Orpheus Hall
Vernal, Utah
C. W. Showalter, and Andrew King opened the Orpheus Hall on Thanksgiving Day, 30 November 1911. The amusement hall had a spring dance floor, but was also used for roller skating, basketball, banquets, and movies. It was named after the Greek god of Mirth, “a famous musician who is reputed to have had power to entrance men, beasts, and inanimate objects by the music of his lyre.” At 11:00 PM on New Years Eve, 1928, the hall was renamed Imperial Hall. In a ceremony on 20 April 1965, Governor Governor Calvin L. Rampton took a sledge hammer and delivered the first blow in the demolition of the hall as part of a community beautification campaign.
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Opera House Fire
Box Elder News, 1 June 1911
Fire started in the rubbish near the back stage door of the opera house early this morning and a host of citizens made a dash for the scene only to find that the blaze had been extinguished. Somebody had evidently thrown a lighted cigarette out of the door, which fell among the paper and ignited it. When the water was turned on the blaze, it had started to burn the corner of the step, so it was nipned just in time, and a disasterouse fire was averted.
