Washoe Theater, Art Deco movie theater in Anaconda, US

The Washoe Theater is an Art Deco movie house in Anaconda, Montana, that still operates today with its original 1930s interior fully intact. The auditorium features decorated walls, period seating, and an entrance hall that shows the design style of that era throughout.

The theater opened in 1936, when Anaconda was still an active mining center and the country was in the middle of the Great Depression. It was later listed on the National Register of Historic Places because its Art Deco interior survived with almost no changes.

The Washoe Theater is still used by locals for film screenings and community events, not just by visitors passing through. Stepping inside feels like entering a shared space that belongs to the town rather than to tourism.

The theater sits in downtown Anaconda and is easy to reach on foot from most of the town center. Since the program changes regularly, it is worth checking what is showing before you go.

The Washoe was the last theater built in the United States in the Nuevo Deco style, a form of Art Deco, and the Smithsonian rates it a national treasure for its interior. Its silk curtain, painted with deer stags, is seldom seen: curators fear that taking it down, even to restore it, would make it fall apart.