The Hippodrome Theatre or Wabash Theatre is a historic theater

Theater (structure)

A theater or theatre is a structure where theatrical works or plays are performed or other performances such as musical concerts may be produced. While a theater is not required for performance , a theater serves to define the performance and audience spaces...

 in Terre Haute, Indiana

Terre Haute, Indiana

Terre Haute is a city and the county seat of Vigo County, Indiana, United States, near the state's western border with Illinois. As of the 2010 census, the city had a total population of 60,785 and its metropolitan area had a population of 170,943. The city is the county seat of Vigo County and...

.

Theater manager Theodore W. Barhydt decided to build a theater in the area and enlisted the help of noted theater architect John Eberson

John Eberson

John Eberson was an American architect best known for his movie palace designs in the atmospheric theatre fashion.Born in Czernowitz, Austro-Hungarian Empire , Eberson went to highschool in Dresden and studied electrical engineering in Vienna. He arrived in the United States in 1901 and at first...

 to design the building. The German Renaissance structure officially opened on February 15, 1915, with a grand opening celebration attended by local dignitaries such as Indiana

Indiana

Indiana is a US state, admitted to the United States as the 19th on December 11, 1816. It is located in the Midwestern United States and Great Lakes Region. With 6,483,802 residents, the state is ranked 15th in population and 16th in population density. Indiana is ranked 38th in land area and is...

 governor Samuel M. Ralston

Samuel M. Ralston

Samuel Moffett Ralston was Democratic politician, the 28th Governor of and a United States Senator from the U.S. state of Indiana. Born into a large impoverished family, he took many jobs as a child including working in a coal mine...

 and vaudeville

Vaudeville

Vaudeville was a theatrical genre of variety entertainment in the United States and Canada from the early 1880s until the early 1930s. Each performance was made up of a series of separate, unrelated acts grouped together on a common bill...

 moguls like Joseph M. Finn, Marcus Heiman, and Asher Levy.

The building was placed on the National Register of Historic Places

National Register of Historic Places

The National Register of Historic Places is the United States government's official list of districts, sites, buildings, structures, and objects deemed worthy of preservation...

in 1983.