A narrow classical front of pale glazed terra cotta rises on the corner of Sixth and Chestnut, crowned by a heavy triangular pediment with carved ornament and urn-topped finials at its corners. Engaged columns frame a tall arched window at the attic, and a deep marquee projects over the entrance below, the word CAPITOL spelled across its face and repeated on a vertical blade. The long brick flank runs back along Chestnut, its upper windows shuttered and a painted "CAPITOL THEATRE — 25¢" sign near the sidewalk. Taller office blocks crowd close behind, and parked sedans line the curb.
The Capitol Theatre stood at the corner of North Sixth and Chestnut Streets downtown. Designed by the firm of Wedemeyer & Nelson and built in 1916, it opened as the Capitol on April 14, 1921 with Dorothy Phillips in "Man-Woman-Marriage," seating roughly 900. From 1926 the Skouras Brothers ran it through their St. Louis Amusement Company, and that same year Warner Bros. chose the Capitol for the St. Louis premiere of Vitaphone, the new sound-on-disc process, screening "Don Juan" with John Barrymore. The house ran for another quarter-century before the May Department Stores Company bought the property; it went dark on February 27, 1953. The Capitol was torn down in March 1956 — the winter view here dates from just before the end — to clear the corner for a Famous-Barr parking garage, which occupies the site today.
