History of Aurora, Nebraska

Twin Cottonwoods

The Railroad Comes

Industries

The center of the entertainment world in early Aurora was the Opera House Block, which was built in 1890-91, and was sited on the corner diagonally across the street intersection northwest from the courthouse square. This structure, with the opera house on the upper level, was built to accommodate a bank on the corner with surrounding retail commercial space which fronted on both streets. This mixed-use type of commercial building is one which appears in towns all across Nebraska, and is typically sited at a prominent corner location.

In the Opera House Block, the entrances to the commercial spaces and the floors of these stores were built at street level, but the bank floor and entrance were raised approximately four feet above the street level, allowing light to enter through sidewalk-level windows into a partially subgrade level below the banking floor. This lower level space thus became habitable and marketable for office or commercial purposes. What appeared from the exterior to be two upper floors, because of the double row of windows on both street sides of the building above the street level, actually was a two-story-high interior space for the Opera House. On the south end of the building, however, a third floor, horseshoe-plan, balcony level was built over the second story Opera House lobby and cloak rooms. The north end of the building accomodated the stage. The opera House was entered on the southwest corner of the building through a separate exterior entrance and stair built into the volume of the building and visually marked as a framed, pedimented opening. The building was mostly brick construction, with rough cut stone foundations, first level window lintels, upper window lintels, and band course. The structure was topped with a cornice, probably of pressed metal, and a brick parapet. This building has been drastically modified by removal of the upper-level Opera House and elimination of the variation in floor elevations at the street level.

Six years ago, Aurora began a Community Theatre program, allowing its citizens to see dramatic productions in its own city. That concept of available drama was not new to Aurora. As early as 1890, some citizens were raising money to build two large public meeting places in the city, one to be called Union Hall and the other Aurora Opera House. These two halls would be used for local productions and speakers, as well as touring shows. Both of these public auditoriums were on the upper floors of downtown buildings, but these floors have been removed from both of the still existing business places.

While the Aurora Opera House was located over a bank on the northwest corner of the square, above what is now the Coast to Coast store, Union Hall, on the north side of the square, was above what is currently the Jack and Jill Store. The Aurora Opera House above the old Aurora State Bank was removed about 1940, and the second floor making up Union Hall was removed in 1942.

Not only did both places of entertainment disappear about the same time, they were also erected at the same time. By June of 1890, The Sun noted that "the twin opera houses are beginning to materialize. Both foundations are well nigh completed." The reason for their sudden appearance stemmed from a long-felt community need. This need was even expressed in the local press: "The city should not pass the coming winter without an amusement place. A temporary building could be erected that would pay the investors well." The records are not clear if such a bulding was built. The Sun does mention that the J.H. Hallady & Co. Minstrel Show appeard at a "Music Hall" in February of 1890. In the fall of that year, the two opera houses were " slowly taking shape. Union Hall is looming up in grand style and is nearly ready for the roof." The Knights of Phthias Band was to open Union Hall with a masquerade ball by the middle of November, 1890, but the building was not completed until the first of December.

The Aurora Opera House took a full year to construct, from May 1, 1890 to May 1, 1891, and cost $40,000. The brick work on the opera house began in August and was nearly completed by the winter. Evidently delays of some kind arose as the contractors were under bonds to have the building completed by January 1, 1890. The building's progress was a constant source of comment in the city's newspapers. "The Aurora Opera House is nearly enclosed. The elevations are complete and our people look upon the structure with pride. It is the finest building in the city -- the only three-story structure -- and will make an amusement place second to none in the western part of the state."

Union Hall occupied only the second floor of its building and was not nearly as grandiose in style as the Aurora Opera House, but it only cost half as much -- $20,000. Not too much is known about its early interior. A report at the time of its completion mentioned that it had "a fine audience room" and a large stage. The versatility of the place can be seen in the reference that "it can be used for all sorts of entertainments, including dances, having some 40 by 40 feet of flooring from which the seats can be removed." Generally, the entertainment presented was a product of Victorian romanticism tending to interest itself in the exotic, the picturesque, the sentimental comic, and the melodramatic. One of the first entertainments at the new hall was an opera by the M'Millan Opera Company. Presented on Christmas eve, the comic opera "The Doctor of Alcantara" proved popular with the citizenry.

The performance was very creditable, and drew from the audience frequent and warm expressions of appreciations. Indeed if there were any surprises and disappointments they were of the agreeable kind, that arises when an entertainment proves better than was expected.

The opera was followed by a "spectacular drama" in February called "Little's World" in six acts and ten tableaux. Little's company, with J.Z. Little starring, presented several impressive scenes. "The raft scene was beautiful and pathetic, so artistically arranged as to be everything but reality; the sinking of the ship was also a splendid piece of stage mechanism."

Another traveling group appeared in the spring, Rena Marsells Theatre Company, which performed for a week at Union Hall, doing such old favorites as "East Lynne," "Ten Nights in a Bar Room," and "Uncle Tom's Cabin." The local newspaper editor noted that "the star is rather weak, and the support weaker, yet at the prices charged, one could not complain too much. The only merit due them is the fact that they did the best they could." In contrast to imported talent, the "musical extravaganza" entitled "The Maid and Game Pie," given by home talent, proved much more popular. "The cast contained the names of Aurora's stars before the footlights, and none of them lost popularity by their performance on this occasion." Other home talent was a part of the Aurora Musical Association, which gave a grand concert at Union Hall consisting of choruses, solos, duets, male quartettes, and instrumental music, assisted by the mandolin club. The concert closed with a "laughable farce" called "The Sham Doctors."

In May 1891, local musicians gave the cantata of Queen Esther at Union Hall, with a chorus that was "the finest ever gotten together in Aurora.... No pains will be spared by Musical Director, Merrill, or the parties of the cast, to make every detail as perfect as possible."

Scenery in the 1890s consisted of different views painted on canvas curtains called drops, that could be rolled down, and flats or side pieces. These flats filled in the edge of the stage and masked the stage sides. The flats were held upright by ceiling grooves, and since the flats were nothing more than large wooden frames with a piece of painted canvas attached to the front of them, they could be easily slid into place. The Aurora Opera House had four sets of grooves, allowing for four flats to be in place at once on each side, thus giving a certain depth to the stage. The drops would be lowered to fill in the space across the back of the stage. Since it was twelve feet eleven inches from the floor to the grooves, the flats had to be thirteen feet tall to fit into the groove, and the drop would have to have enough canvas to reach the floor.

At the new Aurora Opera House, the stage managers provided a variety of these painted scenes on flats and drops, so that regardles (almost) of the type of drama that the traveling company brought into town, they could represent the scene on stage with different acts rrequiring different scenes. Aurora had all the stock of those frequently needed pieces. Among its scenes were a palace, a plain and fancy chamber, a home-like kitchen, a green and flowery landscape, a gloomy prison, and a set cottage -- besides a number of wings and borders to match. Thus, with six interiors and three exteriors, most plays of the time could be adequately depicted.

The wings and borders mentioned are the front masking pieces, called the wings, and the borders were very short curtains hung across the top of the stage to mask the tops of the flats. If the stage was set for a forest scene, these borders would be painted with many leaves, to suggest the tops of trees, or painted rather plain to match the colors of the interior scene.

Some of the physical details of the interior of the Aurora Opera House were given in the newspaper coverage of the opening night, May 28, 1891. The entranceway on the south had double doors one flight up and a second set another flight up on the third floor leading into the opera house itself, with a ticket office fronting a large hall. Off this hall were stairs leading to the gallery and doors leading to the parquette or dress circle, which had three hundred easy patent chairs situated on a graduated or inclined floor. The gallery also had three hundred easy chairs, with another two hundred extra for use in case of an emergency.

Besides the modern luxury of steam heat, the building was lighted by gas fixtures throughout. All the lights were on individual switches so the intensity could be "controlled at will.... In an instant the house could be darkened as dark as night and next instant be made as light as day." The ventilation was described as perfect with the stale air escaping through a large cylinder apperture in the ceiling over the large chandelier.

The dimensions of the stage show that it was about the average size compared to other opera houses in Nebraska cities with populations near that of Aurora, about 2,500. The proscenium, or stage opening, which frequently looked like a large gold picture frame, was 21 feet wide and 16 feet high. A narrow three-foot stage apron extended beyond the curtain to the footlights. A trap door was in the center of the stage, and the depth under the stage was six and a half feet.

The opening night at the Aurora Opera House was May 25, 1891, and drew ladies and gentlemen in evening dress to see a play starring John Dillon, who was described as one of the best comedians in the United States. The evening began at 8:45 with an overture by the Aurora Mandolin Club, but ushers were kept busy seating late comers until 9 o'clock.

The audience had been admiring the drop curtain with its street scenes in Venice, where boats are used as street vehicles, but suddenly the lights flashed out in their full splendor, the great curtain was rolled up, the foot-lights threw a flood of light across the stage, and the border and fly gallery lights shown upon one of the finest stage settings ever beheld in this city, and the great play by John Dillon, "Wanted, the Earth," was begun, which drew forth a general expression of admiration from the vast audience.

"Wanted, the Earth" was writen especially for Dillon by Gus Heege, "an originator of striking ideas, and an ardent and diligent student of human nature." The comedy was said to be an "admirable, orignal and extremely humorous satire on the fashionable fad element of our modern society."

On Tuesday evening, Dillon appeared in Scott Marble's comedy, "State's Attorney.": Other events at the opera house that season included an address by L.A. Sherman, professor of English literature at the University of Nebraska, speaking to the graduating class; an opera, "Faust," starring Abbie Carrington in her "ideal conception and rendition of the sublime character of Margherita"; and a comedy called "A Turkish Bath," which was said to perhaps "cause the looker on to laugh or the modest to blush."

Not all the offerings were excellent, such as Hewett's Musetts, a group that only had four in the company and who were described as "mediocre in stage acting.... The monotony was relieved by occasional fine instrumental music on the cornet and violin."

It can be said that the early days of Aurora were alive with entertainment, some quite excellent and much of it very average. But people enjoyed themselves because evenings at the theatre were occasions for vicarious laughing and crying and for enjoying the company of other people who had come for entertainment in the late romantic style; it probably added a rich dimension to all of their lives.