February 2026.
The Lincoln Theatre is the other half of the “King-Lincoln” part of King-Lincoln Bronzeville. (The first is the King Arts Complex.) It is a very important part of Columbus’s Black history and a major center for the community. The theater was also designed in the rare Egyptian Revival style.
The Lincoln Theatre is located at 769 East Long Street in the King-Lincoln Bronzeville neighborhood of Columbus, Ohio. It is bordered by Long Street to the north, the Hamilton Park Historic District to the south, Garfield Avenue to the east, and a parking lot to the west.
History
Though Columbus’s earliest Black citizens lived downtown, some moved to the Near East Side and Old North End (Italian Village) at the turn of the 20th century, as the railroad shops there offered employment opportunities. Additionally, the Great Migration brought Southern and rural migrants into the city, who moved downtown or to the Near East Side. Most of Columbus’s businesses downtown would not allow Black patrons, so commercial strips catering to them grew on Long Street and Mt. Vernon Avenue. These included restaurants, stores, theatres, churches, banks, hotels, and fraternal organizations that were the counterparts of the exclusively white Freemasons, Odd Fellows, Knights of Pythias, etc. One of these organizations was the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, which had a late 19th-century building on the current site.
The Empress Theatre in the 1950s as a church, prior to its demolition. (Cinema Treasures)
Prior to the construction of the Lincoln Theatre, the Near East Side had three other movie theaters. First was the Vernon (later Cameo) Theatre at 1058 Mt. Vernon Avenue, built in 1914. Across the street at 760 East Long Street was the Empress Theatre, a grand Renaissance Revival design built in 1920 and since demolished, which also once held the Empress Soda Grill and Crystal Slipper Ballroom. Finally, the Pythian Theatre (now the King Arts Complex) was built in 1925 at 867 Mt. Vernon Avenue. After the purchase of the Vernon Theatre by the white-owned Keith Theatre company, which had a “No Admission to Negroes” rule, Al Jackson, the owner of the Empress Theatre, was incensed by this decision and sought to build another theatre exclusively for the Near East Side’s Black population.
Portrait of Al Jackson, the businessman who worked to build the Lincoln Theatre. (Lincoln Theatre website)
Jackson approached the Grand United Order of Odd Fellows, who commissioned the construction of a theater as part of their new Ogden Lodge. As a result, the theater was built as the Ogden Theatre and Ballroom, opening on Thanksgiving of 1928. Owing to the factors mentioned earlier, the theater was commissioned by a Black fraternal organization, built by a Black-owned construction company, and managed by a Black businessman in the neighborhood. Its opening came without fanfare outside of the Black community, earning no mention in the Columbus Dispatch, and none of the Near East Side’s theaters were even named in the newspaper’s list of neighborhood theaters. With the loss of much of Columbus’s Black cultural heritage due to “urban renewal” schemes and divestment, the Lincoln Theatre is an important historic landmark in King-Lincoln Bronzeville.
A group of Black men outside the theater shortly after its opening. (Lincoln Theatre website)
Though the Lincoln Theatre’s architect is unknown (and they may have been Black as well, as was the case with the King Arts Complex’s Pythian Temple), its builder was Carl Anderson, and it is an example of Egyptian Revival architecture. The brick exterior is very pared-down, but the interior is grand and features more literal Egyptian-influenced decor, inspired by the Temple of Karnak. The first floor holds the building’s theater, while the second floor was used as a ballroom, the latter being a popular venue for jazz music. The third floor was not open to the public and held offices. Artist Smokey Brown, whose father worked for the construction company, claimed that the Lincoln Theatre used the same plans as the demolished Palace Theatre in Dayton.
Al Jackson financed other ventures in the neighborhood after the Lincoln Theatre’s completion, such as the Theresa Building for Black professionals, and the Jackson-Logan apartment building. After his death, the theater was sold to the very same theater company with the anti-Black policy that spurred its creation (Keith Theatre). In 1939, they renamed it to the present “Lincoln Theatre” name and installed an Art Deco marquee.
Despite Keith’s ownership of the theater, they must have abandoned their earlier policy, as it remained a local hub of Black entertainment. Along with the first floor’s stage, the second floor’s ballroom was a very popular venue for musical performances, such as jazz and big band music. Despite jazz’s perception as a refined and artsy genre today, it was perceived by the public as immoral and a threat to “traditional values” (sound familiar?!), in large part due to it being a genre pioneered by Black Americans. Nonetheless, the ballroom hosted famous performers such as Columbus native Nancy Wilson, Count Basie, Cab Calloway, and the Eckstine Band, whose members included future stars Dizzy Gillespie, Charlie Parker, and Sarah Vaughan.
1992 photo of the building. (NRHP listing)
This prosperity of the thriving Near East Side was not to last, however. As the Civil Rights movement granted Black citizens more rights, this opened the door for the more prosperous citizens to move to areas previously not open to them. Additionally, the construction of I-71 slashed Mt. Vernon Avenue and Long Street in half, creating a physical barrier between the Near East Side and downtown. The demolition of houses and businesses in the path of the highway caused a decline in population, exacerbated by the closure of Black-owned businesses that faced new competition from outside the neighborhood. As a result, many of the vacated buildings on these streets were demolished in the 1960s and 1970s to “renew” this newly blighted neighborhood.
On a stretch of Long Street once known as the “Million Dollar Block,” whose shining lightbulbs were favorably compared to those of Las Vegas, the Lincoln Theatre closed and sat helplessly as its neighbors were lost to the wrecking ball. By 1978, it had been closed for “several years.” The 1961 Sanborn map shows it with a brick building next door (which stood until at least 1992), a concrete car wash, and a wooden restaurant. All of these have been demolished in favor of parking.
The condition of the interior prior to restorations. (NRHP listing)
In 1990, exterior repair work began on the Lincoln Theatre. During this period, it was listed on the National Register of Historic Places, in 1992. Further renovations were announced by mayor Michael B. Coleman in 2002 as part of reinvestment in King-Lincoln Bronzeville, and the building was purchased by the city and entrusted to the Columbus Association for the Performing Arts. Fully restored, the theater reopened on May 25, 2009. Along with theatre performances, the venue still hosts jazz concerts and community programs for youth and adults interested in the arts.
Photos
Oblique view from the corner of Long and Garfield:
It has the typical theater expression of a more decorated street-side facade, a utilitarian portion where the seats are, and a taller module in back for the stage’s rigging.
The north facade:
It is very austere and may indicate some early Modern influence. Aside from the three central windows with corbelled brickwork above, the rest has a very solid massing with small window openings.
The marquee:
Remember, “G.U.O.O.F.” is the Black fraternal organization that once owned this building:
I like the brickwork of the window openings, too, which have courses of darker bricks with the smaller end outward. These create the visual illusion of larger voids like those on Egyptian temples.
East facade:
You can see the ashlar base of the building better here, as well as a mural commemorating the standing and lost cultural landmarks of King-Lincoln Bronzeville:
The west facade is a little chaotic, but it was not originally in view and would have been sandwiched by another building next door:
Stencil on the side with an Egyptian wing motif:
The marquee is the only remnant of this area’s former glitz and glamor--everything else is cold and modern.
I’ve said it numerous times, but it irritates me that the city of Columbus omits the “Bronzeville” from this neighborhood’s name. This blog includes it, in harmony with the community’s desires.
This stone tablet above the western entrance extols the Odd Fellows’ values of Friendship, Love, and Truth:
A closer view of the marquee:
This is the 1939 Art Deco marquee that was installed after Keith Theatre bought the building, and its neon has been restored.
I like this “walk of stars” outside the main entrance:
A plaque by the doors--none of my sources mentioned this gentleman, but he seems to have been important to the restoration process:
The building’s cornerstone:
Ohio Historical Marker across the street:
This was definitely a fun one to dissect history-wise. Most of Long Street and Mt. Vernon Avenue have had a catastrophic loss of their cultural and architectural heritage, so this theater is a super important one, and I’m glad that it has been restored and remains a center for the community.
Sources:
https://catalog.archives.gov/id/71988593
https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/37870
https://cinematreasures.org/theaters/19388
https://www.columbusmakesart.com/place/8675-lincoln-theatre
https://www.lincolntheatrecolumbus.com/about/history/#
https://digital-collections.columbuslibrary.org/digital/collection/columbusmaps/id/4870/rec/9