The Sugar Land Auditorium was constructed in 1918 by the Imperial Sugar Company.[/caption]

The Sugar Land Auditorium has served the Fort Bend County community for almost 100 years and is one of the last remaining public buildings in the city of Sugar Land.

Imperial Sugar Company founders, W.T. Eldridge and Isaac Kempner, built the auditorium in 1918 to provide workers and their families with educational opportunities and a central gathering place.

Dennis Parmer, executive director for the Sugar Land Heritage Foundation, said the auditorium helped Imperial Sugar flourish and prosper because it gave the company a venue to educate its workforce.

“[Eldridge and Kempner] wanted happy workers,” Parmer said. “A part of that was education for the families, and it was critical to their thinking. If the workers are happy, [then] they are going to be productive.”

Imperial Sugar operated the auditorium as a school, which housed 500 students in grades one to 12. The auditorium later became the focal point of Sugar Land ISD in 1918 when several buildings were constructed around the auditorium.

Tim Stubenrouch, president of the Sugar Land Cultural Arts Foundation, said each building surrounding the auditorium housed different grades and helped develop the infrastructure for the future Fort Bend ISD.

When Sugar Land and Missouri City ISDs merged in 1959 to create FBISD, the auditorium was used for school events and community functions, such as educational presentations and theater productions, Parmer said.

The auditorium was given a historical marker from the Texas Historical Society in 1993. In 2002, The SLCAF raised $1.5 million to restore the auditorium and to find a permanent tenant. The first two phases of restoration were completed in 2011 and included the construction of a green room and a backstage area.

Inspiration Stage—a Fort Bend County-based theater company—became the venue’s permanent tenant in 2013 and uses the facility for children’s as well as adult productions.

“What [the SLCAF] is doing is bringing [the auditorium] back to a venue where people will come based on what is being performed,” Parmer said. “It is like going back to the true purposes of the facility.”