Tampa Opera House

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Uploaded on: October 20, 2025

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This 1892 photo taken and enhanced with outlines by the Burgert Bros. Commercial Photography Studio shows the intersection of the 400 block of Franklin Street and Lafayette Street Tibbets Corner can be seen at far left, as well as the newly built Knight & Wall Hardware building with the steeple at Lafayette & Tampa Streets Courtesy of the University Of South Florida’s Burgert Bros. Collection where it is incorrectly dated January 1900.

As you will see, the Branch’s Opera House (renamed the Ball Bros Opera House towards the end of its operation) was demolished in May 1893. Here, the Branch’s Opera House and David Macfarlane’s Boot & Shoe Store can be seen abandoned. Macfarlane had moved his store one block north on Franklin Street to the Sparkman block on June 23, 1887.