Historic Everett Theatre

A sweater floated off the floor during 1993 renovations at this 1901 Everett opera house. The main ghost, "Smilin' Al," is a gray-haired man with a permanent grin who rushes through the lobby with arms wide open before vanishing. He may be vaudeville star Al Jolson, who performed here in 1906.

An employee in the projection room felt someone standing behind them. Then a sweater lifted off the floor, floated in the air, and was thrown back down. That was 1993, during renovations at the Historic Everett Theatre, and it was the first of many reports that would accumulate over the next three decades.

The building opened on November 4, 1901, as the Everett Opera House. Architect Charles Herbert Bebb designed it after spending four years supervising construction on Adler and Sullivan's famous Chicago Auditorium, and he brought that theatrical sensibility to a timber town on Puget Sound. The venue hosted vaudeville acts, opera, and touring performances. A fire damaged the building in 1923, but it was rebuilt and kept operating, eventually transitioning to film screenings and live music.

The primary ghost earned the nickname "Smilin' Al." Witnesses describe a gray-haired man with a large, bushy mustache whose face is locked in a wide, permanent grin. Multiple people have seen the same figure, usually in the lobby, the foyer, or near the stage entrance. Some accounts describe him rushing into the theater with arms spread wide before vanishing mid-stride.

The leading theory connects Smilin' Al to Al Jolson, the vaudeville star who performed at the theatre in 1906 and 1915. Jolson's energy on stage was famously explosive, and the image of a man bursting through doors with open arms matches his performing style. But there's no hard evidence tying Jolson's spirit to the building. The Seattle Times documented the first sightings in 1993, and they happened to coincide with major renovation work. The construction may have disturbed something, or it simply put more people in the building after hours. Either way, the timing gave the stories a starting point.

Beyond Al, the theatre produces a steady drip of smaller incidents. Doors open and close when no one is nearby. Lights switch on and off without anyone at the controls. The sweater incident from the projection room remains the most dramatic single account: an object lifting, hovering, and being thrown, witnessed by someone who was alone in the room.

Everett's broader history adds weight to the hauntings. On November 5, 1916, a confrontation between IWW labor organizers and local authorities at the city dock left at least seven dead in what became known as the Everett Massacre. The violence cast a long shadow over the city. Author Deborah Cuyle documented the theatre's ghosts and the city's wider paranormal reputation in her book "Haunted Everett, Washington," part of the Haunted America series. She writes that the angry spirits of laborers seem to linger throughout Everett, demanding the same freedom of speech they fought for that November night.

The Historic Everett Theatre runs a full schedule of live performances, film screenings, and community events. Every October it hosts a haunted house, which is either perfectly on-brand or pushing its luck, depending on how seriously you take the reports. The theatre doesn't shy away from the ghost stories. If anything, Smilin' Al has become part of the building's character, a permanent member of the company who was last seen rushing through the lobby doors at 11:47 on a Tuesday night.