Goss: A Dream
Waiting to be Rediscovered
From
the Public Opinion, Thursday, September 8, 1983
Its last
public use was as a roller skating rink.
That was many years ago, and today the Goss Opera
Hall sits dark, vacant
and in a state or disrepair. Waiting.
The opera
house, on the second floor of the Goss block building above
Kreiser’s drug
Store, is the last reminder of an age in Watertown
when theater played a significant role in leisure life.
It
is in need of restoration work to bring it
back to its former luster as one of Watertown’s
three opera houses.
The
Goss is the last
of the three.
It was
built by Charles Goss after his store at the corner of Kemp and Maple
burned in
a downtown Watertown
fire in April 1888.
Goss,
a determined
businessman, set the foundation in June 1888 for the Goss block. His
original concept to
build a hotel on the
spot was replaced by a notion to construct a public hall for
entertainment.
The
three-story structure has 125 feet of frontage on Maple Street
and 65 Feet on Kemp Avenue.
He
divided
the
Maple side into four ground
floor stores and the Kemp side into three store fronts.
The
second floor and third floor house the
mammoth opera house and also include office spaces facing outside.
The Goss
opened in the spring of 1889, the same year South Dakota
became a state.
The
building’s opening vindicated Goss’ dream
that there was, indeed, the market in Watertown
for another entertainment facility, despite the castigation he received
from
the local press and community leader. Everyone
was a believer when Goss opened the doors
almost a century ago.
The Public
Opinion reported on one of the grandest spectacles produced at the Goss
during
late 1889:
“Goss
Hall was filled
last night with a large and
appreciative audience to witness the Merchant’s Carnival
which the ladies of
the Congregational Church have had in preparation for several weeks. The
entertainment opened
with a grand march
by 60 ladies in costumes, carrying banners . . . The varied colored
costumes
and banners with their gold, silver and variegated trimmings glistening
in the
gaslight, presented a dazzling scene such as never has been witness in
Watertown.”
Since then,
the theater hosted many festive events, including the organization of
the
Republican Club, which held many of its meetings there.
A program
on August 9, 1901, notes that the Goss Block cost $50,000 and was the
largest
opera hall in the state, capable of seating 1,500 people.
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