Vashon has had a theater since the early part of the 20th century. In 1904, the YMCA built a structure on the main street of Vashon Town just to the north of the Presbyterian Church, where Movie Magic is located now.

The photo of the Vashon Theatre taken in the early 1930s shows the Presbyterian Church just to the south and three Model A Fords and one Model T parked in the street between them. The building was erected right on the corner with only the sidewalk between it and the main street of Vashon Town.

The YMCA closed in the early 1910s and was converted to a theater to show the newly emerging movies from Hollywood. In 1926, the Burfields, who owned the theater, converted it into a true “movie house” by introducing the new Vitaphone form of sound-on-disk “talking picture” technology that used synchronized film and pressed vinyl recordings.

It was apparently only the second installation of this new technology on the West Coast. This technology, however, was flawed since it was nearly impossible to keep the film and the recording synchronized.

Unfortunately for the Burfields, sound-on-film technology that imprinted an exactly synchronized visual sound strip on the film developed quickly and soon replaced sound-on-disk. Sound-on-film became the standard for Hollywood films by the early 1930s, and the old Vitaphone equipment was put into storage behind the stage, where it remained until the theater was engulfed in flames and burned to the ground on Feb. 24, 1946.

The origins of the blaze are unknown, but it was fanned by 20 mile-per-hour southwest winds. The Vashon Fire Department fought to keep it from spreading to the Brenno Shell Garage to the north and kept the Presbyterian Church to the south safe by wetting it down.

By then, Charles Geizentanner was the owner; he had purchased it in 1944. With the structure destroyed, Geizentanner showed films at the Island Club, the old Vashon School, located where Ober Park is today, until a new theater could be constructed.

In August 1946, an investment group was formed and contracted with A.C. Harrington to build a new theater across Main Street — the structure that is the current Vashon Theatre. The new theater opened on May 29, 1947, with a double feature — “Two Guys From Milwaukee” and “The Big Sleep.”

A current view of Movie Magic would show the essentially unchanged Presbyterian Church to the south. The Movie Magic building was originally constructed in the 1960s as the Brenno Shell Gas Station and is set well back from the road, unlike the old Vashon Theatre.

— Bruce Haulman is an Island historian. Terry Donnelly is a

landscape photographer.