A History of the Henkel Opera House

In early twentieth-century parlance, the term "opera house" was used as a euphemism for what would generally be called a theater—a term that carried with it vague notions of shady itinerant actors and unsavory show people. Actual performance of opera in the European tradition was always the exception in these American opera houses. Opera consisted of high-class entertainment for the well-to-do, so the association with elite culture helped divert town censorship. More common entertainments included theatrical works (with or without music), vaudeville, minstrel shows, concerts, dances, and anything requiring a stage and room for a large audience. Lenoir's larger neighbor to the south, Hickory, built an opera house in 1890 (Lenoir Topic 1/8/1890, p. 2) and the state capital in Raleigh opened one in 1884 (Lenoir Topic 10/8/1884, p. 2). In addition to a variety of entertainments offered, many early opera houses also served a variety of other purposes for the town: the opera house in Chester, SC, for example, doubled as the city hall.

There is no indication that the opera houses in Chester and Hickory--on the same railroad line as Lenoir--were the immediate inspiration of Lenoir's Opera House, but it seems likely. Having a large entertainment venue was the mark of an up-and-coming town in the era. Lenoir's was planned and built during 1907 by Columbus Vance Henkel (1867-1926)  and opened in early 1908. The Henkel Opera House was first and foremost a livery stable, as an early notice makes evident:

LOCAL AND PERSONAL . . . The work on the large new brick stables of the Henkel Live Stock Company is progressing nicely and the building when completed will be quite an ornament to the town. The building will be four stories high in part and three in part and two the remainder. The first floor will be used as offices and for large storage apartments for vehicles, while the basement in the rear will be fitted with stalls for horses. The offices of the Company will have plate glass front and be finished in nice style and furnished with comfortable and convenient furnishing throughout. The third floor will be in hard wood and the room used as a skating rink and opera hall. Taking it all in all this is one of the greatest improvements made in our town in some time. (Lenoir News 7/5/1907, p. 3)

The phrase "skating rink and opera hall" may startle some modern readers, but would not have been unprecedented at the time. Roller skating crazes peaked in America several times from the 1880s well into the 20th century. And skaters needed a large, flat wooden floor that could easily be filled with folding chairs when not in use as a rink. More specific details on the construction can be gleaned from a slightly later clipping:

Henkel Opera Building.

The Henkel Live Stock Co. is just finishing one of the handsomest and most convenient buildings to be found in this part of the country. The first floor or basement is conveniently arranged to stable and accommodate the large number of horses the firm is at times called upon to handle and stable. The ground floor is arranged with plate glass front for the accommodation and display of the large line of vehicles the firm carries. In the rear of this splendid room is a broad stairway leading up to the offices which occupy a large gallery extending clear across the rear of the building. This office is particularly well ventilated and lighted by large plate glass windows, with northern exposure. The open space between the office and main vehicle room will be filled with sliding glass windows, so that the whole lower floor or vehicle room may may be seen from the office. The third or top floor is arranged for an opera house. A large stage, with 26 foot opening is built across the rear of the building and this will be supplied with an attractive and modern equipment of curtains and sliding screens and ample dressing rooms. The floor is double and laid in hard-wood and the room will be fitted with folding chairs and will accommodate 1000 to 1200 people. The building is finished throughout with ornamental steel ceiling and native pine oiled. The building is amply supplied with electric lights and all in all would do credit to a city of 50,000 inhabitants. A skating rink will probably be opened there in a few days and later some first-class plays may be expected. (Lenoir News 10/15/1907, p. 3)

The complex architecture for this building leads us through an interesting history of changing uses that continues up to the present day. First a theater and skating rink on the upper floors of a large livery stable, the performance hall was used for film exhibition as well as theatrical events into the 1920s. During World War I, it served as a barracks for the soldiers headed to Europe. As the livery stable transitioned to an automobile dealership, Caldwell Motor Company (1919), the upper hall was used as an early basketball court and later a boxing arena. Shaw Furniture Company took over the building in 1942 and use of the hall as a public venue appears to have ceased, although not enough information has been collected about the later period at this point to be certain. 

The glory years of the Henkel Opera House were from roughly 1908 to 1917 and this period is the focus here, but continual use of the building for non-theatrical purposes will be touched on, as well as some mention of its present state. The exact location of the building is shown in this re-drawn map, at the corner of East Main and Mulberry Streets, with the courthouse added for reference: 

Early Roller Skating

Before exploring the dramatic and cinematic history of the Henkel Opera House, some mention must be made about the alternate planned use of the space as a skating rink. Although it seems unlikely today, there are references to ice skating around Lenoir from as early as 1876 (Lenoir Topic 12/14/1876, p. 4). Certainly, the climate for this type of recreation was too warm for the majority of the year, but the mountains north of town provided a longer, colder winter season and ice skating was common there. Just a few years later, roller skating became popular in town, just as it was throughout the country: "Roller skates are becoming quite plentiful around Lenoir. Certain mysterious noises indicate that there is a rink in our midst. Where is it?" (Lenoir Topic 11/24/1881, p. 1). 

Various buildings around town were used as small roller skating rinks through the 1880s and 1890s, and ice skating continued to be enjoyed in the wintertime as well. Skating as a healthy exercise is mentioned in this humorous note: "Ladies imagine that roller skating is a fine way to work off superfluous flesh. The belief seems well founded. One young lady dropped 127 pounds at the rink recently, and dropped it hard." (Lenoir Topic 5/21/1884, p. 4). 

The references to skating parties or "rinks" are common enough that it is easy to see how Henkel envisioned a part of his new building being used for roller skating. Even before the building had hosted a theatrical event, it was opened to a skating party:

LOCAL AND PERSONAL. . . . The Opera House people had a special attraction at the Skating Rink Wednesday night, a good Italian Band, consisting of violin, harp and cornet, furnishing good music for the large audience. (Lenoir News 12/20/1907, p. 3)

This may have been just a concert or, as in more familiar modern types of roller skating, the music might have been used as accompaniment for the skaters. Other notices are less ambiguous about the music accompanying the skaters: "Some of the old time fiddlers added much to the pleasure of the people at the skating rink last Saturday night. Five or six of them were present and dispersed some fine music." (Lenoir News 1/14/1908, p. 3). A masquerade skating dance was held in March of that year, along with a "Tacky Party," where a prize was given to the most unfashionably dressed skaters. A rare reference to African-American musicians also comes from this period:

LOCAL AND PERSONAL. Sam Meeks, colored, with a band of four other colored men was here last week and furnished some unusually good string music. They played at the skating rink and serenaded at several places in town where the music was much enjoyed. (Lenoir News 3/31/1908, p. 3)

By the fall of 1908, skating had apparently ousted film exhibition in the hall, although it would continue to be used for theatrical and vaudeville entertainments: 

OF LOCAL INTEREST . . . The moving picture exhibitions, which have been given in the Opera House, will hereafter be given in the Cloyd and Johnson building on first floor adjoining the office of the Lenoir Realty & Insurance Co. The Opera House will be used as a skating rink. (Lenoir Topic 10/21/1908, p. 3)

Notices about skating disappear from April 1909 (Lenoir Topic 4/14/1909, p. 3) until 1915 when motion pictures reassert their popularity under the new management of O.P. Lutz: " Mr. Lutz will open a skating rink in connection with the opera house. The skating rink will be open only on the nights when no show will be here." (Lenoir News 12/14/1915, p. 1) Afterwards, other skating rinks in town take over and the Opera House was used for other sports (see below).

The Opera House as Theater

Only one actual opera was ever advertised for the Henkel Opera House: Cavalleria Rusticana (1890) by Pietro Mascagni (1863-1945) on 26 January 1911. The English Grand Opera Company featured Guillaume Kikow and Bertha Heyman, with an orchestra of women conducted by Nellie Chandler of Boston. Although usually paired with Leoncavallo's Pagliacci, it was paired here with a one-act "curtain raiser," The Rose of Auvergne (1856; in French, La rose de Saint-Flour), with music by Jacques Offenbach (1819-1880).

Of the over 30 plays performed between 1908 and 1918, almost all included local talent. In some cases, there were directors and/or leads of professional stature who worked with locals; in others, students from nearby schools or colleges made up the entire production. Fragile evidence of some of the latter performances was gathered at the Opera House in 2013 with the following inscription, in pencil, written on a backstage plaster wall (thanks to Mardi Sumrell for this photo):

Written in easily legible, if somewhat adolescent, cursive, the inscription reads: 

. . . Stoops to Conquer

Feb. 4, 1911

Dolly and Sir Charles

[C]hrestonian and Eumenean

Literary Socieites

of

Lenoir College

Hickory

N.C.

 Amazingly, the date of this information is confirmed by a contemporary newspaper ad (Lenoir News 2/3/1911, p. 3):

More common than theater at the opera house was vaudeville, sometimes in combination with short plays. Here the majority of performances were by travelling professional companies, including:

• • • Demorest Opera Company (January and November 1908, October 1912)

    • Schubert Symphony Club and Lady Quartette of Chicago (April 1908)

    • Colonial Opera Company (April 1908)

    • Madam Hoffman and Prof. Talkerton (August 1908)

    • Fayssoux the Hypnotist (October 1908)

    • Hunter Bros. Comedy Company (December 1908)

    • Gibson Girls Musical Comedy Company (February 1909)

    • "Happy" Jack Zierath and Company (March 1909)

    • Buster Doyle Company (April 1909)

    • The Five Sedgwicks (August 1909)

    • Edouard D'Oize and Company (November 1909)

    • Dixie Comedy Company (December 1909)

    • Gilbert & Duprees Lady Minstrels (November 1912)

    • LeRoy Osborne's Dancing Chicklets (May 1914)

More detailed descriptions in the ads and notices for these shows paint a picture of the typical variety shows of the day, combining musical and dance acts with comedians, magicians, jugglers, acrobats, and other types of entertainment. Occasionally, a further notice from the editorial sections of the newspapers reveal some tension between town moralists and the shows themselves--shows they seem rarely to have attended: "The Gibson Girls played last Wednesday night to a fair sized audience composed mostly of men." (Lenoir Topic 2/17/1909, p. 3) and "The Vaudeville company [Gilbert & Duprees Lady Minstrels] which recently made an engagement here for the week, if reports are true, has failed to make a lavish contribution to the moral, social or intellectual uplift of the people of the community." (Lenoir Topic 11/13/1912, p. 3). Although reserved and cryptic, it is worth noting that travelling shows such as this become less and less common as the Opera House became used more as a public venue for amateur events, events that after 1918 would more likely have taken place in the school auditoriums that were becoming increasingly common. Vaudeville, meanwhile, moves to the commercial theaters in town.

Other musical events at the Opera House include:

• • • 5 fiddlers' conventions (December 1907, December 1908, October 1911, December 1914, December 1929)

    • 3 minstrel shows, including one with Polk Miller (March 1910, and then April 1917, August 1919)

    • 7 recitals/concerts from 1909-1918

    • 2 Chautauquas (July 1915, September 1918)

    • over 20 dances (1909-1929) 

One unusual event in April of 1917 featured the American contralto Ida Gardner testing her voice against a recording of herself on an Edison phonograph, sponsored by the Lenoir Phonograph Shop:

MISS GARDNER PLEASED LARGE LENOIR AUDIENCE . . . Probably the most convincing test of the program was that of the last number. Miss Gardner was singing in unison with the reproduction of her voice by the new Edison invention when the lights were turned off and the audience was asked to distinguish whether Miss Gardner continued to sing or whether it was the instrument. The audience was unable to tell the difference between the human voice and the re creation. The lights were turned on and showed that Miss Gardner was not even in the hall. (Lenoir News 4/20/1917, p. 1)

The optimistic account of the fidelity of the phonograph is balanced by Will England's account of the event, where he notes that Gardner sang at quite a bit less than her full voice:

DOPE BY THE DOPER . . . No one after hearing the performance could say that the "Edison" does not truly reproduce the human voice in quality, but the public in general does know that no instrument as yet has been devised which will reproduce the original volume. For this reason everyone attending the performance would have enjoyed at least one number by Miss Gardner showing the full volume of her voice. After the first piece on the program had been rendered the audience was convinced that there was no difference in the original quality and the re-creation--to prove this, as we understand it, was the object of the concert. Now, Mr. Edison and Mr. Shakespeare (both are no doubt regular Dope readers), when next you send Miss Ida around please let her sing us at least one song just like she sings in the church choir in New York. (Lenoir News 4/20/1917, p. 4)

Other accounts of similar exhibitions from the period are even less flattering, but no doubt there were some in the audience who responded to this commercial exhibition by purchasing a phonograph.

Aside from shows dealing with or including music, the Opera House was also used for 3 Lectures (1909-1913), including one accompanied with stereopticon slides. Numerous banquets, meetings, and other civic events were also held in the space into the 1920s.

Film Exhibition at the Opera House

Possibly because of the multiple uses of the venue, film exhibition at Henkel's Opera House had a relatively brief span. Having rented film from a distributor, exhibitors no doubt wanted to make the most of its use and not wait for skating parties or other events to interfere with potential show dates. The first shows in the Opera House were given soon after the building opened in February 1908 and, as noted above, moved to the Cloyd and Johnson Building by late October. This building is located directly across Mulberry:

Thus the Opera House hosted regular film exhibition for only a little over 8 months. During this period, only 7 days have films listed in ads by name; more typical are entries such as these: 

OF LOCAL INTEREST . . . The Opera House Company are giving moving picture exhibitions every night this week. (Lenoir Topic 2/5/1908, p. 3)

OF LOCAL INTEREST . . . The Lenoir Opera Company is giving first class moving picture shows every night at the Opera House. New attractions each night. (Lenoir Topic 6/17/1908, p. 3)

A rare, more complete notice shows a selection of French films: silent, of course, so the language would not matter:

OF LOCAL INTEREST . . . Moving picture exhibitions are given at the opera house Wednesday night and Saturday night of each week. . . . Wednesday and Saturday nights programme will consist of the following pictures: Dr. Skunum, Music Forward, Pikers Dream, Clever Tailor, Wonderful Mirrors, Doings of a Poodle, A Crime in Snow, An Unpleasant Legacy. All of the above are full of fun and can be seen for the small sum of 10c. Doors open at 7:30. (Lenoir Topic 2/19/1908, p. 3)

Most of these films were made by the French firm of Pathé Frères and are more typically identified with their original French titles:

Music Forward = En avant la musique

Clever Tailor = Le tailleur habile

Wonderful Mirrors = Les reflets vivants

Doings of a Poodle = Les exploits d'un caniche

A Crime in the Snow = Un crime sous la neige

An Unpleasant Legacy = Le legs difficile

The Dr. Skunum film is otherwise unknown, but The Piker's Dream, A Race Track Fantasy was a Vitagraph short. All of these films were released in late 1907 and only The Piker's Dream and Doings of a Poodle survive today.

A similar program in March adds a few more titles to the filmography of the Opera House, again focusing on Pathé Frères shorts:

Moving Pictures. The following new moving pictures have been received for to-night and Saturday night by the Opera House Co.: Madam's Fancies, The Unknown Talent, Tipplers Race, Inexhaustible Barrel, On Account of a Lost Collar Button, Little Red Riding Hood, Charley's Dream. (Lenoir Topic 3/18/1908, p. 3)

Otherwise, there is only one film named for the rest of the year: The Life and Passion of Christ, which played in May and then returned in July. This again was a Pathé production, directed by Ferdinand Zecca, and was a lengthy (for the day) 45 minutes. 

By September, just before leaving the building, the theater appears to have acquired a name: The Electric Picture Show, as demonstrated by this ad:

The Moving Pictures. We are pleased to note that the Electric Picture Shows [sic], given nightly at the Opera House, are being well patronized. These entertainments are high class, innocent diversions and are usually highly entertaining and instructive. The small charge of only 10 cents places the admission in the reach of everybody, and we are pleased to note that many persons attend them. They are especially beneficial to children and young persons and others, who have never had opportunities of much travel, as they present to view interesting scenes in current history and geography and travel and give more accurate ideas of people, customs and places than can possibly be gotten from reading. The moving pictures are usually good shows that are worth more than the price of admission. (Lenoir News 9/4/1917, p. 4)

This name is kept briefly in the new location, where it transitions to either the Electric or Electrical Theatre and eventually is moved to the Harshaw Building in September 1909. After 12 October 1908, regular picture shows took place only in buildings dedicated to, if not built for, film exhibition. These buildings, the Cloyd and Johnson Building and the Harshaw Building, both adjacent to the Opera House, will be discussed elsewhere on this site.

Birth of a Nation, 1917

Several years later, one final film was shown at the Opera House: the important and controversial D.W. Griffith epic, Birth of a Nation (1915), at an unprecedented $1.50 for an evening ticket:

TICKETS FOR THE BIRTH OF A NATION AFTER OCT. 15 The Birth of a Nation will be shown in the Opera House Friday and Saturday, Oct. 26 and 27, one matinee on Saturday at 2 p.m. Night show commences at 8 p.m. Admission to matinee, $1; nights, $1.50. (Lenoir News 10/12/1917, p. 3)

This much-anticipated event, advertised as early as August (Lenoir News 8/10/1917, p. 3), even reached the Boone newspaper (Watauga Democrat 10/11/1917, p. 3). It included not only the massive 190 minute feature film, but also the accompaniment of a "Symphony Orchestra of 20 Selected Musicians" (Lenoir News 10/23/1917, p. 6). Will England liked the film, but complained that the amount of advertising given it should have warranted free passes for the press:

DOPE By The Doper . . . The Breath [sic!] of a Nation came and went. Also out of this office went $7.50 cash for tickets after furnishing free press notices to the extent of $8 worth of space, besides favorable mention in the D.C. a time or town. The show was fine and well worth the money; so also were the press notices in The News fine and worth--a pass or two. (Lenoir News 10/30/1917, p. 3)

The following large ad shows some of the advertising that England refers to (Lenoir News 10/23/1917, p. 6):

Military Use: 1917-1927

In April of 1917, the United States entered World War I and began a prolonged period of military preparation. The Opera House was called into use later that summer:

COTS AND BLANKETS SHIPPED TO BATTERY E

One hundred and ninety cots and 350 blankets were shipped from supply headquarters at Raleigh last Friday for Battery E, according to announcement by Lieut. Sanford A. Richardson yesterday. The cots will be placed in the buildings at the fair grounds and in the opera house for bunking quarters just as soon as they arrive. (Lenoir News 8/7/1917, p. 3)

A complete muster roll of Battery E was printed in the paper later that month (Lenoir News 8/21/1917, p. 8). By November, when Birth of a Nation played in the Opera House, the unit was in action in Europe.

A National Guard unit moved into the Opera House in the fall of 1925 and the room becomes known as the Armory. It could still be used for non-military purposes, however, as this square dance from the period demonstrates:

SQUARE DANCE NOV. 11 There will be an old-fashioned square dance next Wednesday night, Nov. 11, at the armory. The dancing will being at 10 o'clock and continue until 2 o'clock. Music will be furnished by a string band, and everybody is invited. It is being given under the auspices of the Lenoir company of National Guards. (Lenoir News Topic 11/5/1925, p. 1)

The Jennings Building on West Avenue was called into use as the "New Armory" in 1928 (Lenoir News Topic 12/13/1928, p. 1) and thereafter the Opera House is most commonly referred to as the "Old Armory." 

The Opera House as Sports Arena

After the roller skaters left the Opera House floor for other venues around town around 1915, there were still sporting events held there. In 1916, what may be the first basketball game in Lenoir was played in November: "LENOIR and HICKORY will play a game of basket ball on the Opera House floor Saturday night. Come out and see our boys win." (Lenoir News 11/7/1916, p. 4). A similar team of locals played boys from Lenoir High School (Lenoir News 11/28/1916, p. 3) and then Lenoir High played a team from the Appalachian Training School (now Appalachian State University, Lenoir News 12/5/1916, p. 5). Obviously, Lenoir High was yet to build a gymnasium--commencement was even held at the Opera House in 1918 (Lenoir Topic 5/8/1918, p. 2 and Lenoir News 5/10/1918, p. 1). Basketball games between the Lenoir town team or the High School team and visiting teams continued through December 1919 (Lenoir News Topic 12/11/1919, p. 5). 

Wrestling was staged in the Opera House as early as 1910, although its popularity appears to have made it unlikely to have continued for the future:

LOCAL MATTERS . . . A wrestling match was pulled off at the Opera Ho[u]se last Friday night, between two traveling athletes and was witnessed by a small audience. (Lenoir News 8/2/1910, p. 3)

Wrestling was yet to reach the popularity it gained later in the age of television. Of far more importance was boxing, which begins at the Opera House in 1929:

FIGHT PROGRAM IS PLANNED FOR CITY / Hedrick And Rudisill Plan To Stage Fight Here On April 29th

Arrangements are being made by local fight fans to stage a boxing match here on April 29, two weeks from today, at which time local talent pugilistically inclined will have a chance to display their wares before local people. Drs. Hedrick and Rudisill are promoting the fight.

About 35 rounds of fighting, including a climax between two local negroes, will be on the card which will be presented at the old armory, located above the Caldwell Motor company. Hal Hartley and Monk Helton, the former scheduled to fight at Hickory on Hugh Martin's American Legion card.

Leather pushers have not yet signed contracts for the fight but a good card--in fact one which will be the best ever put on i[n] this section of the State--will be given here, it is believed. (Lenoir News Topic 4/15/1929, p. 1)

Regular boxing matches were held throughout 1929 and most of 1930:

Stage All Set For Boxing Show Which Will Be Staged Thursday . . . Comfortable seats will be arranged in the old Armory, over the Caldwell Motor company, and a ring is being built on the stage. Indications are that the building will be packed to capacity when the first gong sounds. . . . (Lenoir News Topic 4/29/1929, p. 2)

It was a golden age for boxing at this time, fueled in part by the radio. Considerable press coverage was given the sport and crowds--one imagines mostly male--were avid and large. Occasionally, the infamous "battle royale" was held with groups of black boxers:

Prize Fights Here Tonight . . . The others on the car are Tiny Eller and Jack Hanzel, K.O. Stallings and Les Haney, Kid Livingston and Shady Smith, with a battle royal between five local gentlemen of color. (Lenoir News Topic 7/21/1930, p. 2)

If the ring was actually on the stage as noted above, a lack of the typical 360 degree view in most boxing arenas would surely have made the Opera House less than appealing as a venue for the sport. This and the popularity of boxing in Lenoir led to the search for larger and better arenas, dooming the Opera House/Old Armory to oblivion once again.

The Opera House from the 1930s to Today

The Caldwell Motor Company continued the use of the theater into the 1930s, but no musical/theatrical events were held there after the 1929 carnival/fiddlers' convention (Lenoir News Topic 12/9/1929, p. 5). The W.E. Shaw Furniture Company took over the building in 1942 and the floor with the theater became the Lenoir Recreation Parlor (Miller's Lenoir North Carolina City Directory 1942, p. 182), serving primarily as a pool room. There were other "recreational" pursuits in the building, however, as the following notice makes clear:

LUCK RUNS OUT--THREE NABBED ON GAMBLING CHARGE / City Police Make Sudden Raid At Local Recreation Parlor Sunday Night

City police officers, following a sudden raid Sunday night, arrested three men in the back room of the Lenoir Recreation Parlor and booked charges of gambling against them. The officers, patrolling Lenoir by night, noticed a light in the second story back room of the establishment, located on the corner of East avenue and Mulberry street. Procuring a ladder, one police officer, J.G. Bush, climbed up and entered the building while two other officers, W.J. Setzer and Fred Craig, stood guard at the entrance. . . . Proprietor of the Lenoir Recreation Parlor is Hamp Robbins, who told the News-Topic that he had leased the room in which the alleged gambling took place, to John Woods, who operates the concession stand in the recreation parlor. Woods admitted leasing the room from Robbins, but said that "as far as I know, the only card game being played there was rummy." He was questioned at his concession stand at the hall last night and after completing his statement he pointed to the "back room" and commented, "somebody's playing rummy up there right now." (Lenoir News Topic 7/15/1941, p. 1)

A similar raid was conducted the next month, with 6 "well known" (but unnamed) men arrested and fined (Lenoir News Topic 8/26/1941, pp. 1, 6). The building was still listed as a billiard parlor in the 1944 directory (p. 219), but thereafter seems to have fallen out of use and is not mentioned in the papers.

In 2013, Mardi Sumrell and I were allowed to visit the Opera House, which was then above an antique shop. Fittingly, with its history of sports, the room had been equipped up with batting cages for Little League baseball. We were able to take several photographs:

The first photo shows the original flooring and expanse of the room from the back; the second a close-up of the stage itself, now completely boarded off, and the third what appears to be the original ceiling. There was no electricity in the back stage area, but much of the original electric equipment remained, as did some plaster walls with graffiti, as mentioned above. Some of this graffiti was contemporaneous to the early days of the theater, but more appeared to be from the 1970s and later. 

I hope that this page helps to stir interest in the preservation of the building, which is in need of extensive repairs. Whether from design or neglect, Lenoir's Opera House has been preserved for 110 years of radical change and is a rare survivor from a long-lost age . . .

Update: November 2018

On Friday, 16 November 2018, Dr. Craig Fischer of the English Department at ASU, Mardi Sumrell, and I were invited to tour the Opera House by owner Sean Williams. 

The first two photos show the changes made by partially opening up the stage area to the 2" x 4" joists by removing the modern sheet rock. A window opened up to the right, as well as new wiring, has made the area bright again. The second photo is a close-up of the back stage area showing how the original windows were simply bricked in. 

The photo on the left below is looking at the main first floor from the stairway to the mezzanine. Many architectural details survived once Sean began removing the modern outer surfaces. To the right is one of the old carriage entrances in the basement:

Thanks so much for Sean for letting us have access to the building and for all of the work he is doing to preserve Lenoir's history. 

Dr. Gary R. Boye

Music Librarian and Professor

Appalachian State University

boyegr@appstate.edu

©2020