Lakeland Opera House
Lakeland,
FL
33801
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There’s not a lot of information about this theater. The Lakeland Opera House operated as a live performance and special events house that also screened movies, and operated during the latter half of the 19th century to the earlier half of the 20th century before officially closing in 1921.
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Lakeland had at least two opera houses in its history. The older one appears on the 1903 Sanborn map, upstairs in a commercial building on Tennessee Street at the northwest corner of Main Street, probably about 104 Tennessee. A 350-seat Lakeland Opera House was listed in the 1894 Donaldson Guide. It apparently never made the Cahn guide. By 1908 this had been replaced by a new upstairs house, at 121 Main Street.
The only theater listed at Lakeland in the 1912-1913 Cahn guide is the Herron Theatre, which it describes as a 700-seat upstairs house. It appears on the 1908 and 1913 Sanborn maps of Lakeland. As the opera house was the only upstairs theater on Main Street, it had to have been the Herron, which a 1921 Lakeland Evening Telegram article confirmed was on Main Street. The article was about a fire that had recently ravaged the building, including the theater which at that time had been closed for several months. I have left a comment on the Herron page with the few details I’ve been able to ferret out so far.
Question Vogan: Are the two Opera Houses both named Lakeland Opera House, or do they have different names?
The Donaldson Guide listed the old opera house by that name, and at least one 1908 issue of The Billboard used that name for the new opera house, but the new one was already listed in the 1908 Cahn guide as the Herron Theatre.