The Majestic Theatre
Built c1860
This building first housed Moore’s Music Hall (Victoria’s earliest existing theatre) upstairs, above Nathanial Moore’s dry goods store.
In 1885, a new facade was constructed to match the new building next door, with identical cast iron columns.
Various commercial uses followed, which included supplying miners preparing for the Klondike. In 1898 miners’ equipment was piled high on this sidewalk.
In 1909 architect Thomas Hooper renovated the building to house the Majestic Theatre, leaving much of the 1885 building intact. The theatre was short-lived, and in 1917 C. Elwood Watkins, architect, and son of Mrs. Watkins (owner from 1884 – c1908) once more altered the facade, to a restrained brick frontage with larger windows and a metal cornice. The storefront was rehabilitated in 1989.
Marker is on Yates Street, on the right when traveling west.
Courtesy hmdb.org
