The Pantages Theatre replaced Alexander Pantages’ previous San Francisco venue Pantages Theatre at 937 Market Street. The theatre was sold and renamed the Orpheum Theatre in 1929. (Previous live theatre Orpheum-named theaters had existed at 147 O’Farrell Street: the first destroyed by the 1906 San Francisco earthquake, and the second, opened 19 April 1909, was renamed the Columbia Theatre in 1929 after the Columbia Theatre had itself been renamed the Geary Theatre in the mid-1920s. That does not take into account two other Orpheum live theatre namesakes: the Chutes Theatre became the Orpheum briefly after the 1906 earthquake, and then another theatre on Ellis Street took on the mantle in 1907.)

In the 1950s, the theatre was refitted as a Cinerama venue and continued the large-format, three-projector presentations into the early 1960s.

References: Tillmany-TheatresSF pp. 15-17, 34, 39, 47.