Omaha's Orpheum Theater began life on this site in 1895 as the Creighton Theater. The theater today hosts programs best served by a theatrical setting, including the Omaha Performing Arts Broadway Season, presented with Broadway Across America, and Opera Omaha's season. Its main auditorium is a proscenium theater known as "Slosburg Hall", and the building even contains a theatre organ made by Wurlitzer.
The Orpheum is listed on the National Register of Historic Places, but its story begins on this site with the Creighton Theater. In 1895 John A. McShane organized a stock company to build the original house; the architects were Fisher & Lawrie and Rocheford & Gould served as general contractors. Paxton and Vierling installed an iron curtain weighing 11 tons.
The theater was named for John A. Creighton, and a large portrait of Count Creighton once decorated the proscenium arch. The Creighton was added to the Orpheum Circuit, which by 1900 stretched across nine western cities—Omaha, Chicago, Kansas City, New Orleans, Denver, Salt Lake City, Los Angeles, San Francisco, and Sacramento. Inside, the Wurlitzer organ and Slosburg Hall carry on a story that began with an 11-ton iron curtain and a portrait of Count Creighton over the arch.