Victory Theater Building

About this property

The Victoria Theatre is a historic 1,154-seat performing arts venue located in downtown Dayton, Ohio. The Victoria hosts a variety of events including theatre, music, dance, film, and comedy. The Victoria, one of the oldest continually operated theaters on the continent, was opened to the public as the Turner Opera House on New Year's Day, 1866. The first performance was the James Sheridan Knowles play Virginius, starring Edwin Forrest – the play was strongly associated with the famous actor. According to press clippings of that era, the theater was referred to as "the best theater west of Philadelphia". The theater's presence in Dayton even inspired the publishing of a musical march by Edward Spoth named after the opera house. Arson was suspected of having caused an all-consuming fire May 16, 1869, which destroyed the theater at a loss of $500,000, of which insurance covered only $128,000. In 1871, the edifice was re-opened – its rebuilding based, in part, on a portion of the surviving facade, although built to three stories instead of six. The opera house resumed operations as "The Music Hall". It in 1885 it became "The Grand Opera House". On September 18, 1899, it became the "Victoria Opera House", and in 1903, it became the Victoria Theatre, two years after the death of Queen Victoria of the United Kingdom. Damage again befell The Victoria during the catastrophic Great Dayton Flood of 1913 which severely damaged the Dayton region along with the ground floor of the theater. The theater's interior was rebuilt and remodeled. But on January 16, 1918, fire struck again and gutted portions of the building. Reconstruction was delayed due to material shortages during World War I. Thus, after Armistice, The Victoria saw extensive interior remodeling and in 1919 re-opened as "The Victory Theatre" – a name commemorating the victorious American war effort. For decades, the theater was a major national embarkation point for traveling theater and stock companies. This included performances by Al Jolson, The Marx Brothers, Helen Hayes, Fannie Brice, George M. Cohan, Lynn Fontayne, Gertrude Lawrence, Alfred Lunt, Harry Houdini, and many others. In 1930, the Victory Theatre was outfitted for talking pictures, in its effort to continue as a full-service cinema house. In the 1950s and 1960s, it was the home of pictures from Walt Disney's company, as well as other studios' family fare. By the late 1960s, Dayton's changing business patterns Downtown and the proliferation of freeways and suburban shopping malls threatened the Victory Theater's existence, and in 1975 it was slated for demolition, in favor of a proposed parking lot. A public outcry for the theater's preservation that year helped to earn the building its listing in the National Register of Historic Places and, thus, it escaped demolition. However, portions of the building were in poor or fading condition. A group of young volunteers raised funds and did the early renovation work themselves to prevent demolition.

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Property data from the National Register of Historic Places, National Park Service (public domain).

Description adapted from Wikipedia under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 International License.

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