Weakened by vibrations from decades of passing truck traffic, the four chains holding up the marquee of the Ohio Theater let go one by one shortly after midnight on Dec. 14, 1977, sending it crashing to the sidewalk below. It might have been an omen.
Less than a year later, in September 1978, the RKO Stanley-Warner group, which then operated the ornate, half-century-old Ohio at 122 W. North St., announced it was closing the theater.
Woody Owens, who had managed the Ohio for a dozen years by 1978, recalled filling the house for movies like “The Godfather” — which drew more than 27,000 customers over its nine-week run in 1972 — and near-capacity crowds coming to see Burt Reynolds in “Semi-Tough” as recently as the spring of 1978. “But a few good Saturdays every four months aren’t enough,” The Lima News wrote Sept. 24, 1978.
The Ohio, the News wrote, “really was an entertainment palace in the grand tradition of its time” with floors of mosaic and tile and a domed ceiling with a 2,500-pound crystal chandelier.
“Perhaps the most notable architectural feature of the 92-by-220-foot building is the unsupported span of reinforced concrete that holds up the balcony,” the newspaper noted. “In 1927, it was the largest such span in Ohio and one of the longest in the United States.”
The theater seated 1,800, was built for approximately $250,000 and went up in about five months in 1927.
“That was a theater. They didn’t run in and out of that place,” one of those who was there when the theater opened would recall years later.
“There is still a stately beauty to the place, still a feeling of elegance,” the News reminisced in 1978. “But too often there is no one to appreciate it. Too often it stands empty.”
All in all, it was a far cry from that November night in 1927 when more than 4,000 people lined up for a chance at fewer than half that many tickets. For the next 51 years, Lima area residents would line up at the Ohio for movies, local events and live entertainment that ran the gamut from burlesque to ballet.
During World War II, big bands led by Guy Lombardo, Les Brown, Louis Prima, drummer Gene Krupa and others played for entertainment-starved audiences, and Navy recruiters used the lobby to enlist women in the WAVES. In 1943, the theater spearheaded a drive to collect millions of cigarettes to send the troops, while, throughout the war, patrons who purchased war bonds were treated to a free movie.
Just before Christmas in 1943, Carmen Amaya appeared on the theater’s stage with her 11 sisters, brothers, father and cousins for a flamenco show that “shook the floorboards of the playhouse,” according to the News. “Her incredibly quick foot-stamps and finger-snappings and castanet clacks were animal-like in their fury,” the newspaper marveled.
On June 7, 1944, the day after the Allies landed at Normandy, Lima’s War Service Legion took to the Ohio’s stage for its production of “Blow Your Whistle,” with proceeds designated for the Lima Servicemen’s Canteen. The show featured dances, songs, magic and “fun in general,” the News wrote. “The play is about Lima and the entire cast is made up of Lima persons.”
When the war ended in August 1945, the Ohio’s offerings quickly returned to more escapist fare. On Nov. 28, 1945, the News announced “Karston’s Atomic Scandals” would be featured on the theater’s stage. “Headlining The Great Darrell, magician, and his ‘Miracle Girls,’ the acts include Dolores, the transparent girl, and ‘Dr. Weird’s Chamber of Horrors,’ a cleverly devised act including zombies, headless men, moving amidst the audience.”
Higher brow performers, many sponsored by the Northwest Ohio Civic Music Association, appeared at the Ohio over the next quarter-century. About four months after Karston’s troupe entertained at the Ohio, the Markova-Dolin ballet company performed. Violinist Isaac Stern played the Ohio in 1949, and the Vienna Boys’ Choir in 1950 and 1951. Jerome Hines of the Metropolitan Opera wowed local audiences in 1954. The San Francisco, Minneapolis, Pittsburgh, Cleveland, the Boston Pops and other orchestras also came to the Ohio.
In July 1950, the theater’s new air conditioning system was turned on, removing, according to the News, about 95 gallons of moisture an hour from the cavernous building. In October 1953, a “new wide ‘panoramic’ screen was installed. The 20-by-40-foot screen,” the News reported, was “acceptable for use for pictures in the three-dimensional, Cinemascope or standard medium.”
Earlier that year, the Ohio showed “Bwana Devil,” the first full-length 3-D film. Meanwhile, the theater’s marquee, “after being clipped by trucks a number of times,” the News wrote in August 1955, was replaced by a shorter one, which was felled by the vibrations created by trucks 22 years later.
By the 1970s, theaters like the Ohio were “having the market taken away from them by new smaller theaters” with multiple screens and convenient locations in suburban malls, the News wrote in 1978. Theater manager Owens was succinct: “Time has caught up with these big barn-like theaters,” he told the News.
And that, it seemed, was that. The Ohio seemed destined to become another boarded-up memory or a parking lot – except that it had a lot of life left in it.
RKO-Stanley Warner sold it to Lima businessman Larry Comer in 1978. In March 1979, it reopened as the Ohio Theatre 2.
“Centerpiece of the renovated theater is the discotheque, called Fantasia, which has a 2,200 square-foot dance floor, billed as one of the largest in the state,” the News wrote March 2, 1979. “The lighting system can be raised for viewing live performances or movies. There will be seating for 1,450 people, spokesmen say.”
Comer reinvented the building several more times. Between 1992-1994 it was Slingers, a country line dance club; from 1994 to 2000 it was Club Mirage, featuring pop and rock music; between 2000 and 2002 it was Vortex, with techno/dance beat music; between 2002 and 2006 it was Night Moves, a pop/dance club; and from 2006 to 2008 Club Rush.
In 2013, Kelly and Mike Saddler purchased the Ohio, telling the News at the time they hoped to “bring some more life” to downtown Lima.
“They transformed the space from a nightclub into a live music and event venue, but Kelly Saddler said she’d like to give other parties the opportunity to turn the theater into something else,” the News wrote April 3, 2019.
Veronica Fox, a real estate agent with Superior Plus Realtors, told the News in 2019 that “it has a lot of potential, just needs a little bit of upgrading. It’s just going to take the right person to go in there and fix it up.”
The right persons may have arrived in November 2020 when two television producers from Los Angeles purchased it after a year-long search for a place to revive their dinner theater productions. Joe Correll and Michael Bouson have big plans for the Ohio: live theatrical dance and musical performances on the main stage; two bars – a piano bar on the main floors and speakeasy-style jazz bar upstairs; and a renovated Ohio Room that will be used as a rehearsal studio, according to the News.
“Our philosophy is that this theater doesn’t really belong to us, it belongs to the city Lima,” Bouson told the News. “It’s been here for 100 years. We’re stewards of that to keep it going and hopefully take it up a step, but we’re counting on the community to be part of this.”
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