Seattle-based theater architect B. Marcus Priteca drew the plans for the Washoe Theater in 1930, but the Depression delayed its interior finishing and the $200,000 movie theater did not open until 1936. The Washoe Theater and Radio City Music Hall in New York were the last two American theaters built in the Nuevo Deco style, a lavish form popular for vaudeville theaters. Its restrained brick exterior gives little indication of the sumptuous interior created by Hollywood designer Nat Smythe, who adorned the walls and ceilings with murals in cerulean blue, salmon, rose beige, and yellow, enhanced by abundant copper plating, silver and gold leaf, and ornamental ironwork. Two hand-painted stags appear on the blue silk plush curtain at the stage. Early advertisements praised its Mirrophonic Sound system and its large auditorium, which seated 1,000 moviegoers, with first-run films costing thirty-five cents. Today it is one of the best preserved theaters in the United States, with original fixtures and equipment still in place and in use, all the more remarkable because it was born in the Depression era, when theaters were still built on a grand scale but no longer so opulently furnished.