CODY — The iconic front of the Cody Theatre needs a serious facelift. That’s because its marquee would fall off the face of the building if it weren't wired on.
The historic building’s owners have already mapped out structural repairs, but a fix is more complicated and will require permits from the city of Cody and the state of Wyoming.
The neon-lighted marquee has been a staple of Cody’s main street for years but has been precipitously slumping forward. It’s being supported by stopgap measures, but needs serious structural work to get back upstraight and secure.
“After close to 100 years, the internal scaffolding has begun to deteriorate, said Ryan Fernandez, the owner of the Cody Theatre. “But we believe it’s a repair and a restoration, just so it's safe and secure for the next 100-plus years.”
Time Takes A Toll
Ryan and Elizabeth Fernandez bought the 87-year-old Cody Theatre in 2019. They invested significantly in upgrading the place while preserving its history, including the oldest air-conditioning unit in Wyoming.
Even in 2019, the marquee was showing signs of its age.
“We definitely noticed that it had this weird sag in the front,” Ryan Fernandez told Cowboy State Daily. “When we got onto the top and looked at the structure, everything seemed secure and fine. We just assumed that was the way it was built and the way that it settled over time. But as this year progressed, we started seeing more sagging.”
Ryan suspects the marquee's interior structure is mostly wood, covered with metal and multiple layers of tar and other materials. Over time, it has slowly been collapsing under its own weight.
The good news was that the building itself is structurally sound, so cables could be installed on the mounting points of its walls to prevent the marquee from sagging further.
“The most important part was recognizing that the anchor points on the building were not compromised,” Fernandez said. “We were able to lift the marquee with the anchoring cables and stabilize it until we come up with a more permanent solution.”
That’s where the repair and the restoration become more complicated.
City And State
The Cody Theatre was built alongside Sheridan Avenue, Cody’s main street. That street is also U.S. Highway 14A, the main route to the East Entrance of Yellowstone National Park.
To repair the Cody Theatre marquee, permits must be issued by the city of Cody and the state of Wyoming.
“It's a city issue when it comes to the structural integrity,” Fernandez said. “Since we're on a Wyoming highway, we have to get permits from both sides to begin looking at it.”
There are several parking spaces on Sheridan Avenue in front of the Cody Theatre. Those spaces will have to be cordoned off during the repair, which is why the state needs to issue a permit for the process.
Fernandez said the permitting process has been slow, which he has found enlightening and reassuring.
“The city inspectors have been very involved and communicative,” he said. “They told us that citizens are calling in and questioning the situation with the marquee, and I think that's a good thing. It makes people feel empowered, and we should be empowered and concerned about these things.”
Fernandez has been experiencing the earnestness of the city of Cody, which wants to see the Cody Theatre’s marquee safely restored, and the “cut and dry” approach of the state of Wyoming, which wants to ensure everything is done to the highest safety standards. It’s a slow process, but Fernandez doesn’t see that as a bad thing.
“You always hope that things move faster, but that's not necessarily realistic,” he said. “It takes time to move through the process. We've got a problem that needs to be fixed, and the state wants a plan and a structural engineer in place, and I think we’ll be able to do that efficiently.”
Show Must Go On
Once everything is permitted, Fernandez said the first step would be to open the Cody Theatre’s marquee to identify what happened to its interior structure. From there, they can develop a plan to repair and restore the marquee.
“We're going to have to demo the top,” he said. “We need to get through all those layers of roofing and get to what is the problem. And as soon as we can do that, it'll be pretty easy to develop the restoration plan.”
The anchoring cables will keep the marquee stable throughout the process. Fernandez hopes that its interior structure can be recreated and restored without having to remove it from the building and “start from scratch.”
It’s too early to know how long the process will take or when it will be finished, but Fernandez has a definite deadline. Tickets are already on sale for the Summer 2025 season of the “Wild West Spectacular,” an original musical staged in the Cody Theatre created by Elizabeth Fernandez.
“We want to have everything wrapped up and done by the start of the summer season,” he said. “That’s our target.”
The “Wild West Spectacular” runs six nights from late June to early August. The show will begin its tenth consecutive season on June 18, 2025.
“We definitely do not want to mess with that anniversary season,” Fernandez said.
Improved, Not Upgraded
A fundraiser has been established to help cover the costs of repairing and restoring the Cody Theatre marquee. The process presents an opportunity to improve the iconic facade of the structure, but Fernandez said some things are best as they are.
“We're getting a lot of feedback from people saying that they love that nostalgic feel of an old movie theatre marquee,” he said. “That’s empowering for us because keeping and preserving the look and feel of the Cody Theatre is important to us.”
Since buying the Cody Theatre, the Fernandez family has modernized the structure while retaining its historic Art Deco appeal. However, they have already considered adding 21st-century improvements to the marquee, such as LED lights and screens, and rejected them.
“We've spent a great deal of time and money working on the theatre’s electrical and water systems and all of the things that you can't necessarily see,” he said. “Everyone can see the marquee, and we're looking at LEDs and different types of screens, but we’re moving away from that. It’s not from a cost perspective, but from the standpoint that we’d lose what it is.”
Fernandez plans to replace existing lighting to make the marquee more visible and impressive at night and restore some of the signage above it. Meanwhile, the original neon lights and manually-replaced bubble letters will remain as they are.
When the repairs and restoration are finished, it’ll look like nothing’s changed. For Fernandez, that’s just how it should be.
“The Cody Theatre’s been a major part of downtown Cody for so long,” he said. “It was a major part of my life growing up. Liz and I felt compelled to buy and restore it to make it better, safer, and cleaner, but not change it. We do not want to lose what the marquee is and what it represents to the Cody Theatre, downtown Cody, and the Bighorn Basin."
Andrew Rossi can be reached at arossi@cowboystatedaily.com.
