History

Riverside’s founding as a deliberate agricultural colony in 1870 preceded the introduction of the Washington navel orange, which transformed the region’s economy when the Tibbets family planted the first trees in 1873. By the 1890s, Riverside had become one of the wealthiest cities per capita in the United States, its prosperity visible in the Mission Inn hotel — the great Mission Revival landmark that dominates downtown — and in the residential architecture of the Victoria Avenue neighborhood.

The Fox opened in 1929 as the depression approached, one of the last of the great picture palace commissions before the economic collapse changed the calculus of theater construction. The Fox West Coast Theatres chain, which operated throughout the West, commissioned a theater whose exterior’s Spanish Gothic towers and decorative stonework referenced the Mission and Spanish Colonial heritage that California was actively promoting as a regional brand in the 1920s. The interior’s Art Deco ornament provided the expected picture palace environment of theatrical richness.

The theater operated as a commercial cinema through the mid-twentieth century before the familiar arc of decline, closure, and eventual preservation. Restoration work funded by the City of Riverside returned the Fox to operation as the Fox Performing Arts Center, which now serves as a mid-size venue for concerts, theatrical touring productions, and community events in a downtown Riverside that has invested significantly in its historic commercial core.