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Historic place

Matthews Opera House

612 N Main St, Spearfish, SD

Built by a Wyoming rancher who fell in love with the town, this 300-seat opera house spent decades as a movie theater, then a shooting gallery, then a WWII parachute-rolling room — before a 20-year restoration brought it back for its 2006 centennial.

📅 1906–present🏛️ Opera HouseStill hereBuilt 1906
Open on the mapSlide back to 1906

The story

The Matthews Opera House opened December 3, 1906, built for Thomas N. Matthews, a Wyoming rancher who had moved to Spearfish seeking medical care for his wife and stayed. Designed by the Deadwood firm Bartlett & Phillips, it's a contributing building in the NRHP-listed Spearfish Historic Commercial District. Renamed the Princess Theatre in 1913 to show films, it closed as a theater in 1930, then served as an indoor shooting gallery, a dance hall, and even a place to roll parachutes during WWII. A restoration begun in 1986 culminated in 2006 — the building's exact centennial.

Everything that was here

Did you know?

It spent a stretch of its life as an indoor shooting gallery.
During World War II it was used to roll parachutes.
It ran for 17 years as a movie theater (the Princess) before losing out to a competing cinema.

Connected places

Spencer's Grill

Kirkwood, MO
World War II

St. Louis Union Station Hotel & Aquarium

St. Louis, MO
World War II

West End Service Station

Edwardsville, IL
World War II

Superdawg Drive-In

Chicago, IL
World War II

Explore the full web of connections on the map.

Nearby history

Spearfish Historic Commercial District

600 block N Main St · 60 m away
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N Meier Ave (Lookout Mountain) · 604 m away
For 69 seasons, a German family who traced their Passion Play tradition to a 1242 monastery performed it nightly on what

The Thoen Stone

Thoen Stone Dr (Lookout Mountain) · 1.0 km away
A small sandstone slab found near Spearfish in 1887 claims to be a dying prospector's 1834 confession — and if genuine,

D.C. Booth Historic National Fish Hatchery

423 Hatchery Circle · 1.0 km away
Congress funded this fish-culture station in 1896 to stock trout across the West — and for a decade it ran a satellite o

Burlington Spearfish Line

Old CB&Q grade, Spearfish Canyon · 1.1 km away
For 40 years a Burlington branch line hauled lumber, farmers, and $2.50 excursion tourists through Spearfish Canyon — un

Homestake Hydroelectric Plant No. 1

S Canyon St (mouth of Spearfish Canyon) · 1.3 km away
To avoid buying coal, the Homestake Gold Mine paid for a 5-mile, 8-tunnel water diversion through solid canyon rock — en

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Sourceshttps://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Spearfish_Historic_Commercial_District