got to see acts by Laurel and Hardy and a performance by the Fox Theater Orchestra. This mix of alternating traditional vaudeville style live entertainment and trendy Hollywood talkies was part of the theaters initial long-term business strategy and reflected the evolving tastes of the public. Movies had become a low cost escape from the challenges of the Great Depression. The variety shows were phased out after a couple years owing to the public favoring movies over stage productions, but the Fox continued to show live performances as it remained the primary performing arts venue in Spokane for its first few decades. The theater began hosting its long running "Community Concerts" performances in 1934 which would bring in nationally touring musicians to the Fox and in 1935 it staged a performance by the Hoboken Four which included Frank Sinatra. In 1937, one of Spokane's most famous residents, Bing Crosby hosted a national talent show at the Fox. In film, the theater showed Disney's box-office record breaking film, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs, setting a 7-day attendance record with 40,000 admissions in 1938; which was quickly outdone in 1939 by Gone With the Wind, which would stand until 1943 when a showing of the musical, This Is the Army surpassed it. Multiplex and Decline The theater added a bigger screen, 3-D effects, and a CinemaScope projector in 1953, then showing its first 3-D film, Bwana Devil later that year. The Wurlitzer 3-manual, 13-rank theatre organ installed when the building was constructed in 1931 was removed in 1961. In May of that year, the Fox Theater sold it to a Los Angeles-area collector, who disassembled it and had it shipped to California, the process of dismantling the organ took approximately one week. Starting in 1968, the theater began to augment its motion picture programming with live performances by the Spokane Symphony, which became a tenant in the building until 1974 when they moved to the newly built Spokane Opera House. A new sound shell was installed for the symphony. Not long after in 1969, the theater discontinued its long running Community Concerts series that it had hosted since 1934 that had brought in many big names over the years such as Vladimir Horowitz, Yehudi Menuhin, Marian Anderson, Arthur Rubinstein, Rudolf Serkin, Jascha Heifetz, Glenn Gould, Isaac Stern, and Leontyne Price. The Fox Theater subdivided its main screen and opened as a