Our Past Is Present July 3, 2018

July 3, 2018

            This is “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.

            Today’s program is a continuation of our story shared by Keith Hemenway about his memories of the Opera House, when he was a young boy living in Junction City. He stated that:

            “The opera house had some very good and interesting shows come there.  As my father ran the newspaper, he used to get complementary tickets all the time, so as a kid I went there quite often.  Every year the Elks Club would have a Minstrel Show with local talent.  One year, John D. Montogomery, I and some other kids who were probably 9 or 10 years old, dressed in baseball uniforms and sang “Take Me Out To The Ball game.” 

One of the regular attractions at the opera house that came back every year was the Burton Holmes travelogs.  These were travel pictures that were narrated.  This was before the time of talking pictures.  They also had the opera, “Il Trovatore”, “The Red Mill”, which was a famous musical show, and “The Prince of Tonight” was another one.

They had some good shows.  There is some sordid history about the opera house in one of Stanley Pennell’s books.  Stanley and I grew up together and we shared a room at KU for a time.”

            Well, that’s today’s story about the Opera House.  Remember, if you miss any of our stories, you can read them according to the date you are interesting in at gearyhistory.blogspot.com.  Geary and history are all one word and blogspot is all one word.  That’s gearyhistory.blogspot.com.

            And… thanks for reading “Our Past Is Present” from the Geary County Historical Society.