To spot the St. George Opera House, look for a tall, cream-colored building with a steep roof and small white-trimmed windows, set above a red sandstone base on your right-it stands out with its elegant simplicity and the words “Opera House 1875” right at the roofline.
Alright, let’s set the scene. Picture yourself here in St. George in the sweltering summer of 1864. Three hundred Mormon families have arrived, sent by Brigham Young on a wild mission: grow cotton in what he hoped would be Utah’s new “Dixie.” Joke’s on them, though-the desert heat gave them more sunburns than cotton. So, what did the settlers do? Naturally, they turned to something more reliable: grapes. And the very building in front of you was first built as a wine cellar, dug right into the hillside to keep the drinks cool. The St. George Gardeners’ Club filled the cellar with clinking bottles and laughter, hoping that vineyards would save their village (and maybe make dinner parties a bit livelier).
But, eventually, the taste for wine faded-thanks to closing mines and a church that preferred grape juice to the real thing. So, the old cellar got a new lease on life. Up went extensions, and the sound of hammering echoed as they built a stage and rows of seats-not for sneaking a sip, but for sharing a good story instead. Settlers shipped stage materials all the way from a bankrupt New York opera house, and in 1886, the hall hosted its first show. Can you imagine the applause in a room that used to smell of musky grapes?
After decades entertaining the town, the Opera House hit a plot twist of its own. The Great Depression struck, and the building found itself stuffed with sugar beet seeds rather than opera singers, owned by the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company. But you can’t keep a showstopper down! In the 1980s, it was restored to its theatrical glory, curtain rising once again.
Now, the Opera House looks peaceful on the outside, but inside, it’s seen comedy, heartbreak, a few sticky fingered sugar beet workers, and maybe a ghost or two who just couldn’t resist an encore.
