Concrete Theatre

The oldest theater in Skagit County, built in 1923 in a town where Orson Welles' 1938 War of the Worlds broadcast caused a real blackout and mass panic. Owner Valerie Stafford feels things brush her arm in the empty balcony, and a former projectionist's ghost walks the aisle.

On October 30, 1938, Orson Welles broadcast his War of the Worlds radio drama from a New York studio. When the story reached the part where a Martian attack causes a power failure, the lights in Concrete, Washington, went out for real. About 1,500 residents panicked. Men fled to the hills to protect their moonshine stills. The incident made the front page of the New York Times. The Concrete Theatre, sitting on Main Street in a town with more brothels than churches at the time, was at the center of a community that already had a complicated relationship with what's real and what isn't.

The current building is the oldest surviving theater in Skagit County, but it's actually the third Concrete Theatre. The first burned down on September 14, 1916. The second didn't last either. The third was built in 1923, and it's the one standing today. Valerie Stafford, who grew up in Concrete, moved away, and eventually came back with her husband, purchased the theater and has operated it ever since. She also runs Act One Ice Cream and serves as the Concrete Chamber of Commerce president.

Stafford is not someone who came looking for a ghost story. "I am not particularly susceptible to paranormal experiences," she's said in interviews. "But after spending time in the theatre alone, I have come to believe." She describes things brushing against her arm when nobody is in the room. The sensation of someone standing right beside her in the balcony, clear enough to make her turn and look. Audience members during film screenings have reported orbs drifting through the auditorium. Seats have vibrated with no mechanical explanation.

The theatre's ghost is a former projectionist, though his name hasn't survived in local records or historical archives. During a renovation in the 1980s, the building's new owners spotted a shadowy figure surrounded by a faint glowing aura walking down the center aisle. It's a single account from a single incident, but it's specific enough that the story has stuck for four decades.

Concrete's haunted reputation extends well beyond the theatre walls. When Stafford went door to door asking Main Street businesses about strange experiences in their buildings, she was shocked by how many people had stories to tell. That discovery led to the creation of the Concrete Ghost Walk, which completed its 20th season in October 2025. The 90-minute tour runs every Saturday in October at 6 p.m. and 8 p.m., with roughly 35 unpaid local volunteers performing as historical characters along the route. The first walk drew about 30 people. It has sold out ever since.

The town was built on logging, mining, and cement production, all industries that killed workers regularly in the early 1900s. "These characters are still with us," Stafford says. The Mt. Baker Hotel down the street has its own ghost: a little girl who sings in the hallway around midnight, and who has been spotted through a second-floor window by people passing on the sidewalk.

The Concrete Theatre screens movies, hosts community events, and serves as the gathering point for every Ghost Walk. You can buy a ticket to sit in the same balcony where the owner feels someone standing next to her, then walk the streets of a town that once stampeded into the hills because a radio play got a little too convincing.