Our Past Is Present May 1, 2018

May 1, 2018

            You are reading “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.

            It’s Tuesday and that means we share a story about the C.L. Hoover Opera House, which is 120 years old this year.  Your host for this program attended the Junction City Little Theater’s most recent production of “The Wizard of Oz," which had a cast, crew and orchestra made up of local people.  Programs like “Oz” have been common during the long history of the Opera House along with a wide variety of minstrels, plays, movies (both silent and with sound), comedy, concerts and community gatherings have been held there. 

Here’s one example: Just four years after it’s opening there was a program titled “Lyman Howe’s Travel Circus Magic Lantern Show."  An article about this program was published in the Junction Union newspaper in April of 1909.  It was stated that “Mr. Howe had promised to escort his (virtual) travelers to the Montreal Ice Palace and winter carnival then through the scenic grandeur of the Rockies in winter and into the heart of the great Canadian wilds, where the severe life of the lumber camp would be shown. This would all be done as a forerunner of the slide shows, which were popular in the later years of the of the century. 

The audience would also be taken to the top of a battleship, from which the public is normally excluded.  The whole program was said to be extremely diverting and delightful, ranging from beautiful scenes of sunsets and moonlight on land and sea to the inner mechanisms of the great ships.  These journeys would all be done without having to make travel and hotel arrangements, packing bags and being transported to and from different places. The audience could enjoy seeing the magnificent sites in the comfort of a seat in the Opera House - without having to leave Junction City. 

Thanks for reading today and every day at about this time to “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.