HISTORY
BARELY A MEMORY Once a Buckeye hot spot, Roxy Theater now exists only in a museum BY DAVID KENNARD N OT MUCH REMAINS FROM BUCKEYE’S Roxy Theater, once located near the site of City Hall in Downtown Buckeye today. Photos and historical documents at the Buckeye Valley Museum suggest the 25-cent theater, which ran one or two movies a day during its run, was wildly popular, providing jobs for the high school-age students working there.
“We went to the movies, the Roxy Theater. That was actually really good because one year Hopalong Cassidy and Tonto came to the movies. And I remember getting an autograph from Tonto, a picture — have no idea where it’s at — but he signed it, whatever his name was.” Today, the Buckeye Valley Museum includes a display dedicated to the memory of the iconic theater. It includes a replica movie marque – advertising 25-cent movies – and a section of seats pulled from the debris after the fire of 1971. In recent years, Buckeye moviegoers have had to travel out of town for shows on the silver screen; that’s expected to change soon with the recent announcement that a movie house is returning to Buckeye in the Verrado Marketplace just north of Interstate 10 on Verrado Way. Harkins BackLot will introduce its latest concept, a 75,000-square-foot space featuring a luxury movie theater, a full-service restaurant and bar, a state-of-the-art sport viewing area, arcade games, a bowling alley and private areas for events.
The Roxy opened in 1935, showing all the popular movies of the era. It closed in 1971 and sat empty for years until fire destroyed the building in 2021. In its day, the theater drew more than movies and moviegoers; it also saw a number of celebrity appearances from Hollywood stars promoting their films. In a 2011 interview with the Arizona Memory Project, Buckeye resident Vicki Hunter Schulz said she recalls attending the theater as one of several things children did for entertainment in the 1950s.
InBuckeye.com | January/February 2026
January/February 2026 | InBuckeye.com
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