The Kamas Opera House was built by local resident John Carpenter and was located one block north of where the Kamas Theatre now stands. After the frequency of traveling vaudeville troupes declined, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-Day Saints bought the building and used it to present silent films.^[1]

In 1924, Douglas Simpson and Harold Pitt purchased the opera house and brought the first talking pictures to Kamas. The theater was successful in the 1920s and 1930s, survived the Great Depression, but then burned to the ground in 1942.^[1]

“$25,000 loss ---$1,000 insurance,” Douglas Simpson said of the fire. “But no one was hurt, thank goodness."^[2]

To replace the opera house, Douglas Simpson and Glen Gibbons built the Kamas Theater .^[1]

1. "Talking Pictures come to Kamas", by Sandra Morrison, www.co.summit.ut.us, Summit County Historian
2. "Kamas Valley, Pearls of the Past", compiled by the Rhodes Valley Daughter of Utah Pioneers