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National Register of Historic Places Preservation Certification Application

United States Department of the Interior: National Park Service

Project Contact:  Donna Dodenhoff  7/22/91

8. Statement of Significance

After its completion in 1908. the downtown Albemarle Opera House building quickly becomes the focal point of entertainment, educational and civic activities in Stanly County. Like other early twentieth century opera houses across the country that were converted to movie theaters with the rise of the film industry and decline of traveling shows, the Albemarle Opera House served as a movie theater from 1914 to 1916.

Built by L. A. Moody, Albemarle‘s premier architect/builder during the early twentieth century, the two-and-one-half story brick Opera House building is Stanly County’s most richly detailed example of the Romanesque Revival style that prevailed in the county’s downtown business districts during the early twentieth century.

During the period of significance (1908-1976), the Opera House building is therefore eligible for National Register designation as a locally significant historic site under:

-Criterion A (Entertainment/Recreation), as the county’s principal venue for entertainment,  as well as civic and educational functions, during the period from 1908 to 1976; and

-Criterion C (Architecture). The facades of most downtown Albemarle buildings have been   remodeled, making the Opera House building the best preserved example of early twentieth    century commercial architecture in the city, as well as the county. As such, the building is a model for future downtown revitalization efforts.

The building is also notable for housing Albemarle ‘s oldest continuously run business venture, Starnes Jewelers. The three owners of the Opera House building planned it for this purpose. One of the partners, Francis Eugene Starnes, was the first owner/operator of the jewelry store, which opened for business before the Opera House.

Historical Background

Doc Frank Parker and his son-in-law, F. E. Starnes, bought the Opera House building’s West Main Street lot from R. L. Smith and H. F. Biles in a deed dated August 3, 1907. A third partner not cited in the deed was J. C. Parker, D. F. Parker’s brother. The three partners planned the two-and-one-half story brick building to accommodate two stores at street level and an opera above. During the final quarter of 1907 work on the building began under the supervision of Albemarle building contractor L. A. (Locke) Moody. By the third week of May 1908 the Opera House building was sufficiently complete for the graduating class of the Albemarle High School to put on a performance of Thomas Dennison’s “The Danger Signal.” (Stanly Enterprise, 5/28/1908 issue) By June 25, 1908 The Stanly Enterprise could report that the Opera House had been filled with seats and that large plate glass windows were being installed at the building’s street level. On September 14, 1908, the Opera House’s first production, a minstrel show performed by Polk Miller and his Plantation Quartet, was staged. S. B. Klutz and S. D. Arrowood had assumed management of the Opera House by 1909. In December 1913, the Opera House staged its last entertainment. In 1914 Mssrs. L. 0. Parker and J. C. Bostian leased the Opera House space and converted it to a movie theater. (Fred Morgan, “Old Opera House was Formerly Entertainment Center of Area,” Stanly News and Press, 4/18/1952) By Fall 1916, A. B. Thompson had leased the space for use as a temporary theater until his Art Deco movie theater on North Second Street, the Alameda, opened in December 1916. According to Morgan, the Opera House was not put to use again until 1919, when P. J. Huneycutt leased the space as a supplement to his under­taking business. (Huneycutt had a furniture store and undertakers’ business in the West Main Street building adjoining the east side of the Opera House building.) Sanborn Fire Insurance Company maps show that, as late as 1929, the Opera House still served as an annex to Mr. Huneycutt’s undertaking business. The owners subsequently leased the space to the City of Albemarle for storage. The Opera House has stood vacant since the late 1950’s.

The second floor also provided room for two office spaces fronting West Main Street. The space on the east end of the building housed a beauty shop operated from the early 1930’s to approximately 1937 by Ruth Peeler Starnes, the wife of F. E. Starnes’ son, F. E. Starnes II. Under different ownerships, a beauty shop continued to occupy the space until the early 1960’s. In the mid-1960’s the Liberty Mutual Life Insurance Company maintained an office in the commercial space. When the building was first built F.E. Starnes had an optometry practice in the office space on the west end of the second floor. (Starnes also managed Starnes Jewelers downstairs.) In the 1930’s G. D. B. Reynolds, J. C. Parker’s son-in-law, practiced law in these offices. Dr. Cecil Duckworth, an optometrist, occupied the space from approximately 1940 to 1948. (5/12/91 interview with Dr. Cecil Duckworth) This space has not been leased since 1948.

Starnes Jewelers has occupied the street level store space at the east end of the building since the building’s 1908 completion. Albemarle’s oldest continuously operated commercial venture, Starnes’ Jewelers was founded in 1898 by F. F. Starnes in a North Second Street store. After Starnes’ death in 1932, his wife Letha Parker Starnes took over the family business and, in the early 1930’s was joined in the business by her son F. F. Starnes II. Upon his death in 1976, his son, F. E. Starnes III (“Gene”) became the chief executive officer of the Albemarle jewelry store. Starnes Jewelers currently embraces a Lexington satellite store. (3/16/91 interview with Gene Starnes)

The street level store on the west end of the building was first occupied by A.N. Dry’s New York Dry Goods Store. According to oral history accounts, sub­sequent businesses have included Bell and Merit Shoe Stores, a boutique (the Gold Shop) and two pawn shops. The space is currently occupied by a quality bridal boutique, Satin and Lace.  The building is currently owned by Gene Starnes and Catherine Pickler, a grandchild of J. C. Parker.

Context Statement

I.      Criterion A: Local Historical Significance as Entertainment/Recreation Facility from 1908—1916.

In the post-Civil War period, railroad lines were extended into small towns across the country. With this extensive railroad network, well established by the early twentieth century, traveling entertainment shows, such as vaudeville acts and Broadway productions, were able to bring entertainment and cultural offerings to residents of small towns. Opera houses were erected in small towns across the country to accommodate entertainment opportunities previously available almost exclusively to those within the orbit of urban areas. In addition, opera houses also served as community centers for graduation commencements, political rallies and lectures. They were integrally woven into the fabric of community life. (See “Restored Theaters Take a Bow,” The Christian Science Monitor, 5/11/1990) In the 1910-1920 period, with the rise of the film industry and the proliferation of movie theaters, opera houses were often converted to movie theaters. (See “Act IV for the South’s Old Theaters,” Southern Living, 2/1986 issue)

The Albemarle Opera House conforms with this national pattern. During the years it functioned as an opera house (1908-1913), audiences were entertained by Broadway and Lyceum productions and by troubadours, traveling minstrel shows and other comedy and musical productions. In the off season the auditorium was used for lectures political rallies, high school commencements and other civic affairs. Although lacking the opulence of the Thalian Theater in Wilmington, North Carolina, or the Carolina Theater in Winston-Salem, the Albemarle Opera House was considered opulent by Stanly County residents whose subsistence farm economy was enjoying the first flush of a prosperity ushered in by the county’s railroad boom era (ca. 1900 to 1930). The Opera House’s air of theatricality and opulence were heightened by satin curtains and hand-painted scenery. Livened ushers showed attendees to their seats. A piano player stationed in the front of the first floor auditorium near the stage provided musical accompaniment to performances. Local journalist Fred Morgan sums up the importance of the Opera House to Stanly County citizens:  “...The Opera House fulfilled a long-felt need in the village of Albemarle and for a number of years brought clean and high quality entertainment to the people.... The years in which the Opera House flourished outdid in formality and elegance anything that has since appeared on the city’s social and entertainment horizon. It was considered quite a memorable occasion to attend a show at the Opera House.”  (Morgan, 4/18/1952 issue of Stanly News and Press)

A review of back issues of the Stanly Enterprise, the County’s leading newspaper for the period, reveals the variety of performances offered: the first play put on by the Opera House “The Clansman” by Thomas Dixon, Jr., was staged by a New York company in October 1908. Other plays followed, such as “The Sins of the Father,” “St. Elmo,” and “The Thief”--all performed in 1911; and “The Servant of the House” by Charles P. Kennedy, performed in 1913. There were minstrel shows, such as those performed by the Polk Miller group and by the Salisbury Soldier Boys of Company A in 1910. Lecture series included “The Dialect of Nations” and “Lights and Shadows of Slavery Days,” both offered in 1909. In May 1908, the graduating class of the Albemarle Graded School staged a play at the Opera House as well as holding their graduation exercises there. (Stanly Enterprise, 5/24 and 5/28, 1908)

The last performance staged at the Opera House before its conversion to a movie theater was that of the Williams Vaudeville Company and Big Indoor Circus in December 1913. The circus was billed in the December 4, 1913 issue of the Stanly Enterprise as “Aerial Acts of a Sensational Order, Premium Acrobats, World’s Best Wire Walking, Expert Roman Ring Artists, Musical and Sketch Teams, and many others as Seen Under Canvas With Leading Circuses.”

When L.0. Parker and J. C. Bostion leased the Opera House space and converted it to a movie theater in 1914, their first offering on May 20 and 21 was a series of “talking” movie shorts demonstrating Thomas Edison’s newest invention, the kinetophone. The May 14, 1914 issue of the Enterprise noted that, on viewing these talking films, the audience’s “skepticism will give way to amazement.” Local tradition holds that Thomas Edison may have stopped of f in Albemarle on his way to his Florida vacation home and viewed the films.

By FaIl 1916, the Opera House was being used as a temporary movie theater by A. B. Thompson. During this period, Thompson staged the Opera House’s final bow to vaudeville, a production of the Meachum Comedy Company, described in 10/19/1916 issue of the Stanly Enterprise as “high class vaudeville.” In December Thompson’s new movie theater on North Second Street, the Alameda, was opened and the Opera House ceased to operate as a movie theater.

Criterion C:  Local Historical Significance as Architectural Landmark in the1908—1916 Period.

Opera houses built across the country in the early twentieth century were often planned as multifunctional buildings, with an opera house sharing the building‘s space with a store or city hall. Thalian Hall in Wilmington, North Carolina is an example of an opera house sharing space with a city hall; like the Albemarle Opera House, the Godspeed Opera House in Haddam, Connecticut and the Grand Opera House in Meridian, Mississippi were designed to house both an opera house and commercial space. (“Restoring Historic Theaters,” Main Street, 25:1, June 1987; National Register Nomination for the Grand Opera House, Meridian, Mississippi)

Although varying in opulence and in scale, opera houses were often community showpieces. In keeping with this pattern, the Albemarle Opera House’s exuberant facade contrasts with the more modest versions of the Romanesque Revival style that dominated commercial buildings erected in the downtown districts of Stanly County towns in the early twentieth century. In early twentieth century Albemarle these commercial buildings were concentrated on both sides of South Second Street and on the south side of West Main Street between Second and First Streets. They were characterized by segmental and round arched windows and doors and, in some cases, by bands of brick corbelling defining upper front walls and cornice lines. Although altered over the years, the street level facade of these buildings originally had large, transomed windows and glass-paneled, recessed entrances with deep transoms. With its more richly embellished facade, the Opera House made Albemarle‘s as well as Stanly County’s, strongest architectural statement of the economic boom era launched by the coming of the railroad and the textile industry to the county in the 1890’s. Commenting on the Opera House, Fred Morgan noted: “No finer structure stood in the village and none was more enticing.” (4 /18/52 issue of the Stanly News and Press, “Old Opera House Was Formerly Entertainment Center”) Today Mr. Morgan’s observation is still true.

The business partners in the Opera House venture contracted with L. A. Moody (“Locke”) Moody to build the Opera House. Moody (1862-1938), Stanly County’s premier architect/builder during the period, played a major role in defining the architectural fabric of Albemarle’s early twentieth century commercial district. With a crew of workers that included several of his sons, Moody supervised the building of the brick commercial block on the east side of the South Second Street between the Old Central Hotel (the current site of the county courthouse) and the junction of South Second Street with Main Street. Moody was also responsible for the block of three brick buildings contiguous with the Opera House’s west elevation and for the three-story brick Maralise Hotel, erected in 1908 at the southwest corner of West Main and South First Streets. Although his commercial buildings are almost exclusively in the Romanesque Revival style, Moody successfully experimented with the Art Deco style in the erection of Albemarle’s Alameda Theater in 1916. Moody also built the two-story brick Stanly County courthouse, a civic room modeled on the Moore County courthouse, as well as the Badin Opera House. (Both buildings had been torn down by the mid-1950’s.) Moody’s reputation as an architect/builder had acquired sufficient luster in the early twentieth century to command contracts in Washington, D. C., where he began work on the Standard Oil Building in 1978. (5/30/9 7 interviews with Ruth Hartke and Gene Herrin, grandchildren of L. A. Moody)

The courthouse, located at the northeast corner of Main and North Second Streets, and the Opera House, located on West Main Street between Second and First Streets, formed a diagonal axis that anchored Albemarle ‘s early twentieth century downtown district. While the courthouse was stately, the Opera House building’s facade has an exuberance defined by two rows of windows with granite and limestone accents. The five sets of paired windows piercing the second floor have webbed, round-arched transoms accented with keys and corbeled hoods. The five round, pivot windows at balcony level also have webbed panes and keys; they are rimmed with simple brick corbeling. A handsome corbelled panel delineates the building’s cornice line. The stair rising to the Opera House and second floor office spaces is accessible from a central entrance that divides the two downstairs stores. This recessed entrance has a double leaf door surmounted by a deep transom and guarded by a wrought iron gate. In the late 1920’s, the two stores at street level were given an Art Deco treatment with black glass tiles accented with white diamonds. These stores have recessed entrances flanked by large glass display windows. In 1990 and 1991, the current owners had the facade restored to its original appearance as modified by the late 1920’s remodeling of the street level facade. The circa 1940’s interior has also been refurbished.

Although its graduated floor was leveled and its rows of mahogany seats removed during the years it served as an undertaker’s annex, the interior of the Opera House retains a number of its original features. The deep stage at the south end of the Opera House is framed by a pressed tin proscenium arch accented with a gilded shell motif. The stage is flanked by dressing rooms entered from stairs leading up from each side of the auditorium. Actors could also enter the stage area from a fire escape at the rear of the dressing room on the right side of the stage. Two round metal posts anchored along the auditoriums central axis support a ceiling whose pressed tin cladding is stacked in the auditorium. The balcony at the rear of the auditorium is still accessible from a stair rising from one side of the balcony. Some of the original hand-painted scenery panels are stacked in the balcony. They were prepared by the Sosman and Landes Company of Chicago and appear to depict a drawing room interior. At one time the auditorium was lit by gas lamps and heated by two cast iron stoves.

9.  Major Bibliographical References

Interviews

Dr. Cecil Duckworth, former occupant of professional office space in Opera House building, 5/12/9 1

Gene Herrin and Ruth Hartke, grandchildren of L. A. Moody, 5/30/9 1

Catherine Pickler, co-owner of Opera House building, 3/21/91

Gene Starnes, co-owner of Opera House building, 3/16/9 1

 Publications

The Christian Science Monitor, “Restored Theaters Take a Bow,” 5/11/1990 

Main Street, “Restoring Historic Theaters,” June 1987

Southern Living, “Act IV for the South’s Old Theaters,” 2/1986

Stanly Enterprise, 5/24/08, 5/28/08, 6/25/08, 12/4/1913, 5/14/1914, 10/19/1916 

Stanly News and Press, “Old Opera House was Formerly Entertainment Center of Area,” by Fred Morgan, 4/18/1952

 National Register Nomination for the Grand Opera House, Meridian, Mississippi

Sanborn Insurance Company Maps for 1908, 1918, 1923, 1929

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