Our Historic Blue Mouse Theatre

On Friday evening we had the pleasure of joining a sold out show of the Green Goddess. It was a great evening with a spectacular live organist, wine, popcorn, and salads complete with Green Goddess salad dressing. Also, before the show, it was it was announced that the Blue Mouse Theatre had been accepted for listing on the Washington Heritage Register and is on its way to national registration.

National Register of Historic Places nominations are reviewed at the State level by the Governor’s Advisory Council on Historic Preservation (ACHP). The Blue Mouse was on the review agenda for the ACHP meeting of November 5, 2009 where it was listed on the Washington Heritage Register and forwarded to the keeper of the NR for listing. Formal action is expected sometime in the next 5 to 6 weeks, but those involved are confident of its acceptance given the State Advisory Council’s recommendation.

Here’s a brief excerpt from the 36 page National Register application:

… The Blue Mouse Theatre is significant for its entertainment/recreational value as a standing relic of the nationwide theater building boom of the 1920s; it remains one of the few movie houses in Tacoma built during this era to survive. The theater is also significant under Criterion A for its association to the broad patterns of transportation history due to the fact that the building was chosen to be constructed in the Proctor neighborhood because of the neighborhood’s development as a streetcar suburb in the early 1900s. The building is also eligible under Criterion C (area of significance: architecture) as a good example of an arts-and-crafts style building featuring garden-style details.

On November 13, 1923, the single-screen Blue Mouse Theatre opened at 2611 North Proctor Street in the heart of Tacoma’s Proctor neighborhood. This was the fourth Blue Mouse Theatre to be opened in the northwest by independent theater mogul John Hamrick and the second such theater in Tacoma to be called by the Blue Mouse name. During the mid-1920s, a major theater building boom was taking place all across the United States as movie houses were becoming the most popular place in which to spend a social evening out on the town. Prior to World War I, the movie house had been a common place for entertainment; yet, after the First World War ended, the movie house industry exploded as much more lavishly detailed theaters were built across the nation.

Hamrick’s first Tacoma Blue Mouse Theatre was built downtown at 1131 Broadway (1922, demolished) and was received with great success. Hamrick’s attention to detail and ability to offer an unsurpassable film experience to the citizens of Tacoma resulted in high attendance, which inspired Hamrick to open his second Blue Mouse Theatre in Tacoma.

The second of John Hamrick’s Tacoma theaters was to be built in the “small but prosperous business district” of the streetcar suburb created by Allen C. Mason in the North End of Tacoma, known as the Proctor District.

Congratulations to the the Blue Mouse Associates, Historic Tacoma, Artifacts Consulting, and everybody else involved in putting this nomination together.

So … how is it that every post on Exit133 always devolves into streetcar discussions?