Reviving Laramie’s historic WYO Theater

Laramie residents were eagerly looking forward to Thursday, September 8, 1949. That was grand opening day for Laramie’s new WYO Theater.

But was it really new? Yes and no. The WYO was a new name, but the building was a remodel of the Crown Theater on 5th St. that opened on September 2, 1928. It has been mostly closed for several months but efforts are underway to restore it for community use.

Unlike the grand opening of the WYO, the 1928 Crown opening was announced with a small ad in the Laramie Republican-Boomerang on September 1. It is unclear why the owner, Jesse G. Burbank, did not do a big splash about his new theater. After he bought the property at 309 S. 5th St. from Laramie attorney Cassius Eby in 1927, he removed any existing structures and constructed a brick building to house the Crown.

Burbank was not new to the theater business. Born in Nebraska, he left his position as a railroad engineer to run an Orpheum theater at Camp Funston in Kansas. Likely due to the Spanish Flu outbreak there, he relocated to Laramie by 1919 and opened the American Theater at 312 S. 2nd St. (currently Owl in the Attic antiques).

After less than a year he subleased the American operation to manage Root’s Opera House on 3rd St. while also still managing the American. He had plans to buy another property on South 3rd at Grand Ave. to build his own theater, but that did not pan out.

So, he set his sights on South 5th St. Upon completion of the new Crown building, he began to show first run movies with sound provided by the Vitaphone system where the sound was not recorded on the film itself but on a record synchronized with the film. By 1936 the Crown’s Vitaphone system was replaced by sound on the movie reel itself.

Burbank remained owner of the building but in 1947 he leased it to the Fox Theater chain which also operated the Fox Theater on S. 2nd St. Interestingly, the lease noted that the Crown could not show any movie that was currently running at the Fox until a period of six months elapsed.

The Fox chain obviously had bigger plans for the building. On May 29, 1948, the Crown announced that it was closing for the summer. It would never reopen. Instead, the Fox chain hired Denver architect Charles Dunwoody Strong to completely remodel the existing building inside and out (still owned by Burbank) to create a modern movie theater--the WYO.

Both interior and exterior were redone in preparation for the September 8, 1949, opening. And what a grand opening it was. The Laramie Daily Bulletin and the Laramie Republican-Boomerang newspapers combined to print a special WYO edition. A bold headline in red stated: “NEW THEATRE OPENS HERE; SPECIAL FEATURES SLATED.

Executives of the Fox Intermountain division and representatives of major motion picture companies including Paramount, Columbia and Lowes traveled from Denver and were hosted by Laramie Mayor H. H. Cordiner. New WYO manager Bob Bothwell (1918-2006) staged the grand opening. Kansas native Bothwell had been with Fox Theaters since 1936 and managed theaters in Idaho, Wyoming and Montana. He retired at age 88 as vice president of the Mann Theater Corporation.

Bothwell noted that the interior had new Kroehler “pushback” chairs, new carpeting and large western themed wall murals that reacted to black light. The exterior boasted the largest “Art Neon” marquee in the Rocky Mountain area. New pastel-colored curtains were installed, and a powder room constructed. Bothwell also promised that the WYO would only show movies in “no way morally harmful” to the community.

The opening night program outside featured the Laramie High School band under the direction of A. O. Wheeler with square dancing in the street. Inside, the first movie shown was “Once More, My Darling” a comedy starring Robert Montgomery and Ann Blyth and touted as the funniest movie since “The Bachelor and the Bobby-Soxer.”

Building owner Burbank died in 1970 and the property passed to his wife, Jessie C. Burbank. Jessie was a Laramie native, the daughter of Robert and Hannah Pennock. She leased the property to a Colorado company, Commonwealth Highland Theaters, ending the association with the Fox chain. Jessie died in 1988 and the WYO was purchased from her estate by Rocky Mountain Resorts Cinemas Inc.

That company leased the building to Trans-Lux Laramie Corporation in 1999. The interior was remodeled for the showing of the new “Star Wars” movie. While several additional companies leased the theater after Trans-Lux, eventually the WYO began showing second run movies, lost profitability and closed.

Many Laramie residents have fond memories of the old WYO theater. Mine was the 1971 showing of the James Bond movie “Diamonds Are Forever”, shot mostly in and around Las Vegas. My friend Dave Burman and I were in Vegas for spring break visiting a friend and were downtown when the chase scene was filmed. When the movie came to the WYO, we attended and were sure that we could be seen standing on an intersection and announced that to the audience. Alas, when viewed much later in slow motion, we weren’t to be seen.

Rocky Mountain sold the building to JAG Real Estate/WyoLaramie LLC in 2014 and the corporation donated it to Laramie Main Street in 2019. That non-profit is now in the process of soliciting funds to revive the theater. Much more information is at “https://laramiemainstreet.org/thewyo”, including a donation form.

By Kim Viner

Grocers aim to please– Laramie had fresh oysters in 1876

Tracing 75 Years of Downtown HistoryThrough One Laramie Radiator Shop