Originally known as the Globe Hotel in 1828, this early Brookville hotel passed through a succession of owners in its first decades. In 1857, owner C. N. Kretz renamed it the Jefferson House. In 1904, new owner Philip J. Allgeier replaced the original building with the four story structure that still stands, named the New Jefferson Hotel, which served Brookville as a hotel until 1918. In 1918, Pittsburgh architect Harry S. Blair added a theater to the rear and replaced the original two story portico at the center of the facade with a theater marquee. Renamed the Columbia, the redesigned building operated as a popular movie theater until the late 1970s. Its unusual design, caused by the slope on which it was built, made it the only theater in the world where guests entered from behind the screen, passing through doors on either side of the movie screen to seats facing them as they entered, and it was featured by Ripley's Believe It or Not! for this distinctive architecture.