Sterling Opera House
215 N. 2nd Street,
Sterling,
CO
80751
215 N. 2nd Street,
Sterling,
CO
80751
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This theater was constructed sometime between 1903 and 1908, and first appears as a roller rink.
Originally a large but simple one story wooden structure, by 1913 a two story addition had been placed on the front, containing residences to either side of a newly created entrance. The name had now been changed to the Sterling Opera House, which appears in theater listings around 1914-15. For whatever reason, this was not a success, and the 1918 map shows the entire structure as ‘Lodgings’.
Judging by the structure currently on the lot, the ‘opera house’ had been demolished by the mid-1920’s.
Contributed by
Seth Gaines
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Recent comments (view all 3 comments)
The 1905 Cahn guide has a Sterling Opera House with a capacity of 425. This was almost certainly somewhere else, as the timeline and low capacity don’t match this structure.
I noticed that the 1912-1913 Cahn guide lists the 700 seat Sterling Theatre, managed by W. M. Noltie, while a 1911 edition of the Colorado Business Directory lists the Sterling Opera House managed by W. M. Noltie. The May 15, 1910 edition of The Nickelodeon has an item datelined Sterling saying “Wm. Noltie, proprietor of the opera house, has arranged to put on a nightly motion picture show and vaudeville performance.”
Both the Opera House and the Sterling Theatre are listed in the 1913-1914 American Motion Picture Directory, but I’m wondering if perhaps they were the same house, double listed? It wouldn’t be the only time AMPD had done that. Sterling was never a very big town, and the Directory lists two other movie theaters, the Electric and the Princess. Even though the population boomed from just over 3,000 in 1910 to almost 6,500 in 1920, Sterling supporting three theaters in that decade would have been a struggle, and four a miracle, especially if one of them had 700 seats.
That sounds like a double to me!