The State is one of the 22 theaters in my new book “After the Final Curtain: The Fall of the American Movie Theater.” Find out more here.

The Loew’s State Theatre opened on April 3, 1926 in New Orleans, Louisiana. It was built by renowned theater architect Thomas W. Lamb for the Loew’s Theatre Corporation. The 3,335 seat theater cost $1.5 million ($20 million adjusted to current value) to build. At the time of the opening, the “New Orleans Item” proclaimed the State, “the greatest playhouse south of Philadelphia and west of Chicago.”

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