Vita Temple Theatre

dallasmovietheaters on December 12, 2018 at 5:03 pm

Built as the First Congregation Church in 1844, Toledo exhibitor W.C. Bettis – who built such early Toledo photoplay theaters as Colonial Theatre and the Alhambra Theatre – declared the era of the nickelodeon over. “[Nickelodeons] will give way to the large, commodius, ventilated and handsomely theatres equipped expressly for exhibition purposes.”

Bettis put his money where his mouth was converting the church into the “temple of motion pictures” with patrons getting around three hours of original film content for their admission ticket. It launched as the Temple Theatre, a silent house on May 9, 1914 with Jack London’s “Sea Wolf.” It was next door to the long-running and famous Boody Hotel and across the street from the County Building once housing one of the city’s main post offices.

OnFebruary 25, 1927, the silent house turned to Vitaphone sound system and renamed the “Vita Temple” Theatre. The theatre’s experience with Vitaphone was substandard and the theatre switched to Movietone in September of 1927. After the demise of the Boody, the building of the Second National Bank Tower upgraded the neighborhood while launching a banking building trend in the city.

But on February 10, 1933, a spate of 30 fires around Toledo broke out but none more spectacular than the destruction of the Vita Temple Theatre in the early hours. The final showings were on February 9, 1933 and the fire occurred while the theater was closed. BTW: The building’s “short life” mentioned in the paragraph above was a mere 89 years of operation with its final nearly twenty years as a motion picture theatre. Not a bad run.

TLSLOEWS on July 1, 2010 at 6:42 pm

Toledo Parking Violations is listed at this address on the Google map.