Our Past Is Present June 19, 2018

June 19, 2018

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

            It has been a challenge to follow the early timeline of the Opera House, if you have been listening over these past five months. Hopefully, today’s report will help clear up the early development of that building.

            We reported to you last week that the Dramatic Club was working on a play for the opening of the Opera House on January 5, 1882.  The play was titled “Miralda” and they made a suggestion that the building be called the City Hall.  The reasoning given in the newspaper was that “there were so many snide towns all around with opera houses that the boys thought the name was overdone.” The building opened as scheduled on January 5, 1882 with the Drama Club putting on the play over two nights raising $170.00 to help pay for furnishings.

In further research, we have found that the citizens of Junction City felt the need to open the opera house with a professional company and the goal was fulfilled with a later performance by the Clayton Star Concert Company. 

We also found that the “Christening of the Opera House came in January of 1890, when what had been known as the City Hall, was formally named  the “Blakely Opera House” after Major William Blakely.  That same summer the Opera House was remodeled and contracts were let and approved for raising the seats to an angle to improve vision; build a flue; change a window to a door for more unified heating; and electricity was hooked into the building with electric lights installed. The celebration of the Blackely Opera House was held on September 4, 1890 with a band concert. 

            The Blakely House burned on the evening of January 14, 1898 and the cause was never known. The new Junction City Opera House was formally opened on October 13, 1898 with the play “A Milk White Flag.”  The Opera House flourished until April of 1915, when The Junction City Union newspaper reported the advent of the motion picture and gave the public notice that Hollywood productions would be shown there.  The young motion picture industry plus the scarcity of road companies forced T.W. Dorn to relinquish the Opera House to John W. Wendel in 1915, who promptly announced he would run movies when no large road shows were available.    

In September of 1919, the announcement was made that the Opera House would be renovated, renamed and regenerated under the new name “City Theatre”. 

Perhaps this will help clear up the early timeline of what we now refer to as the C.L. Hoover Opera House at the corner of Seventh and Washington Streets in Junction City.

            Thanks for reading today to “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.