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'This is the general store in Midvale, Utah, started by Hyrum Goff and taken over by his son Clifford Isaac Goff as a mortuary.  Many plays and activities were had in the upper room of the store.' - , Utah
Goff's Opera House
(Goff's Dramatic Hall)

730 West Center Street
Midvale, Utah 84047

(1891 - After 1918)

Goff’s Opera House occupied the second floor of the Goff Mercantile and was reached by an enclosed, external staircase.  The mercantile opened in 1891, replacing a store built in 1872 by Hyrum’s father, Isaac, and his mother-in-law, Clarissa Arnold.  The first floor was converted into a mortuary in 1915 and the building was extensively remodeled in 1954.  A new mortuary was built in 1954 at 8090 South State Street.[1]

An evening of entertainment at Goff's Dramatic Hall in 1899, presented by the Lafayette Memorial committee, was attended by an audience of about 400.[2]

Polk’s Utah Gazetteer listed Goff’s Dramatic Hall as being in West Jordan in 1903, with Hyrum Goff as manager. [3]  By 1918, West Jordan had come to known by its present name of Midvale and the theater was known as Goff’s Opera House.[4]

The theater was 34 feet wide, according to the 1911 Sanborn fire insurance map, with a stage, scenery, and a 16-foot high ceiling.[5]

1. “Isaac Goff”, familysearch.org, retrieved June 2014
2. "[Entertainment at Goff's Dramatic Hall]", Salt Lake Tribune, 26 February 1899, page 9
3. Polk’s Utah Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1903-1904
4. Polk’s Utah Gazetteer and Business Directory, 1918-1919
5. “Midvale, 1911: Sheet 04”, J. Willard Marriott Library, retrieved June 2014