Coggon opera house celebrates centennial

COGGON - On the back of an old backdrop, among holes and worn stitches, is 100 years worth of history.

Over the years, those who performed at the Coggon Opera House scribbled their names, play titles and performance dates on the canvas, turning it into a giant makeshift yearbook.

The Old Opera House Community Arts Council and Coggon residents this year are celebrating the centennial of the 1915 opera house. The milestone is especially sweet for the 280-seat auditorium, considering all the adversity it faced before being restored in 1993.

'It's been here all my life,” said Bob Henderson, a 94-year-old native of Coggon. 'There was a lot of history that went on there.”

Before a gym was added to Coggon's school in 1936, all of the school's activities, including basketball games and commencement ceremonies, took place at the opera house.

Henderson said he missed out on many of his school activities because he was busy working at the town grocery store. But he does remember high school boys carrying a piano to and from the opera house for band concerts and school plays.

'You can't go to a football game every night,” said Dick Isaacson, president of the Old Opera House Community Arts Council. '(Back then) live entertainment was the only entertainment you had.”

When movies became popular, the opera house was converted into the Comet Theater. The Coggon Improvement Company, which owned the building, leased the Comet Theater to various movie theater operators between 1944 and 1982.

The theater changed operators multiple times before showing its last movies in the 1980s. The building was unused until a local teen started a fundraising effort as part of his Eagle Scout project.

In 1993, the Coggon Opera House hosted its first play since 1936, and the Old Opera House Community Arts Council, with Isaacson at the helm, took over running the facility. Since then, Coggon citizens have formed a community theater group. The building, which now has a 1950s vibe, hosts around four or five events per year.

To celebrate the opera house's 100th anniversary, the venue Friday hosted the Blackwood Quartet, an Elvis gospel music group. Henderson said that he's noticed the opera house has been booking higher quality acts lately and he is hoping to continue to see things improve.

'It's still got a lot of utility,” Isaacson said of the building. 'The sound is good. The seats are soft.”