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After fire ravaged the Arlington Hotel on Ogden’s main boulevard in 1923, Harman W. and Louis H. Peery, sons of deceased pioneer businessman David H. Peery, set about to replace the rubble with a movie palace that would become “The Showplace of the West.” >> Learn more.

Peery’s Egyptian Theater Was The Talk of The Town!

July 3, 1924: Grand Opening featuring Zane Grey’s “Wanderer of the Wasteland” in natural colors with Franz Rath, Jr at the Mighty Wurlitzer Organ.

First Silent Films Shown at The Egyptian

Accompanied by the Mighty Wurlitzer Theatre Pipe Organ

• Wanderer of the Wasteland
• The Hunchback of Notre Dame
• The Covered Wagon

The Golden Years

The “Talkies”(movies with sound) came to the big screen in the late 1920’s ushering in a new era for movie palaces, and the Golden Years at Peery’s Egyptian Theater lasted until the beginning of the 1960’s.

1930s

1947

1950

The Golden Years Were Over After the 50’s

1975

Still a major first-run venue, the Egyptian was not exactly showing Academy Award Winning material. The businesses around the theater had also greatly changed and the downtown was beginning to suffer from a gradual decline in business as people left the city to shop at the malls. This was happening all across the US.

1984

Circumstances changed dramatically in the early 1980s. Operated by a small, local chain by then, and reduced to a second-run dollar movie venue, the Egyptian was ordered closed by county authorities late in 1984 for health code violations. The Egyptian closed in late December of 1984, surrounded by empty buildings. What was once Ogden’s main retail block was not mostly vacated as retail acvitity moved to the new Ogden City Mall.

1997

The group of concerned citizens who saved the Egyptian from the wrecking ball and then gathered community support for the restoration of the grand old theatre became the Egyptian Theatre Foundation. The restoration was completed in 1997 and it included Weber County's addition of the Ogden Eccles Conference Center, adjoining the theatre to encourage business growth in the downtown area.