Opera House
112 E. Main Street,
Elk Point,
SD
57025
112 E. Main Street,
Elk Point,
SD
57025
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The Opera House was constructed sometime between 1898 and 1903. It was a large 3 story wooden building with a brick shell. The ground floor was divided into commercial spaces, and the auditorium was accessed by a central stair.
Sometime in late-1915, movies began to be shown. It’s not clear when operations ceased, but the building remained at least in retail use for some time afterward.
Judging by the drab little bank currently on the lot, it was likely demolished around 1960.
Contributed by
Seth Gaines
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Recent comments (view all 2 comments)
If this house was built after 1898 then it was not Elk Point’s first Opera House. A Dakota gazetteer and business directory published by Polk in 1888 said that Elk Point “…contains a fine opera house, just finished, with a seating capacity of 500….”
This photo of Elk Point shows the south side of Main Street with the Opera House building at the center. It is datable by the advertisement on the wall promoting an event, presumably at the Opera House, on Wednesday, June 24. The cars in the photo date from the early 1910s, and the year in that period when June 24 fell on a Wednesday was 1914.
Within a year, the vacant lot with a low fence in front of it (left of center) would become the site of a moving picture theater that appears on the 1917 Sanborn map. This had to have been the Florence Theatre, which was in operation by June, 1915. The modern address of the Florence is 118 E. Main Street.