Harter's Opera House

75 W. Market Street,
Wabash, IN 46992

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Joe Vogel
Joe Vogel on May 23, 2023 at 7:45 pm

This house apparently continued to be called Harter’s Opera House after the Dickson Brothers took over and rebuilt it, as that is how it is styled in the 1921 and 1922 editions of Wid’s Year Book. Dickson Bros also owned the Eagle Theatre at that time. Cahn guides from 1900 and 1902 list Harter’s as an 800-seat upstairs house. By 1907, Harter’s is no longer listed in Cahn’s guides, having been displaced by the much larger Eagle Theatre.

This Facebook post from Wabash County Historian has some early history of the theater and a photograph from 1897. The building was remodeled and expanded the following year. This building, the second on the site, the first having been built in 1874 and burned in 1875, opened on December 11, 1876 as the Haas Opera House. It had become Harter’s Opera House by 1879.

SethG
SethG on June 19, 2020 at 7:17 am

Note that on the 1920 Sanborn, the address was 65 (the Crest next door was originally 63).