Nan: I don't recall when I first found out that there used to be an opera house in Lebanon. I just remember always knowing it was here.
I often wished it would make a comeback, but I knew the chances were slim. About six weeks ago, when we began to see activity around the building, I thought it was being renovated for a new business. Then, one day, Bob saw an older gentleman there. Bob stopped to talk with him, and we found out they were tearing the building down.
Waaaay at the top of the building you can see the corbels waiting to come down. I wish I could have had one or two of them for garden ornaments. Alas, it was not to be.
Bob: It's sad, but true. The Opera House, built in 1885, is being torn down, even as
we write this in June, 2008. This picture shows the cheap sheetmetal facade partly torn off,
exposing the original slump block and brick front, or at least what's left of it. The last
use of this building was as a music store (I bought some guitar picks here in 2005), but
they closed over a year ago.
Bob: The second and third floors have been removed, and this shot looks through and up to the roof. Some of the remains of the tin ceiling for the first floor are visible on the right, and those 16-by-16 posts supported it.
Nan: It is sad watching the demise of such a grand old lady. I also would like to have
a piece of the tin that still clings to the ceiling beams here. Such architectural details
are a thing of the past. I would stand it among my houseplants as a tribute.
Bob: Only ghosts walk the image of this staircase emblazened upon the thick brick walls inside.
Nan: In this case, this wall IS talking. It's telling of the many turn-of-the-century ladies
and top-hat-clad gentlemen who traversed this stairway, revealed here in such vivid relief.
Bob: The stage and audience were originally on the second floor. Here, through the side window, looking up from the ground, a portion of the original second floor ceiling is visible.
Nan: Not only the walls in this grand old building talk, but so do the ceilings. The
faded grandure of this ceiling (pale strip across the middle of the picture) can be seen
in it's glory days in the picture of Brown's Grand Opera House and Theater found
here
(Just scroll to picture number 8 and click on it).
Those of you (my older children) who grew up in Lebanon will find the other pictures on
that website interesting also.
Bob: It is indeed fortunate that, although much history is being lost, at least some of the historical material will not. By contract, the larger structural material of this building is being recycled architecturally by a firm that specializes in antique building materials. A stack of it here is ready to be hauled away.
Nan: By a stroke of good luck, Bob managed to get four of the bricks from this building.
I intend to use them among my flowers on the patio or the front porch. They are a piece of
Brown's Grand Opera House and Theater that didn't leave Lebanon.
Bob: Most of this wood is good ole southern yellow pine, sometimes called sugar pine. There must've been a LOT of pine trees in this neck of the woods, because a lot of the housing and commercial construction around here used it exclusively. Some of the floor joists measure a real three by ten inches, and many were unsurfaced, straight from the sawmill. The reason I have included this page is that, by fortunate circumstance, I was able to get some of these boards.
Nan: Bob mentions the pine forests; I don't know about those. I can say, that when I
was a child, there was a saw mill in Thorntown (about eleven miles from Lebanon) that ran 24 hours
a day. At the very least, the wood would have been processed there. And on the corner of
Chicago and East streets here in town, there was a brickyard that made the bricks for many,
many local houses and buildings. I suspect the four-layer thick brick walls of Brown's Opera
House were made with bricks from that brickyard.
Bob: I was lucky to stop by the destruction site on a day when the main man was doing a little end-of-day cleanup, and he permitted me to take some boards. I asked for "a few" two-by-fours, and managed to get some two-by-eights as well, many with the original square nails, as seen here.
Nan: This represents about one-half-a-drop in the bucket, when you consider how much
wood that old building has in it. We both feel very fortunate to have obtained a portion
of Lebanon's history.
Bob: First step after bringing the boards home was to remove 120 years worth of nails and other assorted fasteners from all sides. This pile of pick-up-stix has already been processed.
Nan: Bob didn't mention that a majority of those nails are the old-fashioned variety of
square nails. We've gotten a quite a collection; some bent, some straight, some rusty.
Bob: These five pieces are all about 1-3/4 by 7-1/2 inches, and one side and one edge were planed over a hundred years ago. On top, you see the sample from two pictures up. I decided to leave it exactly the way I got it, and attached it to a square of plywood so that it can be displayed.
Nan: Now we can boast that we have a piece of 120-year-old art. Hey! You call it junk,
we call it junque.
Bob: This is clearly an interesting construct, a confluence of three floor joists that was expediently sawn out of the second floor. These pieces are two-by-ten and three-by-ten fragments, toenailed together. I have decided to leave them that way for now.
Nan: Bob named it; I suggested he retain it as is. I'm glad he decided to follow my advice.
Bob: I used the table saw to resurface some of the approximately-one-by-two-inch boards, and a piece of hard rock maple flooring. These are before and after pieces. The pine got used to build the shelves in the garage. The maple is uncommitted at this time.
Nan: I'm very pleased that we could salvage some of the opera house wood.
(05/2010) Bob: We found a good use for some of that maple. We used it to build a
cast-on-comb for Nan's Bond knitting machine. This was the perfect material for the job,
and it produced a beautiful and functional tool.
Nan: I asked Bob to make some shelves to fit the kitchen window so I could set my African violets on them. I suggested the design, and Bob has developed that design perfectly. I can't wait to show you a picture of the finished and installed product.
Bob: So, what do you do with 120-year-old wood? Here's what I do with it: Saw it into
3/8" strips, surface all sides, and cut into standard lengths. Here, I have laid these
strips out in a mock-up of a small plant shelf for the kitchen, upside down. I plan to
glue them together and join them with new little brass screws. The wood simply oozes with
character.
Bob: And so, what happened to that old opera house, anyway? Well, they brought in big machines and tore it all down, that's what. Just like we suspected. Here's half a wall with half a wall gone.
(05/2010) Nan: I look back over these pictures of the Opera House coming down, and so wish it had
been restored. We have a Community Theater here in town; wouldn't it be Grand if they
could perform on the stage of the Browns Grand Opera House & Theater?
Bob: The east wall is partially gone already, and this clamshell bucket is doing mighty damage on what's left. Men below were spraying the dust down as big chunks of bricks and framing are crushed and splintered from the hollowed-out husk.
Nan: I know the Browns Grand Opera House & Theater probably couldn't have been restored,
but I still think they Took A Bite out of history when they tore this majestic old lady down.
Bob: 'Nuff said.
Nan: We've all heard of "History In The Making" ----- Like Bob said, "'Nuff said."
Bob: This shot, a little later, shows a good deal of the top of the east wall has already been demolished; shredded material falls to the ground below, most of which (the bricks, anyway) got ground up and spread on the empty lot as a base for a coat of asphalt. Later this summer, a new drive-through bank was built on this lot for Huntington Bank, and their old one next door was demolished and turned into a parking lot. "They pave paradise..." It was sad to see such a magnificent building go away, not because it was in any great shape (it wasn't), but because undoubtedly there can never be such a fine structure here again, at least until generations have come and gone (waxing philosophic).
Nan: I sorta feel like the old cowboy whose horse is dying, only instead of "Goodbye, old Paint" it's "Goodbye old opera house."
Browns Grand Opera House & Theater, gone but not forgotten.