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By Bill Baker
Last Updated: July 27, 2010
The following story appeared in the Dec. 2, 1976, edition of the Ellsworth Reporter. The late Bill Baker was editor of the Wilson World.
Wilson's historic Opera House was 75 years old Thanksgiving Day, 1976.
It was appropriate that the shuffling of feet and the sounds of polka music honored the anniversary date at a Czech dance in the evening.
The structure was dedicated Monday afternoon, Nov. 25, 1901, according to a front-page article in the Nov. 28, 1901, Ellsworth Reporter. The Opera House was referred to as Turner Hall in the story, which outlined the dedication of the new building:
“The Bohemian Turners of Wilson dedicated their new opera house and gymnasium with appropriate exercises in the presence of a large gathering of people last Monday afternoon, the 25th.
“The day was beautiful and nearly everybody for many miles around attended the exercises. The program consisted ofmusic and speaking, there being present as orators, Editor S.L. Koatoryz of Omaha, and J.L. Kutok, of Chicago. John Dlabal of Wilson also addressed the meeting.
“The dedicatory exercises were followed by a home talented play given by the Bohemian Amateurs of that town, and by a grand ball, which lasted late in the night. The new opera house thus opened is said to be a splendid building of its kind.
“This structure has been erected at a cost of more than $10,000, and in raising this fund the Turners are liberally assisted by the businessmen of Wilson and the Bohemian farmers of the western part of the county."
A retired Lucas farmer recalled the construction of the opera house in a 1974 interview with The Wilson World. Ralph Kvasnicka said about 14 hard-working men built the limestone structure “stone by stone." Kvasnicka's father, Frank, was a contractor stone mason in charge of the construction. Stone for the building came from five miles north of Wilson on the Hay Canyon Road.
Mrs. Frank Sibrava, Sr., Wilson,l also remembers the construction of the 75-year-old building.
“My husband (the late Frank Sibrava Sr.) helped haul rock from north of Wilson with teams," she said Monday. “It was quite a thing in those days to build such a building. It took them a couple of years."
“They had such good roads shows," she said. “The best they could get."
Mrs. Sibrava's husband was manager of the Opera House for 21 years. He remembered the first road show held in the historic structure. In an interview with the Salina Journal in 1956, Sibrava outlined the first show:
“McCabes Colored Minstrels came to town by special railroad coach and played to a crowd of 600 or more in a building not yet completed. Children hung from beams not yet lathed and sat like little birds in the windows."
The Journal story reported that the first movie machine was installed in 1912. The Opera House continued as a center of entertainment for more than 45 years with “well-attended movies several nights a week."
But the movies fell victim to television in 1956 and that same year was the last movie for the Opera House. The late Frank Zaloudek summed up the closing of the theatre: “People who used to come to the Opera House two and three nights a week haven't been inside the door since they got their television set."
Since then, the Opera House no longer echoes with the sounds of a stage play or a movie but on Thanksgiving Day, the Wilson Czechs continue a tradition almost as old as the Opera House itself: “Cesky Den," Bohemian Day. There is dancing and sometimes a play or program.
And, of course, the Opera House is the meeting place for the Wilson Chapter of Kansas Czechs; four Czech lodges, Z.C.B.J., J.C.D., C.S.A. and the Sokol; and the Opera House governing body.
Throughout the year there are wedding dances and lodge sponsored polka dances but the Opera House hosts the crowd of the year during the annual Wilson Czech festival in July.
This year on Thanksgiving Day there was no Cesky Den program planned nor a program observing the 75th anniversary of the Opera House But there was plenty of polka music filling the auditorium, a fitting tribute to the building's anniversary.
Pick up a copy of the July 29 edition of the Ellsworth County I-R for a special section on the 2010 Wilson After Harvest Czech Festival.
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