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Our History

The Story of St. Cloud's Most Beloved Stage

Over a century later, we’re better than ever.

Support Local Arts
MHC 70401 Interior seating and balcony Paramount Theater St Cloud Minn 1945
A Grand Opening
On Christmas Eve, 1921, the citizens of Central Minnesota paid fifty cents to witness something St. Cloud had never seen before. The Sherman Theatre opened its doors to 1,700 people, a live orchestra, and D.W. Griffith's silent film "Way Down East." It was, by every account, the grandest theatre in the city, with a majestic organ, a decorative lobby, private dressing rooms, and a stage built for thirty dancers.

Next door, the brand new Breen Hotel stood ready to welcome the entertainers and celebrities who came to perform. St. Cloud was alive, and downtown was the place to be.
SHM 15080 Breen Hotel Orchestra St Cloud MN ca1925
The Golden Era
What followed was decades of everything: vaudeville acts, operas, Broadway road shows, concerts, animal acts, wrestling matches, political rallies. When the Great Depression hit, people still came. When WWII arrived, The Paramount became a gathering place for a community that needed one. For generations of Central Minnesotans, this was where life happened.
SHM 15316 Breen Hotel and Knights of Columbus Bldg St Cloud MN ca 1925 EDIT
A New Name
In 1930, the theatre got its first renovation, upgrading for the era of sound and the new "talkies." With it came a new marquee and a new name. The Sherman became The Paramount, and it fit.
SHM 18579 Interior of Paramount Theater St Cloud Minn ca1974
The Fall
By the mid-1960s, the shine had faded. The theatre limped along on small-scale use, nowhere near what it was built for. Then, on January 15, 1985, a fire tore through the building and left $60,000 in damage in its wake. For a moment, it looked like the story might be over.
SHM 17370 Paramount Theater St Cloud Minn ca 1973
The Comeback
In the early 1990s, something remarkable happened. The community showed up. Local support, volunteer efforts, and a shared belief that St. Cloud deserved better brought the Paramount back from the edge. The renovation that followed didn't just restore a building, it reimagined one.
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Today
The Paramount Center for the Arts is more than a theatre. It's an 800-seat historic stage, working visual arts studios, rotating galleries, and a gift shop showcasing over 80 local artists, all under one roof in Historic Downtown St. Cloud. It belongs to the City of St. Cloud and is run by a nonprofit that believes the arts belong to everyone in Central Minnesota.

A hundred years in, the curtain is still going up.

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