February 27, 2018
You are reading “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical
Society.
It’s Tuesday
and that means more about the history of the C.L. Hoover Opera House. I have been hearing that there is interest in
this continued series and we are glad to bring it to you each Tuesday as a way
to celebrate this beautiful “Gem on the Prairie” as it has been called.
Last week we
left off at a point when much frustration had been experienced with road block
after road block to try to restore the Opera House. The late Rob Stevens wrote that “Very little
was done on the project until a November 11, 1985 fire destroyed the front
third of the 18th Street City Building, which housed the Junction
City Little Theater. (Note that this
building is now across from the Buffalo Soldier Monument and is used by a
church.) There was an idea presented to sell that building, use the insurance
money and sell other excess city property to begin work on the Opera
House.
The “Daily Union” newspaper did not
waiver from its initial stand that public money should not be used for the
project. KJCK still firmly back the
project. On December 17, 1984, the radio
station aired an editorial which in part said: “Today we give our strongest
endorsement to a quality renovation and restoration project for the Opera House
or former Colonial Theater at Seventh and Jefferson Streets downtown… Perhaps
the best course of action is a private and public funding to assure a top
quality project the entire community can be proud of. We join many others in supporting the move to
put the Opera House renovation project at the top of the priority list…”.
The momentum
began to pick up and next Tuesday we will share the advances being made to move
forward with the renovation project.
Thanks for
reading today and every Monday through Friday, to “Our Past Is Present” from
the Geary County Historical Society.
No comments:
Post a Comment