On April 4, 1925, Astoria was emerging from a cloud of ash.

Two and a half years earlier, a fire on Dec. 8, 1922, had left much of the city’s downtown business district in ruins, claiming in all more than 200 shops, restaurants and boardinghouses.

So it was at the center of a great rebuild that the Liberty Theatre opened its doors, for vaudeville acts that gave way to the allure of cinema, and now, a century later, to children’s programs and local music groups that share a stage with touring acts like Fran Lebowitz and David Sedaris.

In the 1920s, “Astoria was a lively port town, with ferries plying the Columbia River, canneries employing immigrants and local people, and Chryslers, Studebakers and Ford Model Ts angled along Commercial Street,” writes Mike Francis in a piece about the Liberty’s 100th anniversary in the 14th annual edition of Our Coast Magazine, now available in print.

“After it opened in 1925, the Liberty was a place where the people who lived here encountered the people who were passing through.”

The theater fast became a center of community life, though decades later, it would fall into decline for some years before a group of citizens, led by Steve Forrester, then-publisher of The Daily Astorian, worked to restore it in the early 1990s.

Over the past year, further renovations have boosted programs like Kids Make Theatre, which has grown to reach hundreds of local students each week.

On April 4, a celebration at 4 p.m. will flip a page to the theater’s second century, with a proclamation by Astoria Mayor Sean Fitzpatrick and ribbon-cutting by former Mayor Willis Van Dusen, plus hors d’oeuvres and refreshments.

Two free movies will also be shown over the weekend. Cecil B. DeMille’s “Madam Satan” plays at 7 p.m. April 5, and “The Wizard of Oz” will be shown at 2 p.m. April 6.

Then, on April 12, a 100th Birthday Bash will feature music from the Ne Plus Ultra Jass Orchestra in the theater’s McTavish Ballroom. Tickets are $40 for the evening, which encourages 1920s attire and a stroll onto the balcony to learn the stories behind a set of hand-painted Venetian murals.

So the story continues.