Columbia Theater

James D. Hill and Louis G Hill operated multiple silent African American theaters as the Hill Brothers. The nickel Columbia Theatre opened on May 14, 1910. The theater competed with the Little Doo Theatre (operated by a retailer with the last name of Doolittle) which had opened nearby in 1904 and changed names to the Two Johns Theatre. The Columbia Theater was credited for being the first movie house to play movies with African-American casts.

The Columbia Theater was an advanced nickelodeon with 300 opera chairs and live piano-accompanied films with live sing-alongs. The Hills Bros. successfully would go on to open the Douglas Theater, Indiana Theater, and Senate Theater all aimed at African-American patrons. They also created the Airdrome Theater directly across the street from the Columbia Theater which was operated at least one season during the warm summer months.

In 1914, Dunlop and Nicholson took on the Columbia Theater adding it to their Dunick Theatre - another African-American Theatre located on 16th Street. The Columbia Theater was undersized, ill shaped, and dropped by the operators. It was briefly a house of worship before conversion to a music retail store in the 1920’s. 524 Indiana Avenue. continued to be an important retail location in this African American business community for decades. The building was demolished in the 1980’s.

The former Columbia Theater became a victim first by being undersized for movie theaters of its age. It was a victim a second time due to Alexander Ralston’s original plan of Indianapolis and his use of diagonal streets such as Indiana Avenue. Indiana Avenue’s layout resulted in dramatic pie-shaped lots. Aerial shots of the City show the Columbia Theatre building as one such triangular edifice apparently created in Italianate architectural style when built in the late-19th Century.

As cars became more commonplace, parking was at a premium. In the 1980’s, the pie shaped building became expendable in favor of a parking lot with the triangular building excised. Had it lasted just a bit longer, it would have been part of the Historic Register which this part of Indiana Avenue received not long thereafter.

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