When considering the rigors of life in frontier Troup County, entertainment is often forgotten. Certainly, life was difficult with seeking and maintaining housing, food, and clothing, but what did people do in their off hours? A host of cultural activities were available from reading, to music, to games, and storytelling, and to those who were less religiously minded, dancing, drinking, and horse-racing were common diversions. Interestingly, theatre was often an option as well.
Small troupes of itinerant actors frequently performed throughout the frontier. Columbus’s first theatrical performance was given just two months after its establishment in 1828, though the details are unknown. However, on 24 May 1832, a professional troupe, under the direction of Sol Smith, staged August Kotzebue’s tragedy, Pizarro, in a purpose-built theatre in the burgeoning town. Theatrical impresario Smith had performed up and down the Mississippi River before imagining a theatrical circuit throughout Georgia. For the performance of Pizarro, Smith required extras to play the doomed Incans; so he engaged twenty-four Muscogee warriors from across the Chattahoochee, paying them with a glass of whisky and fifty cents apiece (about $15 in today’s money). Possibly encouraged by the whisky taken prior to their appearance, the natives performed a war dance and kept it going for almost half an hour, much to the horror of the audience.
While we know of various performances here in Troup County, unfortunately the dearth of surviving newspapers prevents us from finding much detail on those earliest performances. The first notice that can be found is an advertisement for Keegan & Porter’s Troupe appearing at Sterling Hall in May of 1869. In a brief article appearing on the next page, the paper notes that the company “delighted our citizens” the previous week. Most importantly, the fact that this company is appearing at Sterling Hall, a theatrical performance space, indicates the existence of a tradition of theatrical performances for years in LaGrange.
Buildings of this nature were common in most towns and cities, providing space for a myriad of community gatherings ranging from school commencements to church services to meetings, lectures, political gatherings, galas, and a variety of theatrical performances. Theatrical troupes ranged throughout the country engaging local theatres, opera houses, or concert halls for a single night or perhaps a series of nights to perform. Members of the troupe were extremely versatile performers who could perform dozens of roles with acuity, as well as dance, sing, and play musical instruments. An evening at the theatre in the mid-19th century would sometimes last for hours and include musical performances, dancing, as well as a full length show or two. Popular shows of recent vintage were mixed with classic plays ranging from Shakespeare to Restoration comedies, operettas or operas. Though, as the century progressed, these performances shortened to just featuring a single show with a handful of variety performances.
As far as we know, Sterling Hall was the first purposefully-built performance space in LaGrange. It was constructed sometime in the late 1850s to provide commercial and office space as well as a performance space on Courthouse Square. Situated on the south east corner of the intersection of Hines and Main Streets, its performance space, called an opera house, occupied the third floor, raising it above the noise and dust of the street. In 1881, the hall was purchased and renovated by James Gates Truitt who reopened the building as Truitt’s Opera House.
Typical shows following the Civil War involved the performance of a single show While the myriad variety acts would often be clumped together into a single performance. Companies comprised totally of men frequently performed variety shows in blackface as minstrel shows, while companies of men and women might perform variety shows. In the early 1880s, around the time the opera house came under the ownership of James G. Truitt, these variety acts were reorganized into vaudeville shows. Vaudeville shows, which grew in popularity around this time consisted of a series of unrelated acts all on the same bill. A single vaudeville show might include dancers, musicians, animal acts, magicians, elocutionists, comedians, minstrels, one-act plays all in the same performance. Among the variety acts appearing on the opera house stage were magician Signor Bosco who appeared in 1883, the Mastodon Minstrels and McIntyre & Heath’s Minstrels (nationally known minstrel troupes), and mesmerist and clairvoyant Professor L’Goring.
Following the theatre’s reopening as Truitt’s Opera House it continued to host a variety of programs, both for local organizations and traveling troupes. Throughout the latter half of the 19th century, the opera house was not the only place to find entertainment, more scholarly, high-brow fare was offered by Southern Female College. The school, founded in the 1850s, was the Baptist counterpart to the Methodist LaGrange Female College.
The school offered numerous lectures, recitals, and concerts. Notably, the famed pianist Blind Tom Wiggins appeared in 1879 and 1884. Born into slavery on General James Bethune’s plantation just outside of Columbus, Thomas Wiggins showed an aptitude for the piano at a young age. Realizing the child’s immense talent, Bethune quickly hired him out for concerts. Soon, he was touring the country netting his managers and promoters tremendous amounts of money. Though he was freed following the war, Wiggins continued a grueling touring schedule.
Not only was Wiggins a remarkably gifted pianist, he possessed astounding powers of mimicry. During concerts, a musician from the audience would be invited to play something, which he would immediately imitate, often with his own flourishes added. The LaGrange Reporter notes that he did this during his 1879 concert here: “Mr. Bethune, his exhibitor, invited any music teachers to come upon the stage and play some piece that Tom had never heard. In response to calls, Miss Alice Cox [a concert pianist and daughter of SFC president Ichabod Cox] went to the piano, and played a piece of her own composition, variations on ‘Old Folks at Home.’ Tom had been placed on the rear of the stage, with his back to the piano; but after Miss Cox was through, he played the tune through without a change so far as the audience could judge.”
In 1908, SFC’s grand auditorium burned to the ground. Around the same time, the third floor performance space of the opera house was closed. This loss of performance space was mourned throughout the following years as there were no spaces for large crowds to gather. In 1989, the old opera house building was torn down and replaced by a small park. In the early 20th century numerous small theatres operated throughout town, though not as grand as the opera house and auditorium of the days of old.
