State Theatre
118 W. Market Street,
Lima,
OH
45801
118 W. Market Street,
Lima,
OH
45801
1 person
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Stanley-Warner Theatres, Warner Bros. Circuit Management Corp.
Previous Names: New Orphium Theatre
Nearby Theaters
Originally opened as the New Orphium Theater in 1908. It was reopened as the State Theatre on February 16, 1927 with Edward Everett Horton in “The Whole Town’s Talking” plus 5 acts of vaudeville. By 1941 it was operated by Warner Bros. Circuit Management Corp. It was closed and razed in 1955 to make way for a parking garage.
Contributed by
Ken McIntyre
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Recent comments (view all 13 comments)
There was a photo of the State in the Lima News on 7/27/55, shortly before its demolition:
http://tinyurl.com/y8avpps
I would have to disagree with that. The photo is as reasonably clear as a fifty year old archival image can be. Since there are no photos of the State currently posted, at least this gives us some idea of what the structure looked like. Seeing as I had to search for the photo and then get some facsimile of it online, the dismissal as “nonsense” is rather galling.
I guess it’s time for a CT break. No sense going to the trouble to get abused for doing so. Have fun, everybody.
The Orpheum Theatre at Lima, Ohio, was being mentioned in The Billboard and Variety in 1908.
Note the address of 118 W. Market Street given in kencmcintyre’s earlier comment, as well as the missing AKA.
I’ve found this house listed as the New Orpheum Theatre as early as 1911 and as late as 1924. I don’t think it means that this Orpheum was rebuilt at any time. A list of Gus Sun’s theaters in Frank Cullen’s Vaudeville Old and New has six houses called the New Orpheum, and several other theaters in the circuit had the word “New” as part of their names. Apparently, Gus Sun was just partial to it.
February 16th, 1927 grand opening ad as State is in the photo section.
I have a postcard of an “Orphium Theatre” [sic!] in Lima, Ohio. It’s a card with an undivided back, making it possible to date it as pre-1907. The building depicted says “Bank of Lima Building”, with no hint of a theatre name… Maybe this is the “old Orpheum” that is discussed above? Does anyone know where this has been?
Here’s the card: http://www.andreas-praefcke.de/carthalia/id/4892
I’ve found a number of references to this house, and several others, as the Orphium Theatre, mostly in the 1907-1910 period. The references are too common and occur in to many different publications to have all been typos, so it looks like the spelling Orphium was actually used by quite a few theaters for a while. Most of the houses using the variant appear to have been part of Gus sun’s circuit. There might have been some legal conflict between Sun and Martin Beck’s Orpheum circuit over the use of the name.
Opened as the Orpheum Family Theatre on May 28th, 1906. Grand opening ad posted.
Grand opening ad as State
State Theatre opening 16 Feb 1927, Wed The Lima News (Lima, Ohio) Newspapers.com