Charles Bishop and his son, Dick Bishop hand built The Newport Roxy brick by brick. The theater officially opened in 1951.
Charles owned a handful of theaters in Pend Oreille County, including one in Priest River and another in Metaline Falls. As time passed, the local populations were not large enough to sustain all of his theaters. Charles knew he had to close one down. After drawing straws, he closed the Priest River Roxy Theater. He took the iconic neon “Roxy” sign from downtown Priest River, and moved it over to Newport.
In 1956, Charles sold The Roxy Theater to Dick and Gladys Bishop. The couple carried on Charles’ legacy and ran The Roxy diligently until 2008. With Dick passed away, Gladys decided it was time to sell the theater to younger hands.
The Roxy was sold to Kevin Wright who ran the theater until 2015. Kevin faced many modern difficulties as small town theaters are dying all across the country. Film companies forced theaters to go from film to digital projectors, are raising rental fees, and forcing 2-4 week contracts to rent first run movies. Kevin saw no choice but to remodel The Roxy from a single screen grand theater into a 3 screen multi-theater. Unfortunately, the situation did not improve for small town theaters and The Roxy closed its doors in 2015.
In 2017, The Roxy was purchased by Jason and Brittany Totland. The couple breathed some life back into the old theater and opened the doors once again. The Roxy is currently running at half her seating capacity but is sporting prices 30% lower than Spokane’s big theaters. Come down and enjoy a show at a reasonable price and short drive!