DUANE
Duane's take
Here's how the official marker tells it, and I'm gonna do my best to do it justice. Picture Corsicana, Texas, in 1891 — a town with ambition stitched into every brick. A group of businessmen looked at the small opera house sitting up above city hall and said, that is not enough.
Not nearly enough. So they did what ambitious Texas businessmen do: they built bigger. Three stories bigger.
Right here on this very site, up went the Merchants Opera House, and friend, it was something to see. The first two floors held stores and offices — practical, respectable, the kind of thing that pays the bills. But you ride that elevator of imagination up to the top story, and suddenly you are standing in a balconied auditorium that could seat up to one thousand people.
One thousand. In a theater decorated opulently in the style of the day — which is to say, they did not hold back. Not even a little.
The stage drew well-known performers. Plays, minstrel shows, musical concerts — the works. Corsicana was not sitting out on the sidelines of culture.
Not with a room like that. Now, time has a way of turning the page on even the finest chapters. The building was sold, and there were plans — honest, forward-lookin' plans — to convert it into a motion picture theater.
The future was knocking. But in 1914, before a single reel could ever spin in that grand old house, it burned. Just like that, one thousand seats and all that opulence, gone.
The future had knocked, and fire had answered the door.
What the marker says
At this site in 1891, a group of businessmen built a three-story structure to replace the small Corsicana Opera House above city hall. The Merchants Opera House had stores and offices on the first two floors and a balconied auditorium on the top story. Opulently decorated in the style of the day, the theater seated up to 1000. Plays, minstrel shows, and musical concerts, featuring well-known performers, entertained audiences here. The building was sold, but burned in 1914 before it could be converted into a motion picture theater as planned.