Showbiz palace then. Anonymous storefront now

One of the more fascinating streetscape images from Auburn's past shows a turn-of-the-last-century Lincoln Way in vibrant motion. A young boy appears to ride a bicycle in the foreground at a crossroads that shows a torn up section of road. There are horses, wagons, a blurred image of what appears to be a dog, a woman in a long skirt walking on a wooden sidewalk and the steeple of a church. Dominant on the horizon in this wintry photo of trees denuded of leaves is the old teacher's college on the hill — a building soon to be torn down after construction of the new Placer High School. Dominating the photo itself is an ornate wooden structure on the left that provided a focus for entertainment in Auburn from its opening in 1891 through its reincarnation as a bowling alley in 1944. It would burn 13 years after the transformation and be deemed unworthy of repair. Today, a nondescript business block built low to the ground stands in its place. It was the Opera House, a regal home to vaudevillians and divas, theatrical troops and silent pictures, comedians and, yes, opera. If the names of entertainers like The Black Kentuckians, A.R. Carrington's Greater American Company, Matie Bowen, Alice Lloyd or Alberta Gallatin don't ring many bells, consider visits by John Philip Sousa and Lon Chaney as indicators of the talent that kept the Opera House buzzing with excitement and reverberating with applause night after night. Sousa, newspaper accounts in the Placer Herald chronicle, made two appearances with his band — the first in November 1904 and the second in the same month three years later. Herbert C. Clarke, considered the premiere cornetist of his time, was featured in the 1907 appearance — a Saturday evening show that saw Sousa and company arrive in town on a special train to much anticipation. By then, Sousa — whose marches are now part of the nation's musical DNA — was already known, the Herald opined, as "the band leader of America if not the world." Silent screen star Lon Chaney would also make two appearances at the Opera House. The first was in 1911, as part of Max Dill's San Francisco troupe's performance of "The Rich Mr. Hoggenheimer." Gaining his footing in theater, Chaney would have two small roles on the Opera House floorboards while doubling up as stage director. Two years later, Chaney would be back in Auburn for "Hoity-Toity," a play that would also be performed at the Savoy Theater in San Francisco and the Majestic Theatre in Los Angeles. Later in 1913, steady work in the newly emerging film industry would lure Chaney to Hollywood, where he would forge a superstar career by the 1920s as "The Man of 1,000 Faces." Film would also become a big part of the Opera House, with "moving pictures" on the playbill as early as 1905. As traveling stock companies faded into history, the flicker of silent film was augmented at first with piano and then — in 1925 — with the orchestral flourishes of an Alameda-manufactured Leathurby-Smith Unified Orchestral Organ. The silents would give way to talking pictures and the Opera House would herald the shift to sound with 1930's "The Light of the Western Stars." By then, however, the State Theatre had opened — providing movie-goers with competition that the older venue couldn't keep up with. In 1944, three local business partners would take out the seats in front of the stage and install five bowling lanes in their place. The echoes over decades of Sousa's 50-member band or the words of a future film star would be drowned out by the rumble of bowling balls and the clatter of falling pins. And while the old building would now house the Auburn Bowling Alley — it would forever be remembered as Auburn's Opera House. Media Life and Gus Thomson can be reached at gust@goldcountrymedia.com or 530-852-0232. Thomson is a state and national award-winning reporter who writes for the Auburn Journal.