The Ruby: Chelan’s Jewel

Lake Chelan Magazine
The air smells like popcorn. A breeze ruffles petunias in hanging baskets along the two-block Main Street in Chelan, Washington as I loiter in front of a periwinkle and cream-colored building. It is a pastel Jujube in a twizzler of wineries, coffee shops, and tourist stops. I count 48 small red and orange bulb marquis lights. Then, walking across the street for a better view, I see a name painted lipstick red above the lit awning: Ruby Theater.

Chelan’s 105-year-old playhouse is the oldest continuously running movie theater in the northwest United States. It opened in 1914, less than a decade after two entrepreneurs created the Nickelodeon. That was a five-cents-admission movie theater in Pittsburgh, the first of its kind in the nation. The Ruby wasn’t far behind, and generations later, the theater is a treasure trove for film buffs.

Chelan brothers Herbert and Morrison Kingman — they also helped bring electricity to the small north central Washington town — built the theater. They named it after 10-year-old Ruby Potter. She was the foster daughter of the business’ first manager.

When the theater opened, it played silent films. Each movie reel came with cue sheets that described the music to accompany individual scenes. Ruby Potter played the music on a piano in the pit under the screen during picture shows. The piano was eventually replaced by a photo player that used piano rolls (rolls with perforations) to play music to accompany the films. The person running the photo player added sound effects like gunshots, bells, drums, and sirens.

It’s quieter in the theater tonight. About three dozen people with hushed voices hunker down in plush crimson seats while they wait for the movie to begin. Big band music plays quietly. Historical black and white photos of old-time Chelan shuffle across the screen. The screen is small by today’s standards, but it is bedazzled with red velvet curtains and a golden carved arch. Two chandeliers cast warm light. Ice rattles in blue paper cups. Candy wrappers rustle.

Architect Larry Hibbard, the Ruby’s current owner, walks to the front of the theater and welcome movie goers. He wears khaki cargo shorts, hiking boots and tall white socks. His shock of snow-colored hair matches his trimmed beard. Hibbard says he bought the building on April Fool’s Day 1989. He wasn’t a movie buff. In fact, the only film he remembered seeing at the theater was West Side Story when he was in high school.

But when he overheard two men talking about buying the building and converting it to a shoe store. He wasn’t about to let it get dismantled. He called the bank and made an offer the same day. “The theater is an integral part of our town,” he said. “It’s just under my watch for a while.”

But it’s more than local history, he insists, leading me up a narrow set of stairs before the movie. “The building contains the history of film itself.”

Hibbard shows me his favorite seat in the house. It’s a small hard-backed chair in a crowded eight-foot-square fireproof booth, where tiny square and rectangular windows overlook the auditorium below. While Hibbard replaced traditional film with digital projection in 2013, he kept the old film projector and several reels of film, including half a dozen silent Charlie Chaplin movies.

A strip of film hangs from the ceiling over the old projector. The dangling film served as a canary in a coal mine of sorts, he explains. Nitrate film, used until the mid 1950’s, could be explosive. When paired with exceedingly hot light sources used to project a film’s image onto a movie screen, film was a constant fire risk. If a strip began to sizzle, it was a siren blare warning of a blaze so volatile it could burn under water.

Flame destroyed most old film reels in the nation in the first half of the 20th century. It was the demise of many early theaters. This fireproof projection booth – where there have been at least two fires – is part of the reason the Ruby has survived for more than a hundred years.

The theater seats 150 people. A narrow stairway leads upstairs to a horseshoe balcony painted white and decorated with gold filigree in art deco style. Two rows of single seats, one on each side, lead to double sweetheart chair at the ends of the balcony. Four-petaled flowers decorate original pressed tin ceiling tiles.

In the lobby, retro posters mingle with Spider Man and Men in Black. A black and white photo of 14-year-old Ruby standing in front of the theater hangs on the wall near the snack bar. I choose Dots, Whoppers, and Milk Duds.

“Only five dollars for a small combo with popcorn and soda,” says Natalie Angrade. She’s worked at the Ruby for six years. It was her first job when she turned 15. Now she’s a college student and returns to work during the summers. “I like the old-school feel of the theater,” she says as she grabs the candy. “I think we need old things. Sometimes authenticity in life gets lost if we don’t.”

Photo: interior of the The Ruby. Photo courtesy of Lake Chelan Magazine.

A full version of this story was published in Lake Chelan Magazine.