Follow the Hardacre from a will read in 1912 to a packed house on April 13, 1916.
Jacob Hardacre, who had lived around Tipton from 1841 until 1892, died in 1912 and left the town money for an opera house. After three years of court challenges, the $65,000 bequest had shrunk to $20,000.
The Odd Fellows bought a 55-foot lot facing the courthouse square. Architect Benjamin W. Gartside Jr.'s first plans came in over budget, so a simpler brick-and-terra-cotta design went to Western Construction Co. for $20,975. Heavy rains during excavation brought down a neighbor's wall.
Ralph E. Kent, a local painter, leased the new house with his mother-in-law, Anna Bagley. He advertised in a trade paper: "Hardacre Opera House, seats 600. Stage 22x46. Everything new and Up-To-Date."
Opening night brought Selwyn & Co.'s comedy Twin Beds. Every seat was filled, and the Tipton Conservative reported the audience "was kept in a roar of laughter most of the time."
Within months the stage hosted a cat-and-dog act starring Foxy, the Flying Wonder, war films with a lecture, touring drama companies and a speech by Navy Secretary Josephus Daniels. In December, The Birth of a Nation became its first big feature film.
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