Loew's State Theatre

Loew's State was the second of two downtown movie palaces that Houston architect Alfred C. Finn designed for developer Jesse H. Jones on Main Street. The first, the Egyptian-themed Metropolitan, had opened next door on Christmas Day 1926. Loew's State followed on October 15, 1927. Jones gave the principal address, Mayor Oscar Holcombe spoke, and the opening program paired Lillian Gish in the silent film Annie Laurie with a vaudeville show on the stage. With the Kirby Theatre across Main, the three houses were built within ten months of each other, from December 1926 to October 1927.

The auditorium held about 2,519 people. Houston film historian David Welling describes the State as more restrained than the Metropolitan but still ornate: the lobby was furnished with antiques brought from the Vanderbilt estate, and a 23-foot dome over the balcony held a Czechoslovakian chandelier ringed by thousands of concealed electric lights. Welling ranks the State with the 1923 Majestic and the Metropolitan as the high point of 1920s movie theater design in Houston.

Loew's Inc. operated the theater as a first-run house. The Wizard of Oz opened there in 1939, about three months before the Alabama Theatre opened in November, and a Cinema Treasures contributor who compiles engagement histories reports a four-week run of Gone with the Wind in February and March 1940. Another contributor, working from period newspaper microfilm, reports that in the 1960s Loew's State was the main downtown first-run theater for MGM, United Artists, and Universal releases.

Loew's State closed on October 15, 1972, forty-five years to the day after it opened, and was demolished soon afterward. The Metropolitan next door closed at the end of that year and came down in 1973. Welling notes that all of Houston's grand downtown picture palaces are now gone.