Opera House History

From the December 2004 edition of Mountain Times The house that Tilton built Drew Tanner Staff Writer for The Pocahontas Times     An economic boom was underway. Tanneries were operating in Frank and Marlinton, and the county was producing lumber from mills along the newly constructed branch of the Chesapeake and Ohio Railroad in Cass, Clover Lick, Mill Point, Campbelltown and Stamping Creek, just to list a few.     In 1910, J.G. Tilton, a court reporter in Marlinton from Mt. Vernon, Ohio, decided to construct an Opera House after seeing the need for a performance venue and community space in the bustling railroad town.     “Mr. Tilton had a vision, of course. He knew that people needed something besides just working for their livelihood,” said Ruth Morgan, of the Pocahontas County Historic Landmarks Commission.     “The Opera House was in an ideal place, because the train came in, and people came in from New York and Chicago to perform. They had two trains coming in here each day,” Morgan continued.     The Victorian building with reinforced concrete walls was the first of its kind in West Virginia.     “It’s a very sturdy building,” explained Morgan. “It’s 12-inches thick concrete, reinforced with logging train rails. And we’re sure it’s the oldest [reinforced concrete structure] in West Virginia.”     A 1975 article in The Pocahontas Times by Frances Eskridge said the cement work was done by Andrew Moore and Dempsey Johnson.     “Railroad rails were used to reinforce the concrete,” the article confirmed.     The carpentry work, according to Eskridge, including beadboard wainscoting and a beautiful American Chestnut railing along the balcony, was crafted by Bob Jordan.     “Much of the fine carpentry work done in Marlinton was done by Mr. Jordan,” Eskridge wrote.     Once the Opera House opened, some of the locally produced plays given in the space included Madame Butterfly with Guy Bratton and Paul Overholt and So Long Marry, starring Overholt and his wife Fanny.     One Marlinton resident interviewed by Eskridge recalled how impressed she was with the players in their evening dress an how “they seemed like characters out of a book in fancy costume.”     “Minstrel shows, Lyceum Courses and solo artists all were part of the theatrical world of this period,” Eskridge continued.     Of course, like opera houses in communities around the country, the Marlinton Opera House was more than a performance space.     “They called them Opera Houses back then,” Morgan said, “but of course they were used for many things.”     In fact, the Opera House saw use as a basketball court, roller-skating rink, and temporary sanctuary. One photo attests to the county fair being held there.     In 1912, Tilton edited a newspaper, the Marlinton Messenger. The weekly was also produced in the Opera House.     By the late 1920s, through a series of circumstances, the building fell out of use as a performance space and community center.     In the years after, the old Opera House was used as an automobile dealership and later as a lumber storage warehouse.     According to Sam Brill, coordinator of building completion for the Historic Landmarks Commission, fire damaged the left front side of the building all the way up to the balcony and much of the original woodwork was removed or damaged over the years.        “There was nothing left in the Opera House,” Morgan added, describing the condition of the building when the Historic Landmarks Commission purchased it in 1991. “The stage was gone. You could see where it had been. There was nothing left but the balcony.”     “The floor was down to street level,” she continued “We could see where the wood floor had been, because we could see where the joists once had been.”     According to Morgan and Brill, the car dealership had the building set up so cars could be driven inside at street level through the front doors.     Marlinton and Pocahontas County look very different than the place Tilton knew 94 years ago, but Morgan said she saw some of the same need for a performance venue and community space.     “I think our purpose was the same as his,” Morgan said. “He apparently felt that this place was so isolated in the early 1900s that it needed a space where people could get together and have all kinds of events and so forth.”     “After all, you couldn’t get in and out of here. There were no good roads,” she continued. “So it was either travel by riding horseback, by surrey, by wagon or train. It would take a long time.”     “The Landmarks Commission felt the same way,” Morgan added. If you wanted to go to a cultural event, you had to go to Lewisburg or Charleston. We felt that the Opera House could serve both as the preservation of a very significant historic place and also as a facility for cultural and educational events.”        With that two-fold approach in mind – the preservation of a historic link to the community’s past and the establishment of a community center – the Historic Landmarks Commission has been working since 1991 on the restoration of the building.     “We had to combat so much, really, when we started to attempt to do something to the building,” Morgan recalled. “People would say, ‘what do you want to put anything into that old building for?’”     “We just had to turn our ears off,” she continued. “Since then, we’ve had people come up and say, ‘I was wrong. I was one of nay-sayers.’”     The members of the Landmarks Commission had their work cut out for them.     “We decided the best thing we could do was to start restoring the interior so we could start having events.”     With its first grant, a Federal Transportation Enhancement grant, the Historic Landmarks Commission was able to put a new roof on the Opera House, clean and restore the building’s original tin ceiling.     “This old ceiling is really pretty,” observed Brill as he stood on the balcony with its chestnut railing.     Through subsequent grants, the Opera House received a new hardwood floor, furnaces, insulation, recessed ceiling lights, bathrooms, and a new stage.     In addition to grants the Opera House has received generous donations of time, money and equipment from members of the community.     Morgan recalled the first donation the Historic Landmarks Commission received in its effort to restore the building.     A second grade teacher interested in the restoration had brought her class from Marlinton Elementary to the Opera House before the Landmarks Commission had begun work on the building, Morgan said.     “And those kids gave us our very first donation with nickels and dimes and quarters,” she continued. “It was $5.35. That was our very first donation.”     Since then, the Opera House has received an outpouring of support from the community.     “People have been very generous,” Morgan said. “We’ve had a lot of wonderful gifts.”     Through donations and local fundraising, the Opera House has received new curtains for the stage, 300 chairs for audience seating, stairs and railing for  the balcony and stage, a chandelier over the main entrance and light and sound equipment, to list just a few items.     And of course, people have been generous with their time as well.     “We’ve used an awful lot of volunteer help in here,” Brill noted.     With the restoration well under way, the Landmarks Commission’s second goal of providing a community and performance space began to be realized in 2000.     A millennium celebration marked the reopening of the Opera House in September 2000. The event featured live performances and approximately 30 members of the Tilton family.     In 1998 the Historic Landmarks Commission promoted the establishment of the Opera House Foundation, which sets the performance and concert schedule and operates the facility.     “We try to get something for everyone, from classical to bluegrass to jazz and plays,” explained, Rene White, the foundation’s president.     White explained the foundation tries to book well-known acts such as John McCutcheon and American Gypsy, while also providing performance opportunities for local favorites such as the Bing Brothers, the Yahoes and the Black Mountain Bluegrass Boys.     It’s not uncommon, as with an October performance by the Greenbrier Valley Theater Company of Honky Tonk Angels, for the Opera House to be filled to its full seating capacity of approximately 200.     As the Historical Landmarks Commission and volunteers continue to restore the Opera House to its early 20th Century Victorian glory, and the Opera House Foundation books a variety of performances, the building has once again become a center of activity in the community.

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