It is one of our city's finest treasures. A movie palace built to impress. An incredible structure that opened in January of 1929.
"Yes, 1929, six million dollars," Laura Scholten says. She knows all the ins and outs of The Fox. An old theater with a brass box office window outside and two smaller ones inside.
"If it was bad weather then they would use these two smaller ones here," she points out.
The grandness of the place greets you at the doors, but the curtain about came down on it in 1978 when the Fox Theater was boarded up.
"There were pigeons, there were rats, the plaster was falling down."
A jewel emerged from the rough when it was restored to its original glory in 1982.
"So all the light fixtures in here, these brass fixtures are original, all the kick plates, all the handles had been stored and no one knew it was there except this watchman."
They just recently pulled ornate ashtrays out of storage and turned them into pots.
"Everything in The Fox is over the top," Scholten says.
There are so many things people on the way into a show miss like little doors near the top of the stairs on the second floor.
"It's central vacuuming. I thought central vac was a relatively new invention, but in 1920 The Fox had central vacuuming, it had air conditioning and it had elevators."
There are camels, geese and lions carved into the plaster above and more elephants than you can count on the carpet below.
"An elephant with a trunk up is good luck and every trunk has to face the elephant over the stage," she explains.
They're all little details Laura has been sharing with visitors for more than 20 years.
"The graffiti here is unbelievable and that's just something a lot of people aren't expecting,"
It's a handwritten history of who's played here.
"It actually started out with two very small signatures up by the stars dressing room," she says.
It is a theater that is fabulous from floor to ceiling. A place that shines as bright today as it did when it first opened.
You can take a guided tour of the Fabulous Fox at 10:30 a.m. on Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. It's $8 during the week or $10 on Saturday because that one includes an organ presentation. Go to www.fabulousfox.com to learn more.
