The Fresno Memorial Auditorium is located in the central area of the city, and is the single structure occupying a site that covers a city block. It is surrounded by substantial lawn and landscaped areas. This site adjoins a fourteen block civic center area, which contains eighteen government buildings which house city, county, state and federal agencies. The site faces Fresno Street, a principal street and is opposite Eaton Plaza, a one block open space area.

The building is of the Moderne and Art Deco Styles, rectangular in form, with massive plane surfaces and small openings for windows and doors and a restrained use of bas relief decoration. The entire structure is of reinforced concrete.

The Fresno Memorial Auditorium was, from 1936 to 1966, Fresno's most significant cultural facility, with a regional service area, of an eighty mile radius. Events held in the auditorium include Broadway plays and musicals, Metropolitan Opera, high school graduations, circuses, fashion shows, fraternal conventions, automobile shows, square dance and folk dance conventions, roller derbies, Harlem Globe Trotters basketball, ballet, religious rallies, London, Japanese and Fresno Philharmonic Orchestras, fund raising events, travelogues, lectures, public and private dances, political rallies, and others.

The 1956 California Democratic Convention was held here with Presidential and Vice-Presidential candidates Adlai Stevenson and Estes Kefauver attending.

Excerpted from the NRHP Nomination dated 26 January 1994.