Great Plains Studies, Center for
Date of this Version
Summer 2000
Citation
Great Plains Quarterly Vol. 20, No. 3, Summer 2000, pp. 183-95.
Abstract
Americans in the years immediately preceding the twentieth century clung to a naivete reminiscent of the manifest destiny days. Novels, newspaper accounts, and old-fashioned, rousing melodramas on the stage all displayed a predilection for an American way which showed that moral good, coupled with patience, would triumph, providing it remained within carefully proscribed social and ethical limits. "Home Sweet Home," the most popular song of its time, celebrated the simple virtues of hearth and family.
Nowhere was this vision of life more apparent than in the Great Plains. By 1877 the days when Chimney Rock and Scotts Bluff welcomed trail-weary wayfarers were a distant memory used to regale grandchildren on quiet summer nights. In the years following the Civil War, railroads changed the face of the Plains forever. Immigrants from Europe or travelers from the East arrived with more than dreams: they brought trades, skills, customs, and attitudes on a variety of ideas, including what constituted culture in a civilized American community.
Within twenty years of the arrival of the railroad, towns represented a microcosm of a settled American prairie community. As towns grew, local newspaper editors cheered on citizens to help create a positive image of their towns. The editor of the Lodge Pole (Nebraska) Express exhorted:
Believe in your town and talk your belief. If you have any old fogies remember they are in the minority, and that it takes all kinds of people to make a world anyway. Encourage live people to move in by making it worth their while. Welcome outside capital in developing any natural resources the town has. Don't begrudge the dollars the enterprising man makes, but hustle around and collar a few yourself. Above all, "pull together" and the town will ride the high wave of prosperity over the most discouraging breakers, and every inhabitant will get his or her share of the profit from the voyage.1
As Great Plains immigration swelled in the 1880s, a professional entertainment venue came to symbolize this communal "pulling together." Proponents of prosperity knew that the makeshift halls erected early in the life of small towns did not project the image needed to attract new citizens. However, construction of a facility designed for the presentation of plays and other entertainments could signal the forward-looking permanence of a community. Entrepreneurs responded to a need in the towns for a well-constructed space for not only musical and dramatic performances but also for dances, box socials, political meetings, fraternal organizations, and even basketball! The time of the opera house had arrived on the west bank of the Missouri.
My research interest in opera houses dates to the spring of 1986 when Professor Tice L. Miller of the Department of Theatre Arts and Dance at the University of Nebraska-Lincoln invited me to participate as Nebraska editor in a theatre history research project sponsored by the Mid-America Theatre Conference (MATC). The scope and taxonomy of the project focused on extant opera houses, artifacts, and relevant bibliographic materials. Subsequently, I contracted with the Historic Preservation Office at the Nebraska State Historical Society to complete a reconnaissance survey of extant opera houses in Nebraska. Preliminary research identified 125 extant structures that previously functioned as opera houses across the state. Each extant theatre, regardless of facade or interior modifications, required a site visit to photograph and map the premises. Following evaluation of these sites, the Nebraska State Historical Society and I selected twenty-six for multiple-property nomination to the National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) of the National Park Service. In accordance with NRHP requirements, I prepared a thematic historic context for the opera house in Nebraska and completed follow-up research on the property's real estate abstract, construction and physical improvements, importance to the individual community, property description, and photographs of each of the twenty-six nominated properties.
Comments
Copyright 2000 by the Center for Great Plains Studies, University of Nebraska-Lincoln