Location: 301-309 4th Avenue E
Local register, Popular Culture; Diversity: African-Americans
Rex Theater, 1914, photo by Robert Esterly, courtesy of Washington State Historical Society |
Rex building today (2012), photo by Deb Ross |
The Rex Building was erected around 1911, and is so named because the Rex Theater occupied the first floor. Although the theater was equipped with a stage and scenery, it provided almost exclusively cinematic entertainment. Eventually the theater was part of the Zabel Family chain of theaters, which included the Ray, the Acme and the Capitol Theater. As can be seen by comparing the two photographs above, the recessed ticket entry was added at a later date. Other businesses operating out of this building included apartments upstairs, and the Guiles and Schlosser Plumbing business. The building is on the local heritage register. Note also that building dates and location are not uniform in the literature concerning this building. The 1911 built date and location at the corner of Fourth and Franklin appear to be most likely based largely on photographic evidence available, and an article from a 1913 edition of the Moving Picture World linked at the Cinema Treasures website below.
This location was the home of the Our House Restaurant, owned by James and Mary Mars. James Mars, an African-American, left Massachusetts as a young man and settled here in 1870. They opened the popular Our House Restaurant in 1879. Mars is listed as one of the city’s more prominent, and only African-American, businessmen in Olympia in the 1891 Olympia Tribune Souvenir Issue.
Additional resources:
Washington State Historical Society photographs (enter the following catalog numbers in Collections Search box), 2010.149.30; 2010.149.21.2 (Guiles and Schlosser)
For more information on James Mars, see the Residents section of this website.
Copyright © 2022 Deborah Ross