The classic brick facade of the opera house in Salida has been unmasked by the removal of stucco that had been hiding it for 50 years. Its eight second-story arched palladian windows can now look out on numerous handsomely preserved 120-year-old companion buildings. Sadly, like a faux western movie set, behind the imposing facade is an empty shell, shored up to prevent its collapse. How this historic building came into being and why it is nearing its demise is a memory deserving of recording.

Like a lot of western stories, this one begins with a railroad. William Jackson Palmer, founder of Colorado Springs, and his partner, William Bell, recognizing the need for railroads in Colorado, founded the Denver and Rio Grande Railroad. A rail line had reached Denver in 1870 and, shortly after, the D&RG built a north-south Denver-Colorado Springs extension. Failing to get rights for extending southward beyond Pueblo, the rail visionaries turned their attention westward. From Pueblo they constructed a narrow-gauge rail line-- appropriate for Colorado's canyons-- through the Arkansas River's Royal Gorge. It reached Cañon City in 1874 and on May 20, 1880, Salida was born. (Salida, 'exit' in Spanish, was appropriate for the place where the road emerged from the deep river canyon.) The rail line was extended later that year north to Leadville. Then, from Salida rails were laid westward over the Continental Divide and beyond to Gunnison, reaching there in 1881, and from there to Montrose, Delta, and Grand Junction, to eventually connect with Salt Lake City.

Any respectable town of the time aspired to have an opera house, not because it was abounding with opera lovers, but due to the desire to express its pride of community and commitment to elevating culture. Within a year of its founding, Salida had an opera house, the Dickmann Opera House, on the corner of Second and F streets. The Dickmann in a few years became Craig's Opera House, which was one of 30 buildings that burned in Salida in 1888. Soon thereafter, a group of Salida businessmen formed the Salida Opera House Association and began construction on First street of the Salida Opera House. It opened New Year's Eve in 1889. The first theatrical production at the opera house, "Alone in London," opened to a standing-room-only crowd on January 16.

An opera house was the center of respectable entertainment and a community's social hub. Dubbing the building 'opera house' automatically elevated them to the top of the town's places for public events. Between about 1870 to 1915, more than 150 opera houses were constructed in Colorado. Held within were lodge meetings, balls, dances, conventions, speeches, plays, graduations, and, in a minority of them, opera. The Salida Opera House experienced all of these, including opera, and that was because it was located on the D&RG line, a railroad of significance.

Horace Tabor opened his magnificent Tabor Grand Opera House in Denver in 1881. After conflicts and disappointments with the management of the opera house, Tabor, in 1884, selected Peter McCourt, an older brother of Elizabeth (Baby Doe) McCourt and then the wife of Tabor, to assist in scheduling shows and entertainment there. McCourt proved to be an able manager and a visionary impresario. As Denver was not on a main east-west rail line, it was difficult to persuade traveling entertainment companies to include Denver in their schedule. What McCourt did to make the Tabor Grand Opera House more competitive was to link together several opera houses located on rail lines in Colorado, Wyoming and Utah, so as to create a circuit with stops at frequent intervals and thus allow a traveling company to efficiently and economically traverse east or west through Colorado. He called his linked opera houses The Silver Circuit. The particular houses in the circuit changed from time to time, as some were destroyed by fire or new ones built. The Salida Opera House was a long-term member of the Silver Circuit, and thus it was an opera house that exhibited the best shows, theatricals and operas that toured across the nation.

In the early 1900s, opera houses began a decline in importance due to two principal causes: motion pictures and the building of high schools with auditoriums that were superior to the older opera houses. What has happed to the Salida Opera House is a typical opera house story. In 1909 the Salida was renamed the Osos Grand Theater and converted to accommodate motion pictures as well as live performances. In 1936 the name was changed to Salida Theater and it became exclusively a movie house. Sometime in the 1960's a stucco layer was applied to the facade, covering over the upper-story windows, and the name became the Unique Theater. The theater was well supported through the 1980s but in the last 25 years it aged badly and slowly deteriorated. In August 2006, a routine safety inspection revealed possible structural damage in the roof trusses. The City deemed the building unsafe, ordered it closed and called for a structural engineering report.

In the meantime, the City's Historic Preservation Commission expressed concern that the building might be lost and nominated it for designation as a local historic landmark. It had never been included within the boundaries of Salida's downtown national historic district because, along with other downtown buildings, it had been stuccoed over. So, when the downtown district was established in 1984 and resurveyed in 2001-02, the Unique (Salida Opera House) was deemed to have lost its architectural integrity as judged from the, stuccoed-over front (public) facade. In November City Council voted to designate the Unique as a local historic landmark, which brought it under review authority of the City's Historic Preservation Commission and made it eligible for state historic funds. Unfortunately, however, a City grant application to the Colorado Historical Fund for funds to assess the building was turned down.

Then the City hired an engineer who inspected the building in early February 2007 and confirmed suspicion that the roof might collapse immediately and result in injury to adjacent properties and their occupants. After several special meetings, City Council issued an official warning to the adjacent property owners to close in the interest of safety to their occupants. City Council then voted to reach a financing and remediation agreement with the owner, allowing him to borrow and pay back costs to stabilize the building. Lacking an agreement with the owner, the City next decided to seek a preliminary injunction in district court for authority to demolish the back 100 feet of the theater.

At this point another downtown property owner offered to buy the building if the City would extend to him the same borrowing agreement. He was in the process of closing on the purchase of the building when he asked the City for permission to demolish the back (theater) portion. That approval came February 22, 2007, before another packed public hearing of the Historic Preservation Commission. Meanwhile, the City pursued the owner of 20 years in court, arguing that adjacent building occupants and businesses had been left in jeopardy. Eventually the sale of the building went through and the court case was dropped as the new owner began working with the City.

In April 2007, holes were cut through the roof over the theater portion of the building so that steel beams could be lowered into the building and erected as columns to support the roof trusses. Holes were also cut through the cement floor of the theater to reach a foundation for the support columns. To accomplish the work most of the theater seats on the main floor were dismounted from the cement floor and removed from the building for scrap. Some have survived today around town in coffee houses, restaurants and private homes.

Then came the recession, and relatively little has been done since to make the building useful. In the summers of 2008-09, the owner had all the stucco removed from the front facade on First Street revealing the windows on the second floor. He also appears to have done some sporadic work on the insides with hopes of rehabilitating the two commercial store fronts that flank the main entrance. The front portion remains unoccupied, but is, at least, buttoned up for the winter. The back theater portion has been stripped. The 1960s movie marquee on the front facade was removed. The theater portion of the building is still propped up by eight steel I-beams. The owner has permission to tear it down anytime.

Most of Colorado's some 150 opera houses no longer exist. Fire destroyed several, including, in 1907, the 1897 Grand Opera House in Cripple Creek, and, in 1922, the splendid 1890 Grand Opera House in Pueblo. Many fell into disrepair and were demolished. The Tabor Grand Opera House in Denver was one of them; it was razed in 1964 and in its place now is the home of a Federal Reserve Bank. A remarkable number of sites occupied by many of the old opera houses became automobile parking lots.  Of the forty-six survivors we have identified, most have been so much remodeled and renovated that virtually nothing of the original remains. Primarily, they now are commercial properties or housing. Only 16 structures remain that had significant associations with opera and are or were entertainment venues. The Salida Opera House appears to be the next victim of progressive opera house extinction.

The picture at left shows what the facade might look like if it were to be restored. John Evaskovich did the rendering in 2008.

The information in this article about the recent history of the efforts to preserve the Salida Opera House was provided by Earle Kittleman of Salida, preservationist and former member of the Salida Historic Preservation Commission, and he also provided the photographs of the opera house that are displayed herein. I am grateful to him for his invaluable assistance in preparing this account of the former opera house.