Built in 1889 at a cost of $1,500, this was originally referred to as "
The Town Hall", built to house various types of entertainment - piano concerts, school productions, bazaars, weddings, funerals, even political debates, many as fund raisers for various projects
within the community. Enlarged and improved over the years, in 1898 electric lighting was installed.
As well as locally produced entertainment, the hall was the local venue for professional touring theatrical and musical troupes and orchestras which toured North America in the nineteenth century and the first half of the twentieth century.
When the Metropolitan Opera, the Louise Brehany Ballad & Opera Company and Australia's
Royal Lilliputian Opera Company performed here in the early 1900s, the hall became known as the Opera House. In 1916 the Opera House first screened moving pictures, as the local movie house burned that year and moved in its salvaged equipment. It remained a movie theatre, as well as a performing arts venue, for much of the next 90 years.
Operated by a series of owners, the Opera House was remodeled and reopened as the
Land's Theatre in 1979, after which it became a second hand store. Changing hands yet again in 2003, the Opera House was reopened in 2005 as a venue for music and theatre. In 2008 the building was again closed, necessary safety upgrades proving too costly.
Today the Opera House remains empty, locals still dreaming of reopening it as a music and theatre venue.