The Coliseum Part 1

In a blog entry that I did a few weeks ago about the 1945 Lorain County Victory Day Celebration (back here), an ad for a luncheon event listed the Coliseum as the location. This prompted one of my regular readers (who coincidentally happens to be my brother) to ask where the Coliseum was located. I knew the Coliseum was out on West Erie Avenue (US Route 6) somewhere but I wasn't exactly sure at the time. Well, I did a little digging in the city directories and found out that it was just a little bit west of the Castle. But I'll get into the actual location and what is located at the site today a little bit later in this series.

The Coliseum is a place that my parents had mentioned over the years, but all I knew about it was that it was a popular skating rink and that it had burned down. (Also, it was the place where my aunt had first met my uncle.)

According to the Lorain Images of America book, the Coliseum was built by the Lorain Moose Lodge back in 1926 at a cost of $115,000.

Here's a photo of the inside, courtesy of the same Images of America book.