Columbia Theatre for the Performing Arts

On September 1, 1928 — the same year Hammond Junior College became Southeastern Louisiana College — the Columbia Theatre opened as the most elaborate movie palace between New Orleans and Baton Rouge. The first patrons climbed into 1,200 seats to hear a $12,000 Robert Morton Wonder Organ and watch Hammond's first talking pictures. Opening night featured a Marion Davies film. When the show let out, the crowd danced in the street. Through the Depression and war years of the 1930s and 1940s, the Columbia became the center for entertainment. By the 1950s and 1960s, downtown businesses suffered as regional malls and subdivisions drew people away. The theater needed renovation but couldn't sustain it. By the early 1980s, the Columbia was vacant, leaking, and infested with termites. In the early 1990s, a delegation of local citizens proposed leveling it and replacing it with a parking lot. Marguerite Walter, Director of the Hammond Downtown Development District, led another group to save it. She enlisted Harriet Vogt, Director of Fanfare at Southeastern Louisiana University, who brought the university into the League of Historic American Theaters. The League sent Killis Almond of San Antonio to Hammond. Almond urged the group to save the Columbia quickly — the roof was in danger of collapsing. Walter and Vogt worked with local attorney Rodney Cashe to register the Columbia as a non-profit. They secured state capital outlay funding, starting with the roof. By 1994, First Guaranty Bank owned the structure and offered to donate it to the DDD on condition it be converted back to a performance space. The DDD, City of Hammond, and Southeastern Louisiana University secured $4,900,000 in capital outlay funds to restore the Columbia. In Spring 2001, Southeastern Louisiana University received ownership. In 2002, the Columbia Theatre opened as a performing arts center. The main theatre seats 830. Southeastern Louisiana University operates it. Go for what the crowd on opening night knew: a city builds what it needs to gather.