The building was originally built in 1867 by Sidney Chaffee. Like many of the construction projects of the time, the building started out a single story, followed up with a second and third floors. Eventually the second floor had a theater and opera house built inside with seating for 600-800 people. Quite a large facility for the time, considering that the Village of Tippecanoe City at that time had a population of only 1,000 residents.
Over the years the stage was the setting for many elegant operas, concerts, recitals, traveling medicine shows, melodramas, lectures and three-act plays. Among the more popular productions were several about the Civil War written by the talented Col. J.H. Horton, including “True Blue” and “The Drummer Boy of Shiloh”.
While the Tipp City Opera House’s last performance occurred in 1913, it was frequently used for non-theatrical events. In April 1881, the floor was converted into a roller skating rink where once during the Grand March one of the building’s huge chandeliers crashed to the floor. (no one was reported as injured)
As one walks across the expansive floors you can’t help but see that the room was once used as a basketball court, with turn of the century paint markings and backboards mounted directly to the walls. The Tippecanoe High School would play their games there up until 1917 when the high school gym finished construction. It was hard to imagine basketball ever being played there what with the giant single-pane glass windows that front the street-side of the opera house.
The Opera House has not been used for events of any kind since the 1940’s and has simply served the business tenants on the first floor for storage. The theater itself is in very poor condition, and would require a great deal of investment and work to bring it up to modern safety and fire codes.
We took a few photos, but if anyone would like to share their photos with us, we would be glad to add them to our gallery, of one of Ohio’s oldest Opera Houses. Right here in Tipp City!
