The Coliseum Theatre was a first-run house. The opening night dedication on 8 January 1916 was presided over by actress Anita King. The opening night feature film was The Cheat (1915). The Coliseum originally had a Moller concert pipe organ installed. In June 1918, a Wurlitzer theatre pipe organ replaced the Moller. Seattle organist Warren Wright performed at the Coliseum. By circa October 1929, the theatre had been sold to William Fox.

Showing 1-5 December 1929, The Viking (1928), with Barbers’ College (1929) and a Fox Movietone newsreel; 6 December 1929, A Song of Kentucky (1929).

The theater was controlled by Hamrick-Evergreen Theatres circa 1936.

The Coliseum was still in operation until the early 1980s, although in serious internal disrepair under the ownership of a Portland, Oregon, theatre chain. Remnants of the Coliseum’s former glory are still be to seen by the historically-sensitive eye in the theatre’s current incarnation in downtown Seattle, a retail clothing store.

References: FilmYearBook-1926 p. 590 : Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 1 December 1929, p. 6E; Seattle Post-Intelligencer, 6 December 1929, p. 12; Variety-19291106 p. 10 : Puget Sound Theatre Organ Society website.