Walking north along Boulder's 14th Street from the Pearl Street pedestrian mall, it's hard to miss the Boulder Theater, a surviving landmark from the depths of the Great Depression, and one of the best examples of Art Deco architecture in Colorado...
When Kansas City architect Robert Boller of Boller Brothers (founded by older brother Carl) was selected to turn the 1906 Curran Opera House into a palace for showing motion pictures, his design went beyond mere renovation to replace the old Curran with a new structure, auditorium and facade to reflect contemporary design themes. During the Curran's nearly 3 decades of service, it had also hosted orchestral concerts and also some silent films, which presaged the flexibility it would need to survive later in the century.
Architectural historians think that Boller's design for the Boulder Theater building owes a bit to the Boulder County Courthouse, completed in 1933 to the design of local architect Glen H. Huntington. It's right across 14th Street, and when you walk around to look at the courthouse facade facing Pearl Street, below, you see what those historians mean. The theater facade echoes the stepped, symmetrical facade of the courthouse, with its highest parapet over the central entry. The courthouse is faced in sandstone from a dismantled railroad building, an early example of recycling building materials. Boller's theater facade contrasts with the restraint of the WPA Moderne courthouse, though, with exuberant Art Deco patterns of brightly colored terra cotta surrounded by stucco. That facade, protected by a legal easement sponsored by Historic Boulder, was restored with the help of a grant from the National Trust for Historic Places, and completion was celebrated on November 5 of this year.
The theater was one of the first in the country, and likely the first in Colorado, to feature a sound system with woofers and tweeters. In 1935, the year it was under construction, MGM's Shearer Horn amplifiers were released, a 2-way system with woofers for lower frequencies and tweeters for higher ones. There were also special precautions against fire. Unlike many theaters with heating systems located below the stage floor (usually wood), the Boulder Theater located its heating unit in an adjacent building. The projection room walls were fireproofed, important in an era when the film used was highly-flammable nitrate. And after consulting with Boulder Building Department, architect Boller increased the number of exits to 10, with 3 from the balcony area.
The north and south walls of the auditorium display murals set within giant circles. The murals were designed and painted twice by local artist Earl Tryon. When viewing his initial mural designs (of which we* could find no photos), he decided they didn't relate well to the themes of the new theater design...
So Tryon painted over those images with these colorful trees and flowers, which may have held symbolic meanings for the original inhabitants of this region. In Boulder Valley, the indigenous people were the Utes, who moved west into the mountains when the Southern Arapaho tribe moved into the valley. By 1858, Arapaho Chief Niwot ("left hand") was suggesting that gold-seekers leave the area. Some seeking gold moved on to try their luck in California, and Chief Niwot now has a village with a nice downtown 9 miles north of Boulder named for him...
By 1980 Boulder Theater was losing its movie audience to the Crossroads Mall multiplex, and Historic Boulder moved to purchase the building, securing landmark status and the facade easement that saved it from demolition and replacement with a parking lot. They also played an important role in the recent restoration of the facade with current owners, who have been offering concerts in the building for 30 years. Both Boulder Theater and Boulder County Courthouse* have been on the National Register of Historic Places since 1980 as part of the Downtown Boulder Historic District. As a result of Historic Boulder's heroic effort to save Boulder Theater from demolition, it also gained status as a National, Colorado and Boulder Historic Landmark in 1980.
*Footnote: A big thanks to the staff at Boulder's Carnegie Library for Local History, who helped find newspaper articles from 1936 covering the design and construction of Boulder Theater during my visits there.
The County Courthouse was declared a National Historic Landmark in 2024, not for its architectural style, but for its historic significance as the site where the first same-sex marriage licenses were issued in 1975.
Photo Credits:
Top, 2nd & 4th from top: the author
3rd from top: Historic Boulder
5th from top: On the Boulder Reporting Lab website, sourced from Boulder's Carnegie Library for Local History.
6th + 7th & 8th (adjacent mural shots): Barry Trester
Bottom: the author