Friday, April 26, 2024
Bridge Street History Center
BRIDGE STREET HISTORY CENTER
Nowadays many people think that the Granbury Opera House just appeared a few years ago. They are so wrong. Let me start at the beginning. Theatres with Vaudeville shows were just beginning to appear in the smaller towns of Texas in the early 1880s.
Henry Kerr who had come to Texas in 1843 moved to Granbury in 1886. He erected the Opera House building starting in that same year. Kerr’s Hall occupied the second floor but did not officially operate until 1891. A saloon and a saddle shop occupied the first floor. Kerr brought in entertainment from all over the area, everything from Shakespeare to Minstrel shows. Some of the local “old timers” said it was the most beautiful place they had ever seen.
Kerr did well in the entertainment business until Carrie Nation came to Granbury. The story goes that that she brought her ax to town in 1905 or some say 1911 and chopped up all the saloons. With no saloons, business at the theater slowed down. The final curtain went down in 1911.
After the theater closed, several businesses operated out of the building.
The first was J.B. Wilson’s grocery. Next came a liquidation store, and then the first bowling alley. Some years later, the Doyle Insurance Agency office was there until it moved to its current location.
In the 1940s Joseph Carmichael operated a grocery store there. In the early 1950s his wife, Margaret Carmichael, took over the Estes Abstract company and re-named it Hood County Abstract Co. Granbury was a poor community so many of the old buildings had been neglected, especially the Opera House.
When the roof began to collapse, I remember seeing Mrs. Carmichael working under a canvas tarp strung across the inside of the building, like a tent, to protect them from rain. Her grandson, John Campbell, told me about going there and playing in the back of the building where feed and hay from P.H. Thrash Feed Store was kept. He said that the old elevator to the theater still existed. In 1965, the Carmichaels sold the building to a relative. He held on to the property until 1972, when he sold it to Joe Nutt. At that time, the old building was in much worse shape.
Joe Nutt was an ancestor of the Nutt Brothers, who were some of the founders of Granbury. He and his wife, Lou, had moved back to Texas from Colorado. It is said that Lou fell in love with the building when she saw it. In 1974, Nutt made a deal with some local residents, who formed the Granbury Opera Association, to sell the building to them. The Granbury Opera Association borrowed $16,000 from First National Bank to purchase the building at Nutt’s original cost.
The resurrection of the Opera House started immediately. Architects were brought in to see what could be done to fix the old treasure. It was just four walls by that time. They finally came up with a figure of $200,000 to fix her up. The Nutts knew that fundraising would have to start for such a large project like this. The story goes that the Nutts were playing golf with a friend one day (a story was the friend was a nun). They were introduced by the friend to Jo Ann Miller, a Texas girl who was interested in archeology and the theater. Jo Ann was very interested in the Nutt’s plans for the Opera House and was easily persuaded to become the manager.
JoAnn had her work cut out for her. Joe Nutt had already told her what the project would entail. She first went to work on fundraising. Fortunately, there were several wealthy families and foundations in the area and most of the money came in.
The people of Granbury also pitched in by donating time, labor, and money. The first project was cleaning out the collapsed ceiling, the old rotted wood and the hay left behind. Often the old wood could be salvaged. Local craftsmen and builders helped with rebuilding the structure. Local people donated period pieces for use in the plays. Lou Nutt and Connie Lee came up with a project where local people needlepointed covers for the old seats. Only a couple of examples remain since the covers wore out. These are on display at the Bridge Street History Center.
JoAnn and the Board had a tight budget. She had the knowledge to go around Dallas and find left over fixtures from old theaters. From the Palace Theatre in Dallas came old footlights and a velvet drapery for the stage. The metal ticket window came from the old Granbury Post Office. Nationally known artist Cynthia Brants painted a second canvas curtain, called an olio. The olio had advertisements paid for by local merchants to help pay for the vaudeville shows. Old theaters had done this when Kerr was in business. The community worked to make the Opera House look authentic.
Finally, the Opera House was ready to open in June of 1975. The Second Grand opening show, a “mellerdramer,” as Jo Ann called it, was “Gold in the Hills.” She had written it herself because the Association could not afford to pay the royalties of a play or Broadway type show. Students from Texas Christian University and Tarleton State University acted in the plays. Since the students were here in the summers, they “camped out” in the old hospital building on South Houston Street. The Opera House was not open year-round then since tourists did not come in the winter.
The Opera House has continued through thick and thin. It was patched together and has had two major re-models. What you see today is nothing like the original second floor theatre. It is somewhat similar to the theatre I wrote about here. I wish the readers could have experienced the fun of the old plays JoAnn wrote. They were quite a treat.
