Touet Opera House

In 1893-94, Elias Touet purchased the Methodist Church building that had been on the northwest corner of Main and Cass streets and had it moved across the street to the northeast corner of Main and Cass. It took a week to move it across the street and it was not near or on a foundation for a time.

The building was large, rectangular in shape, with a good sized balcony across the back and on both sides of the house. The main floor of the auditorium seated possibly 500, the balcony 250.

It was sort of shoddy-looking and needed paint, rather gray-looking. It was the place of entertainment before silent movies. Architects Foster and Liebbe of Des Moines worked on a plan to construct the building into an opera house, building some on each end and constructing it on the most approved modern plan.

The stage was the entire width of the building minus one small set of steps at the north end leading up to the orchestra floor level. The scenery was mostly painted and lowered by ropes from above the stage.

There were only a few scenes, a garden, store fronts and houses. The curtain was a local masterpiece of art with a fancy gold border, while on the major portion were depicted names of local business firms. The curtain was new in 1894.

There were many road shows at the opera house. The high school at that time was quite small, so all high school plays, operettas, graduating exercises and other school programs were held there. Some of the leading figures of the acting world appeared behind the footlights and there were innumerable home talent shows and various public gatherings.

The came the silent movies. That sounded the death knell for the road shows. A new high school was built in 1918 with a large assembly room. It seemed the old opera house was no longer needed. The first regular motion picture show opened in a store room on the east side of Main Street north of the square at a nickel admission.

The opera house building was torn down in the 1930s.

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Names of people pictured in previous “Back in Time” photos:

Osceola High School football team in 1904, Fred Miller, grandfather of Tana McCann was the player standing up in the back row, second from the right. The player in the second row (kneeling), from the left, is A. Brownlow Thompson. Both players were from Jamison.

Eleanor Guthrie was identified as the first lady to the left of the tall “lady” on the Snowdon’s float.

Mancel Jones identified himself and several players pictured in the Osceola “Midgets” softballers in the 1948 pictured. Front row, first player from left is (__) Ewoldsen, third is Delbert Dickey. Second row, from left are first player (__) Harger, second Charlie Patterson, third Kendal Adams, fifth Dwayne Dickey, eighth George Norton, ninth Ron Saddoris and last player Garl (Junior) McLaughlin. Last row are first player Larry Kerns, second Alan Hochstein, fourth Wendell ?, fifth Bob Shearer, player in striped shirt is Richard Holden and last player Jones.