The Beacham Theatre is a cinema built in 1921 by Braxton Beacham Sr. in the city of Orlando, Florida. The current address of the theater is 46 North Orange Avenue, and it is located at the southwest corner of Orange Avenue and Washington Street. The building's current lack of impressive architecture is offset by its significant cultural history. The Beacham Theatre was considered an important contributing structure when the Downtown Orlando historic district was created in 1980 and the building was granted local landmark status in 1987. The Beacham was once part of the vaudeville circuit and hosted celebrity acts such as John Philip Sousa, the Ziegfeld Follies and W.C. Fields, whose signature was once visible inside a dressing room. In the eras of silent film and Classical Hollywood cinema, the Beacham was operated as a movie theater that used then-current state-of-the-art motion picture technology. The Beacham, as it is currently named, has since been used as a series of concert venues and nightclubs thus saving it from demolition. The Beacham Theatre was once home to the internationally recognized late-night underground discotheque Aahz, a notable early component of the US electronic dance music movement in the early 1990s. History Construction The Beacham Theatre was constructed in 1921 by Braxton Beacham Sr., who had previously owned three other Orlando theaters and had served as Mayor of Orlando during 1907. In 1917 Beacham paid approximately $17,500–$20,000 for the property one block southwest of his stately residence on Jefferson Street after Orlando's citizens voted to pave the road to the cemetery instead of purchasing the old jail. The property he purchased had formerly served as the jail for Orange County since about 1873. With a $200,000 investment, the former jail building was torn down in 1919 and Beacham developed a series of connected building units along the west side of Orange Avenue between Washington Street and Oak Street (now Wall Street). The new building was then known as "Beacham's Block" and is now known as the Beacham Building. The location of Beacham's theater was precisely where several condemned prisoners were executed by hanging. According to local folklore, the Beacham Building is reportedly haunted. The Beacham Theatre was constructed to have excellent acoustics. The Beacham's auditorium features "square columns adorned with feathered capitals that climb gracefully to a high ceiling decorated with rectangles of intricate plasterwork." When constructed, the theater was outfitted with draperies