The building was also the site of many summer Lyceum courses and Teachers Institutes. And celebrities from the worlds of politics, entertainment, and government appeared on the Opera House stage with frequency, bringing the outside world to this small town.Īmong those who appeared at the Opera House were noted abolitionist Frederick Douglass suffragettes Grace Greenwood, Lucy Stone, and Olive Logan entertainers General Tom Thumb and Ada Gilman musicians Frank Corbett and his Boston All-Star Orchestra and the Amphion Male Quartette and, William Jennings Bryan, who spoke here while campaigning for president in 1900. From high school graduations to cotillions, parties and turkey suppers, the social life of the town revolved around the Opera House. An art gallery, dressing rooms, box office, and other amenities have been added to the recently renovated structure to make it, once again, the cultural and social hub for the communities of Smyrna and Clayton.ĭuring the period from 1870 to 1920, the building played host to every important speaker and social event in the community. (In fact, the barred windows of the jail are still visible – a reminder of the past.) In time, each of these functions moved to other buildings and in the restored Old Town Hall/Smyrna Opera House, only the library, the theatre and meeting room remain. The building’s history spans three centuries, and it is older now than the nation was when the Civil War ended, but its promise to the people of the area is just as inspirational as it was when it first opened its doors in the winter of 1870.ĭuring its long existence, the building, formally known as The Old Town Hall, has housed a theatre, Town offices, police and fire stations, a public library, a movie house, a lodge hall and a jail. The Smyrna Opera House was one such structure, and for nearly one hundred and forty years it has stood sentinel on the corner of South and Main Streets, a reminder of the past and a promise for the future, first pledged by the Town fathers of 1869 and then renewed by area citizens in 2002. Men walking the streets of towns like Smyrna had fathers and grandfathers who had fought in the American Revolution to guarantee freedom from tyranny, and they and their sons had just returned from the battles of Bull Run, Vicksburg, and Gettysburg that resolved the question of how far that freedom extended.Īmerica badly needed to heal the rift caused by the underlying sentiments that had brought the nation to war, especially in border states like Delaware, and then, as now, officials turned to bricks and mortar to build symbols of the newly reunited nation. The nation had just survived the most divisive war in its history.
America in 1869 was a different place than it is now.
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