Business Success Action Group

Weakened by the vibrations of decades of truck traffic, the four chains that held the Ohio Theater marquee on December 14, 1977 released one after the other shortly after midnight and crashed onto the sidewalk below. It could have been an omen. Less than a year later, in September 1978, the RKO Stanley-Warner Group, which then ran the ornate half-century-old Ohio at 122 W. North St., announced the closure of the theater. Woody Owens, who ran the Ohio for a dozen years until 1978, recalled filling the house with films like "The Godfather" - which in 1972 drew more than 27,000 customers during its nine-week run - and nearly a ton of people they didn't come to see Burt Reynolds in "Semi-Tough" until the spring of 1978. "But a few good Saturdays every four months are not enough," wrote The Lima News on September 24, 1978. The Ohio, the News wrote, "was truly an entertainment palace in the great tradition of its time," with mosaic and tile