LaFrance Theatre

The Arcade Theatre’s opening date was lost for now, but it opened as early as the 1910’s.

On August 16, 1928, the Arcade Theatre changed its name to the LaFrance Theatre after a theater-naming contest. The name was chosen by Mrs. J.E. Coon of Swanton who received a free two-season pass. Other names that were chosen in the contest were the “Vista”, “New Empress”, “Pastime”, “New Paramount”, “Idle Hour”, and the “Rainbow”.

On May 23, 1929, manager L.A. Pilloid announced that talkies will be installed featuring Vitaphone equipment (similar to the earlier installations at the Temple Theatre in Toledo) which it did a few weeks later but for its sound system was a different story in the next few years. At the time, the theater operated five-days-a-week (Wednesday through Sunday).

During World War II, the LaFrance Theatre received many struggles with his schedule (especially during the first-half of 1944 when the theater was forced to open only a couple of days per week and received a couple of short one-week closures). Shortly after the theater was sold out to Toledo resident Nat B. Charnas, the LaFrance Theatre closed for two months in September 1944 due to extensive remodeling.

After a two-month remodeling project, the LaFrance Theatre reopened its doors on November 8, 1944 with Donald O'Connor in “The Merry Monahans” along with Tex Avery’s smash cartoon “Red Hot Riding Hood”, featuring a newly-installed RCA sound system and a Silvertone screen, and upgraded its schedule to seven-days-a-week.

During the week before Thanksgiving 1955, CinemaScope was introduced at the LaFrance Theatre and later ran its first CinemaScope film, Richard Todd in “A Man Called Peter” (plus two cartoons), on November 23, 1955.

This unfortunately did not last pretty long at all, which the LaFrance Theatre later close its doors for the final time on December 14, 1958 with the exploitation films “Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman” and “War of the Satellites” due to a loss of its lease. It was last operated by C. Harris.

The former building was later converted into a retail store which became the fitting neighbor to the nearby Rhuland’s in March 1959.

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