Fife Opera House

Construction at the David Fife Opera House started in 1898 and finished in 1901. In the building David Fife operated a hardware store on the ground floor. Upon completion the opera house seated several hundred in a building that measured 55 X 70 feet (21 m). The raked floor was filled with upholstered, red leather theater seats. Audiences were cooled by electric fans in summer and heat provided by a coal furnace kept them warm in cooler weather. The two original ceiling fixtures included a mirrored collar which reflected the glow of the high wattage light bulbs. At the west end of the building is the stage with a 25-foot (7.6 m) long opening and 15-foot (4.6 m) high, the stage is encircled by 25 lights.

A handpainted rolled canvas fire curtain was hand painted by artists from Sosman and Landes, a Chicago company. The curtain art shows a Venetian canal scene. Side and top panels along the stage depict draperies surrounding a tree-lined river. Recently, other painted scenes showing gardens, waterfalls and a turn of the century scene have been discovered in the building.^[2] Fife's mother demanded that one of the building's five interior art panels, the one that featured cherubs, be painted over to cover their nakedness.^[2]

It is said the lights all over Palestine dimmed when Fife threw the switches to the lights at the opera house on opening night.^[2]

• Fife Opera House Archived 2006-08-15 at the Wayback Machine — Palestine Preservation Projects Society