Warnors Theatre
1400 Fulton Street,
Fresno,
CA
93721
1400 Fulton Street,
Fresno,
CA
93721
10 people
favorited this theater
The Pantages Theatre opened on October 20, 1928. Built for and operated by Alexander Pantages, this massive building takes up an entire city block in downtown Fresno, CA. It is equipped with a Robert Morton theatre pipe organ. In 1929 it was taken over by Warner Bros. Circuit Management Corp. and renamed Warner’s Theatre. In December 1962 it was converted into a Cinerama theatre, opening on December 21, 1962 with “This Is Cinerama” and played Cinerama feature movies until December 1968.
In 1973 it was threatened with demolition and was purchased by theatre organ enthusiast Frank Caglia who renamed it Warnors Theatre (due to copyright of the Warner name). By 1987 it had been renovated to the plans of Seattle based architect Richard F. McCann, a successor to the Priteca firm, retaining all the original features of the building. Upon the death of Frank Caglia in 2006, the theatre passed to a non-profit operation and is a performing arts venue.
It was placed on the Register of Historic Places in 1978.
Contributed by
CinemAFuchs
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Recent comments (view all 22 comments)
How funny that they only changed one letter to save money. In LA, the downtown Warners theater became Warren’s for a while, but that would have meant replacing no letters, just reversing the last syllable.
October 19 is to be the 85th anniversary of KMJ radio. The event is to be held at Warnors featuring the recreated “Rat Pack” that appears regularly in Vegas. They are great! The organ will be used as a pre-show. Wish I could go, but I’ll be on my way to NYC that night. Tickets are available on the Warnors and KMJ 580 websites.
This next Sunday, April 13, veteran theatre organist Bob Mitchell is going to play the Robert Morton theatre organ in concert starting at 3pm. Bob is one of the two oldest/longest surviving theatre organists from the silent era.
Here is a vintage photo, probably circa 1950s:
http://tinyurl.com/cz2azq
Here is a 1981 photo:
http://tinyurl.com/d36ec3
Fresno’s Cinerama history posted here.
Here is another recent shot:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/cakeight/3714781977
A wonderful tour of a very nice Robert Morton Theater Organ at the Warnor Theater http://ow.ly/odldh
Here are more photos taken in and around the Warnor’s in recent years: https://www.flickr.com/photos/cakeight/6000278995 https://www.flickr.com/photos/cakeight/6000782966 https://www.flickr.com/photos/cakeight/6000275229 https://www.flickr.com/photos/cakeight/6000822760 https://www.flickr.com/photos/cakeight/6000816488 https://www.flickr.com/photos/cakeight/6000252133
my mom nursing school graduation took place here. everything was original including the urinals and toilets which were from 1911!