On a cold Thursday night in November 1927, a chance to nab the hottest ticket in town brought a crowd estimated by The Lima News at 4,000 or more to the new Schine’s Ohio Theater in the 100 block of West North Street.
“It was a colorful gathering assembled under auspicious circumstances,” the News wrote the following day, Nov. 18, 1927. “West North Street took on the air of Broadway shortly after six o’clock when a line of ticket-seekers shoved their way in the direction of the box office. With the seats for the first performance sold out early Thursday afternoon, and half the number disposed of before 3 p.m. for the second show, patrons eager to get in on the opening night made an early appearance.”
Those fortunate enough to get a ticket for 25 cents or 50 cents were treated to a program featuring a 10-piece orchestra, two one-act plays and a silent photoplay.
Lima’s newest theater, however, was as much of an attraction as the entertainment, so much so, the Lima Star and Republican-Gazette reported, that the doors were opened at 6:15 p.m. “to allow those interested in inspecting the building to do so” before the first show started at 7 p.m.
There was a lot to inspect.
“This de luxe playhouse takes rank with the finer examples of theatre buildings in the state,” the magazine Motion Picture News wrote in January 1928 of the theater, it described as “dedicated to pictures and road shows.”
The 28-by-34-foot lobby was “carried out in a color scheme of black and gold … the ceiling is vaulted and finished in gold,” the magazine wrote, noting that the lobby led to a “spacious foyer” with marble stairways leading to a mezzanine. The auditorium proper was 80-by-115 feet with a 30-by-80-foot stage “equipped,” the magazine added “with the most modern counter-balanced stage rigging and electric switchboard equipment.”
From the mezzanine, which Motion Picture News described as “in the form of an immense lounging room,” inclines led to the theater’s balcony, above which was “the great dome of the theatre.” The dome, the magazine wrote, was “carried out in a cloud effect so that when the lights are turned on the effect will be like looking at the sky.” The projection room, “one of the most commodious” in the state, according to the magazine, was 20-by-30 feet with “toilet facilities and outside windows for proper ventilation.”
Amazingly, construction of the theater, designed by local architect Peter M. Hulken, began just six months earlier.
“Work on the new Schine Ohio theater, which is to be erected on West North Street between Main and Elizabeth streets at a cost of approximately $450,000 was started early Monday by the contracting firm of Green and Sawyer,” the News reported May 16, 1927. Lima businessman Max Bernstein, of the Gramm-Bernstein truck company, erected the theater and leased it to theater operators Schine Enterprises of Gloversville, New York.
Looking back on Lima entertainment during the 20th century, News columnist Mike Lackey in September 1999 noted that the opening was “a watershed event” in some ways.
“In one sense, it harked back to the Gilded Age and the glamorous opening of the Faurot Opera House,” Lackey wrote. “In another, it looked ahead to a time when more and more of our entertainment would come to us prepackaged for mass consumption.”
The first dozen or so years of the theater were momentous as the talkies took over, technicolor arrived and live entertainment such as fan dancer Sally Rand and magician Harry Blackstone Sr. appeared on the Ohio stage.
While stage acts like that of Blackstone or Al Jolson, who appeared on the Ohio’s stage less than a month after the theater opened, and films like Jolson’s “The Jazz Singer,” which is credited with heralding the arrival of sound films, were the Ohio’s main fare, locally produced entertainment often found its way to the screen or stage.
This was never more evident than in April 1928.
“While no one ever expects Lima to compete with Hollywood in the business of making motion pictures,” the News wrote in a front-page story April 20, 1928, “still there is no reason why a real movie cannot be made in this city. Believing that, the Lima News, Schine’s Ohio theatre and the Lima Community Players have arranged to cooperate in the making of a motion picture with Lima talent and Lima settings.”
Three weeks later, “Lima’s Hero,” a two-reel comedy featuring a car crash filmed in the Public Square as hundreds looked on, was shown at the Ohio.
“The picture is filled with good, clean comedy and has sufficient plot to hold interest throughout,” the News opined.
Tragedy also played out on the screen. On Jan. 7, 1929, two Lima firefighters were killed battling a blaze at the courthouse. Two days later, film of the event was shown at the Ohio.
“Motion pictures of the Allen County courthouse fire Monday will be exhibited at the Ohio Theater Wednesday, manager Laurence (F.C. Laurence) announced. The film was being taken at the time two Lima firemen were carried to death by a falling roof,” according to the News.
Less than three years after Schine Enterprises opened the Ohio, it was sold. In June 1930, the News reported the Ohio and 16 other theaters owned by Schine’s “will pass under the active management of Warner Brothers July 1.”
The following March, the Morning Star and Republican-Gazette announced that the Sigma and State theaters in Lima had been purchased by Warner Brothers. In August 1934, Warner bought the Ohio Theater building from Bernstein for $285,000 in “one of the largest” real estate deals in a decade.
All the while the shows went on – Singer’s Midgets, Major Bowe’s Amateurs, Fred Allen’s Amateurs, former Lima resident Donald Macdonald and frequent visitor Blackstone, among the many. In March 1937, burlesque star Sally Rand performed her titillating fan dance for Lima audiences from the stage of the Ohio.
The News, describing Rand as “the Chicago consternation during the late World’s Fair,” announced the dancer would appear at the Ohio for one day only.
“Going along with the beauteous fan-and-bubble-business expert is the movie, ‘She’s Dangerous,’” the newspaper reported.
Burlesque shows proved popular. Titania – described by the News as a “vivacious blonde ‘take it off’ expert” — told a reporter after a performance by June Carr’s Follies at the Ohio, that “the strip-tease artist is a natural product of this sophisticated age.”
In January 1937, the first motion picture shot in technicolor, “The Garden of Allah” with Marlene Dietrich and Charles Boyer, was shown at the Ohio. Three years later, in January 1940, “Gone With The Wind” made its Lima debut.
The cameras were turned on Lima residents in September 1941 for “Lima in Reelife.”
“In natural color pictures of industries of Lima, civic organizations and town personalities, an hour of entertainment for people seeing themselves and their friends is provided,” the News wrote.
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