Heyday as a water spa resort during the period 1825-1941. Klinkhart Hall – and 9 structures associated with the village’s The District encompasses 167 buildings – including That resulted in the designation of the Sharon Springs Historicĭistrict. Īnd students from the Cooperstown Graduate Program conducted a survey This could have been the end, but historic Klinkhart Hall was a solid and stable structure, standing quietly, awaiting its next transformation.Īny building that survives long enough becomes something of a palimpsest, a changing record of different uses over time. After that, the upstairs served briefly as a dance studio before the building became vacant for 20 years. Since then, the first floor has remained vacant, while the second floor continued to serve as the Masonic Lodge until the 1990s. With movies, remained a feature until the end of the 1950s when the Indicate that live music events continued to take place and, along But liveĮntertainment never completely disappeared: some Smalley’sĪdvertising placards recently recovered from the Klinkhart basement Their mainstay since the mid-nineteenth century. The widespread demise of the live entertainment troupes that had been Was the main reason for this first transformation of Klinkhart Hall,īut elsewhere across the country the advent of motion pictures atĪbout the same time began to spell the end for many opera houses, and Theater showing first silent and later sound movies. Many small upstate New York towns, converted the first floor into a In about 1924, Smalley’s Theatre, which operated movie houses in Handy’s operated at this location from 1917 until 1924. At that time, the name “Klinkhart Hall” was removed from the upper parapet cornice (although when the light is just right you can still make out where the letters were attached.) Until 1923-4, the first floor appears to have been used only as a showroom for Model-T Ford automobiles, sold and serviced by Handy’s Garage, housed on the ground level in the rear of the building. In 1913 the local members of the Order of Free and Accepted Masons purchased the building and renovated it to house the Masonic Lodge on the second floor, where the opera house had been. Image courtesy of Sharon Historical Society (read the full story of the Great Fire at Klinkhart.)Ī gathering at Klinkhart Hall, early 1900s It lasted until 1911 when a major fire gutted the hardware store and, as she attempted to rescue the cash box from the hardware store, killed Mrs. Meetings, lectures and other types of public gatherings.Īll indications are that George Klinkhart was a savvy businessman and it appears that his new entertainment venue was a success from the start. Hosting other community events such as dances, banquets, political Important to their communities not only for presenting plays,Ĭoncerts, lectures, vaudeville and variety shows, but also for The second or third floor of a commercial building. Throughout the United States, these opera houses typically occupied Offered musical or theatrical entertainments. Instead, it was a commonly used term of art for any venue that House,” at least in rural areas, did not refer to “grand opera.” It was a place where people physically gathered, interacted with their neighbors, talked and listened, and where they were entertained, inspired and brought together as a community, through good times and bad. The building’s name, “Klinkhart Hall,” did not refer to the first floor businesses but to the “opera house” on the second floor. A millinery shop replaced the Post Office sometime between 19. The building originally housed Klinkhart’s Hardware Store and the Post Office on the first floor a tin shop operated in the basement. In the center of the second-floor parapet and cornice were bold three-dimensional letters that spelled out “Klinkhart Hall.” It was an imposing building even then: a two-story brick Italianate commercial block building with an elaborate decorative parapet and metal cornice with large brackets and dentils, cast-iron molds over the windows, and a decorative cast-iron string course demarcating the ground floor. In 1885, George Klinkhart opened his new building at the corner of Main and Division Streets in Sharon Springs. Like everything else in Sharon Springs, it is a layered, sometimes complicated, history but it always makes for a good story. The historic Klinkhart Hall building occupies a unique place in the history and culture of Sharon Springs. (Photo of Klinkhart Hall, circa 1885 courtesy of Sharon Historical Society)
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