Ellis Theatre
217 S. Main Street,
Perryton,
TX
79070
217 S. Main Street,
Perryton,
TX
79070
2 people
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The Google Street view is 2023 & 2024, all post tornado. Scrolling around the block it looks like the roof is all there. But it can only be seen from the surrounding streets. Normally Google goes up the alleys, but there were visible electric repair trucks blocking them at the time. A lot of damage to buildings in the area.
CDC Purchases Ellis, Still Waiting To Determine Whether Structure Can Be Saved Wednesday, 27 November, 2024 The Perryton Community Development Corporation continues to work on purchasing some tornado-ravaged buildings on Main Street. While some buildings are beyond repair and either have been torn down or will be, their newest purchase’s future remains a question.
Perryton CDC Director Colby Waters said they have now purchased the Ellis Theater but whether it will be saved is unclear. “We closed on that property earlier this month, but we do not take possession until December third. After we take possession, we have engineers who will evaluate the building and see where we go from there,” he told KXDJ’s Chris Samples.
“I’ve not had much time in that building. It has challenges. There are some areas where their roof has been gone since the tornado. There’s a chance that building would come down as well but there has been a push for us to try and evaluate that building differently than some of the others we’ve had.”
The theater is closed.
The Washington Post had a photo of an SUV shoved into the lobby. The marquee was still up, and looked mostly intact, except for the ‘E’ being folded over.
The Ellis Theatre was damaged, how bad, not known yet. June 16 2023… RAC Photography
The Ellis reopened with new owners in 2018
I might be interested in leasing this theatre.
Al
UPDATE: there is a campaign to Save The Ellis! https://www.facebook.com/SaveTheEllis/?hc_ref=SEARCH&fref=nf
SaveTheEllis
The Ellis Theater has indeed closed as of October 2016. I visited over Christmas. The building’s owner gave me a tour and everything is still in great condition, it just needs the right kind of love.
The theater closed for good on 10/3/16.
The Ellis also hosts live performances. See new pictures in the Photo section.
We plan on revisiting this one this summer to see the restoration progress. I’ll make sure we take digital pix this time. The Lyric Theatre in Spearman, TX., is also close to this one. We’ll visit and photograph it, too. As always we’ll post asap.
Charles, I have regular, paper photos of the Ellis but nothing digital. Guess I need to finally buy a new camera. Cindy and I love visiting these old theaters, meeting their owners, and hearing their stories. We’ve been to quite a few in Oklahoma, Kansas, eastern Colorado, and the Texas Panhandle. Do you have any favorites in these areas that we might enjoy visiting?
I just met the Ellis’s owner, and he has plans to restore it as we speak. In fact, he making really good progress. The main auditorium looks great! It has some really interesting mural work, and yes, the hanging lamps are still there. There are 4 of them in all. I mistakenly said the featured cherubs. In fact, they feature women figures dressed in flowing blue gowns. They’re quite impressive. The twin auditorium is the next door building, but it was “twinned” in such a way as to not harm the original theatre.
It’s a really nice theatre!
This one’s bigger than it looks! It has an opera pit. It also has hanging lamps with cherubs on them. I guess they were oil or gas lights??? Others things have certainly been “modernized.” Still it’s a pretty interesting theatre.