Peery’s Egyptian Theater
- A former venue for the Sundance Film Festival
- Utah’s last existing bona fide movie palace
- On the National Register of Historic Sites
- One of 42 (est.) Egyptian-design theatres constructed in the entire United States
- On the Ogden Register of Historic Sites
- One of a dozen or fewer Egyptian-style theaters of movie palace status in the U.S.
- Thought to be the only “atmospheric” theater of any design in the Intermountain region and is one of the two Egyptian-style theaters in the nation with its auditorium “sky” dotted with twinkling stars.
Theater History
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1924: The Talk of the Town
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.”
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1930s - 50s: The Golden Years
The “Talkies” (movies with sound) came to the big screen in the late 1920s ushering in a new era for movie palaces, and the Golden Years at Peery’s Egyptian Theater lasted until the beginning of the 1960s.
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1961
The Golden Years Were Over After the 50’s.
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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.
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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.
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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.