The Story
Built 1912-1914 by the Homestake Mining Company as a gift to the town, the Opera House and Recreation Building opened in 1914 at about $250,000. Phoebe Apperson Hearst, widow of company co-founder George Hearst, collaborated on its conception. It housed a 1,000-seat theater alongside a heated indoor pool, a bowling alley, a library, and billiard rooms — amenities most towns its size never had. The company gave it to the City of Lead in 1972; a 1984 fire that started beneath the stage gutted the theater, and a nonprofit society has been restoring it since 2005.
Surprising Facts
→ The original building included a heated indoor swimming pool and a bowling alley alongside the theater.
→ It was a personal project of Phoebe Apperson Hearst.
→ A 1984 fire that started under the stage gutted the theater, nearly 70 years after it opened.