Page 71 - A Narrative of the History of Roanoke Virginia

Elsewhere in town, workers and their families found other ways to amuse themselves. A roller
skating rink opened downtown in late 1885 and immediately began drawing in hundreds of
patrons per night. Other opportunities came and went but some stayed and proved popular, but
usually only for a select group of the citizens. From cruises to elaborate parties to traveling
entertainers, the fare was still in its infancy.

Attempts to provide a wider range of entertainment destination included turning Rorer Hall into
an entertainment venue with special acts. In the spring of 1886, the city rented out the upper
floor of its new Market House to a theater manager who named it the “Opera House’.

The first floor of the Opera House was a farmers’ market and butcher shop, and by day, the
streets around Market House were crowded with wagons offering produce. Most of the vendors
left behind rotting fruit and vegetables, and their teams of horses littered the area with manure.
The venue itself was relatively unadorned and indecorous and had undifferentiated seating that
placed different classes and races in close proximity. The city’s blacks could rarely afford to
attend shows, but did so in enough numbers to raise concerns among the town’s whites.

By 1887 Roanoke had 2 newspapers, 4 hotels for show folk and a population of about 25,000.

While the city’s upper classes patronized the Opera House, they eventually sought ways to
create a more refined and segregated space in a more dignified setting. So, in late 1890, a
group of “the most prominent men in Roanoke” organized a joint stock company to fund
construction of a $95,000 Academy of Music on Salem Avenue, several blocks away from the
congested and filthy Market Square.

They hired Frederick J. Amweg of Pennsylvania (a construction company) who had just
established offices in Roanoke to undertake the construction of the Academy. Amweg also built
the seven-story Terry Building at the corner of Jefferson Street and Campbell Avenue. And St.
John's Episcopal Church.

The Academy’s architecture was patterned after the famed La Scala in Italy. “Ben-Hur” was
screened there circa 1905. It was later also used as a vaudeville and burlesque house. It met
the wrecking ball in 1952/3.

When completed, the venue had eight “private boxes” for wealthy patrons as well as a small
“second gallery” for blacks that could only be entered from the rear and had no access to any
other part of the building. It had capacity for fifteen hundred patrons, featured electric lighting,
marble floors, an interior designed by Monsieur Horace de Saussure – “a French artist of
celebrity” – and a dome rising eighty feet above the street. Performances at the Academy
consisted primarily of operas, classical music, and sophisticated plays.

Lots of stage productions were performed there and often starring actors of note. The inside of
the theater was very nice but had more of an auditorium feel than a theater. I personally
remember as a young lad attending a show, in its more open, arena-like setting, featuring Gene
Autry and his horse Champion singing and performing riding tricks.