21)   The Opera House . . . and the Fire That Destroyed It

A Brief History of the Old Opera House

(Lyle King)

The big old Opera House that burned originally was where the First Baptist Church is now.  It had stood over there at one time and they moved it across the street.  That was before my time, but they tell me they moved it with oxen -- oxen on a turntable thing where the oxen walked in a circle around this thing and winched it across the street.  Then they jacked it up and put a first floor under it.  It had been a church, but the top part had been made into a theater.  The first movies I ever went to were in that theatre upstairs.  And there was a clothing store downstairs.

And, then later, I can’t tell you what year it was, but we had our township offices in the basement and the first floor.  And a storm came up and lightening struck the bell tower and set the building on fire.  They got that one out but a few years later it caught fire again and burnt clear down [1982].  But it was a historic old wood frame building.

Opera House was the Town Center

(Ruth Sipe)

I remember several libraries before the one we have now.  At one time the library was in the old Opera House building.  And the library was in what was called the King’s Daughters’ Rooms.  In the basement of the building was the post office.  So the Opera House really was sort of the center of downtown.

Witnessing the Opera House Fire  (April 7, 1982)

(Rochelle Steinberg)

I’ll tell you what I was doing the night that the Opera House burned down.  We were at Monomoy House with the Bob and Nancy Good.  When Bob Good was President of Denison, they opened up their home to the Denison Jewish community for a Seder, which is the ritual meal and service that we do to commemorate Passover, a very important Jewish holiday.  We were in their living room which had windows that when you looked out, you could see the Opera House.  So we were having our Seder and there were lots of people, students, faculty people, community people, it was lovely.  We kept hearing sirens and not paying attention.  Then someone looked out the window and said, “Oh my God, the Opera House is on fire!”  We were all looking out of the window, and feeling guilty for not doing the Seder.  Some of us would run out down the street, see what was going on, come back, give us a report.  Then another person would run out.  We were trying to do both things at the same time.

The Opera House Fire and Saving St. Luke’s Church

(Jim Dumbauld)

Lee Larson [ Physics Professor at Denison and Granville Fire Chief ] had a lot to do with helping in long-range planning and with saving St. Luke’s Church at the time of the Opera House fire (1982).  The village wanted to put in a twelve inch water main loop around Denison University.  But Lee said, we’ve got more of a hazard downtown than we do at Denison because of the way the buildings are.  And Lee figured what it would take to build a twelve-inch water main down through town and he figured the flows.  I mean because of his physics he knew exactly how to figure it and what to do.  Lee put a tremendous amount of time in on that and when he had everything ready, he went to the village and said here’s what we need.  And there wasn’t any doubt about it, we did not have enough water.  We did flow tests and all kinds of things to prove it.  And we sold the village on the fact that we needed that twelve-inch line down through town. 

And that was done just the year before the opera house burned.  And if we would not have had the water available, we might have lost St. Luke’s Church too. 

That night the wind was taking ashes south so we had a fire department set up down at the Granville Milling.  We took people that we knew we could trust out of the audience, out of the spectators and said look we need help.  They all said "What can I do?"  I mean everybody was willing to help.  So we said we’d like for you guys to go down around all those houses along south Main Street, and just start keeping an eye for hot ashes.  And if the people are up, they probably (this was in April remember) don't have water hoses out, so we want you to get their water hoses out and hooked up.  And if there’s hot ashes, be there to get them put out. 

I was assistant chief then and the assistant chief’s job is set-up.  Kenny Dixon was sick that night.  He had the flu bug.  So you know who was in charge.  And Kenny came up but he made an awful lot of trips to the Baptist church, which was opened so we could have a restroom and water.  But that twelve-inch water line and Lee Larson had a lot to do with saving that downtown area. 

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