couse opera house
Charles Ingalls built the first building on the northwest corner of Calumet and Second, and the Ingalls family lived here after the Surveyors returned to town (see By the Shores of Silver Lake, Chapter 27, "Living in Town"). Pa sold this building to Edward H. Couse, building next on the southeast corner of the same intersection.

Mr. Couse ran a hardware store in Pa's original building until 1886, when Couse built a large brick building on the site. Upstairs was the Grand Opera Hall (44 by 78 feet), the first floor being divided into three rooms: hardware salesroom, heavy-hardware salesroom (stoves, etc.), and a tin shop with an elevator which went from the basement barbershop to the Opera House on the third floor. For a time, some courthouse offices were located in the basement of the Couse building.

Laura Ingalls Wilder mentioned Mr. Couse in The Long Winter, Chapters 9 and 10, but only to place his hardware store on the corner of Second and Main Streets; she passed it when walking home from school. After their marriage, Laura and Almanzo must have visited the Opera House on occasion, as entertainments, meetings, graduation ceremonies, and funerals were often held there.

The young man highlighted in the photograph is Aubrey Sherwood (1894-1997), longtime editor of The De Smet News. It was taken during the senior class play of 1912. Behind the older image is a more recent photograph showing the original tin ceiling of the Opera House, still in place over 100 years later.
- posted by pioneergirl at 9:37 PM