtown). However, from September to December, and then late January/early February to about May, it shows older movies, Thursday, Friday, and Saturday night at midnight. Last weekend was Snatch, this weekend is Purple Rain, next weekend is South Park.

To my understanding, it has the largest screen in California north of Sacramento.