Waco Hippodrome Theatre

A group of Waco businessmen organized by Thomas P. Finnegan broke ground on the Hippodrome in 1913. Waco architect Roy E. Lane and the Dallas firm of Otto Lang and Frank Witchell designed a dark brick building with terra cotta ornament that its National Register nomination traces to Louis Sullivan. The theater opened at 724 Austin Avenue on February 7, 1914, with a live seal act, a magic show and a five-piece orchestra, at ten cents a ticket. It was built for both traveling stock companies and silent movies, and its slogan was "The Photo Playhouse Ahead."

After three slow seasons it was leased to E.F. Hulsey, and Wacoans called it "Hulsey's Hipp." By 1918 Southern Enterprises, a Paramount affiliate, was running it, and from then until 1961 a series of Karl Hoblitzelle's Interstate companies operated the house. A Pilcher pipe organ accompanied the silent films. In 1928 a fire in the projection booth destroyed much of the front. The theater reopened in 1929 as the Waco Theatre, with a new Spanish Colonial Revival facade, an enlarged balcony and air conditioning, and it played its first sound film in 1931.

For three decades manager Claude H. Stewart made the Waco Theatre a center of town life. One of his promotions gave police officers free tickets to hand to children, and it won Stewart and the police chief a reception in Hollywood. Duke Ellington, Cab Calloway and Fanny Brice played the theater in the 1930s, and Elvis Presley caught a show there while stationed at Fort Hood. Consolidated Theatres bought the building in 1961 and ABC Interstate in 1970, but suburban theaters pulled audiences away, and the last movie played on December 15, 1974.

The Cooper Foundation bought the empty building in 1980, and it was listed on the National Register on April 28, 1983. The Junior League of Waco, the foundation and volunteers spent $2.4 million restoring it, and it reopened as the Waco Hippodrome on February 28, 1987, run by the Waco Performing Arts Company for live shows. High upkeep closed it again in 2010.

Developers Shane and Cody Turner bought the theater in 2012. They added a wall in the balcony so two films could play at once, turned the upstairs lobby into a bar, built a restaurant addition on the Eighth Street side and installed digital projectors for first-run movies. The Hippodrome reopened in November 2014. Parts of it closed again for renovation in 2020, and today it is used mainly as a concert hall and event space.