07/05/1976
One of El Paso's most glamorous buildings before the turn of the century was the Myar's Opera House.
Built in 1887, it stood on the west side of El Paso street below Overland, south of the St. Charles Hotel.
Its builder, a prosperous cotton farmer and banker, did not even live in El Paso. Henry W. Myar's home was at Camden, Ark. He had moved there from Germany as a child.
Myar's sister-in-law married an El Pasoan, Herman Kayser, whose enthusiasm for the fast growing town probably inspired Myar to try his cultural venture in far west Texas.
The building was designed by El Paso architects, King and Duhamel, and Stewart and Carpenter. It measured 104 by 134 feet and was Renaissance in style. The auditorium seated 1,200, and there were also four stores on street level and 21 offices in the building.
The octagonal ceiling rose to a dome, painted blue, with eight large panel paintings by a Chicago artist set into the ceiling. Heavy embossed wallpaper covered portions of the walls, with the interior painted mainly white and pink. Six boxes in the theater had heavy, elegant curtains.
Ben Small, a local artist, made other touches including paintings and frescoes, gilded iron work and other ornamental items.
In the large polished brass chandelier there were 60 pendant lights. A professional stage machinist C.S. King, came from Chicago to build and paint the scenery, riggings and traps for the stage. He had worked in more than 200 theaters across the nation and termed the Myar Opera House the finest he had seen in Texas.
Total cost of the theater was estimated at $65,000.
The doors were opened at 7 p.m. Dec. 15, 1887. Within an hour the house was filled to see a performance of "Monte Cristo." The overture was provided by the 16th Infantry Band. James O'Neill was the star of the drama.
The second presentation was l.W. Baird's Mammoth Minstrels. In 1888, the major attraction was Shakespeare's "Julius Caesar" starring Edwin Booth and Lawrence Barrett. Extra chairs had to be brought in to accommodate the crowd which did not balk at paying higher prices than usual in order to meet the price of the famous actors.
An a1l Spanish performance was given soon afterward by an acting troupe from Mexico, the Rosado Company.
Variety ranging from high drama to musical shows continued to be offered at the Myar Opera House until the fateful fire in 1905 that destroyed it. Us builder, Henry Myar, had taken special precautions against fire and had seen to it that four fireplugs were located near the new building, but all his precautions were no match for the flames.
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