Capitol Theatre

A historic theater built in 1928 in downtown Flint, serving as a venue for live performances, concerts, and special events. The ornate interior features classic movie-palace styling from the golden age of theater architecture.

The Capitol Theatre opened its doors at 140 East Second Street in downtown Flint on January 19, 1928, during the height of the city's automotive boom. The theater became the premier venue for movies and live entertainment in Genesee County, hosting cultural events through the 1950s and 1960s before transitioning to rock shows through the 1980s and 1990s. The Capitol closed its doors in 1997, but the building's troubled history had already guaranteed it a permanent place in Michigan's paranormal landscape.

On July 1949, a devastating fire swept through the Capitol Theatre during a matinee performance. Approximately six hundred people were inside the building when the fire broke out. In the chaotic evacuation that followed, a seventeen-year-old usher named Richard Duffin refused to leave. Duffin stayed behind to help patrons escape the burning theater, guiding them through smoke-filled corridors toward the exits. He was found dead in the basement, killed by smoke inhalation. His selfless act saved lives, but cost him his own. The ghost that haunts the Capitol Theatre has been given the nickname "George," though most researchers believe the spirit is actually that of Richard Duffin, the young usher who died doing his duty.

The paranormal activity at the Capitol Theatre is intense and varied. Ghostly apparitions have been seen on the balcony, the stage, and near the back door. Witnesses report screams, moans, whispering, knocking, and tapping on the walls, along with doors slamming and phantom footsteps moving through empty hallways. Several acting groups that have come to perform at the Capitol have experienced an especially unnerving phenomenon: their electrical equipment completely shuts down without warning, going dead despite the power still being on. During one such equipment failure, the performers heard ghostly singing coming from the balcony. When they looked up, they saw the shapes of shadowy figures sitting in the upper seats, watching them perform. The figures vanished when the lights were restored.

The Capitol Theatre has been featured on the Haunted Flint Walking Tour, and Flint Phantoms, a local paranormal documentation project, has cataloged the building's extensive history of unexplained events. The theater underwent renovation beginning in the 2010s, and workers during the restoration reported their own encounters with the unseen presence that seems to have claimed the building as its own. Whether the spirit is Richard Duffin, still ushering in the dark, or someone else entirely, the Capitol Theatre remains one of Flint's most enduring ghost stories.