Opera House
200 N. Sturgeon Street,
Montgomery City,
MO
63361
200 N. Sturgeon Street,
Montgomery City,
MO
63361
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Additional Info
Functions: Fraternal Hall, Laundromat
Previous Names: Idle Hour Theatre
Nearby Theaters
The Opera House was a two story brick building constructed sometime after 1909. It was located on the second floor. It may have been the Idle Hour Theatre listed in the 1914-15 AMPD. It was definitely showing silent films by 1917. It seems to have closed in 1929 or 1930. The building today is in decent shape, and it is the local Masonic lodge.
Contributed by
Chris1982
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Recent comments (view all 7 comments)
The opera house is already shown with film equipment on the 1917 Sanborn. The projection was from an iron-clad wooden box at the rear of the second floor building, with stage and scenery on the front (Sturgeon St) side. Ground floor occupants were a hardware store on the north side, and the post office on the south. The lot is empty on the 1909 map, and current usage is a Masonic Lodge and a laundromat.
The address is wrong. Should be 200-202. 209 is a narrow one-story building, which was used as stores, and is now a restaurant.
“The Ritz Theatre, owned by Otto Ingwersen, ceased operations after its show the night of May 28. It is unknown when the theatre will resume.” — Boxoffice, June 13, 1960
I think this listing may conflate two theaters. The Opera House is listed at 450 seats through 1929. Montgomery City does not appear in the 1930 Yearbook.
1931 lists the Opera House with 350 seats, and 1932 onward lists the Ritz with 350. I wonder if that isn’t an error. The 1932 map does not show a theater in the Masonic building, but shows a lodge hall on the 2nd floor. Being an upstairs theater, it may have been closed due to fire codes. The 1932 map does show a theater at what would have been 121-123 W 2nd. It was likely the Ritz, and was demolished long ago.
Additionally, the 1914-15 AMPD lists the Idle Hour Theatre on E 2nd St. Given that no commercial buildings face that part of 2nd, it likely referred to the large rear entrance to the Masonic building.
I’d say the evidence that the Opera House and the Ritz were different theaters is good enough that we should have different pages for them. An early mention of movies in the Opera House appeared in the August 7, 1908 Montgomery Tribune which said a group of local businessmen had leased the Ferguson Opera House and would put in a moving picture show with changes of program three times a week. It would be a five and ten cent house.
As for the Ritz, this Facebook page has a photo of it dated 1981, and the caption says it was on the east corner of 2nd and Allen Street, so definitely not the Opera House. The site is now a parking lot.
It gets a bit more complicated, because the 1900 map shows the Ritz building as an opera house. The 1909 map doesn’t show that. We definitely should put the Ritz in a separate listing.