Transcription from historical marker:

Built in 1899 as an adjunct to the Royal Hotel, the Brooks was praised in its day as the finest theater in the Southwest. It presented popular entertainments and was also the setting for many dazzling “first nights” for territorial society.

Some historic events of its golden years: the opening session of the Oklahoma Constitutional Convention, and an address by William Jennings Bryan, the Great Populist, in a campaign tour. Lon Chaney, famed motion picture actor, began his career here as a stagehand. Later years saw the Brooks become the Avon motion picture theater before it was razed in 1967.