The Scenic Theater was located in Coquille, Oregon, on the East-end Front Street (3)(4). The first mention of the Scenic Theater was April 6, 1911, in the Coquille Herald (1). A department store was advertising a special deal, offering tickets to the Scenic on April 11, which could have possibly been a promotion for the theater’s opening. 
The building was owned by Arthur Ellingsen, and the theater was managed by Oliver Wilson. In 1914, Wilson gave up ownership of the theater to Ellingsen.
The Scenic was kindly regarded as a high quality and elegant, yet community-serving source of entertainment. There were a variety of music, comedy, and theater acts, and was welcoming to all ages, even highschool debates. The theater’s primary focus was motion pictures, with most advertisements being of multi-reel films, costing around 15-25 cents per person.
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The exact seat capacity is unknown, but there is a newspaper clipping stating that the theater expanded its building to fit a larger stage and more seats due to increased attendance. Still, after this, a clipping reads, in regards to a new serial being shown, “Extra chairs had been borrowed from the accommodating Masons across the street, but still people were left standing.”
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The Scenic was so notable in Coquille that the conversations between the management and production companies were celebrated and written about in the paper. On St. Patrick’s Day (2), March 17, 1918, the Scenic, along with the blocks in the surrounding area, was destroyed in a massive fire. The last mention of the theater and its manager, Arthur Ellingsen, was in the Coquille Valley Sentinel (1), where he had a short, heartfelt message to the community, titled “Card of Thanks.”
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