On May 30, 1963, fire claimed one of Tacoma's oldest and grandest structures.
“On some level I think everybody felt like wow this was a gut shot,” said historian Michael Sullivan.
The fire broke out at the Music Box during a matinee screening of Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds."
“There was an old bearing and a fan in an old projector room that caught fire,” said University of Washington Tacoma historian Kim Davenport. “And it was so high in the building it spread to everything under the rooftop before there was anyway the firefighters could get to it.”
Moviegoers got out safely only to witness a smoking spectacle from the sidewalk: history going up in flames. It was an event all captured on film preserved by retired Tacoma firefighter Matt Holm who contacted Tacoma Home Movies filmmaker Mick Flaan after seeing a story about his restoration of home movies on KING 5 Evening.