| The Metropolitan Opera
House was built in 1890 as the premiere entertainment
venue in the region. Knowing full well that all the guests,
entertainers, and sets would come via train, the Great
Northern Railroad’s James J. Hill donated the land
for the project, and a local investment group put up $91,000
to construct the building in order to make Grand Forks
the destination city of its time. Considered the “finest
opera house between Minneapolis and Seattle,” and
beginning with its debut performance of Martha by the
nationally renown Emma Abbott, the Opera House provided
live opera, symphony, plays, stage acts, and motion pictures
(after 1907) for nearly 50 years to the Grand Forks community.
A bowling alley replaced the music
hall in the 1930’s, and the building began to
fall to disrepair. While the Opera House survived the
1997 Red River Valley Flood, years of neglect and flooding
caused damage the owners could not afford to fix. The
new owners have since returned the Opera House to its
past grandeur and usefulness to the community. The exterior
restoration brought back the lost architectural elements
that make the building the showpiece of the Richardsonian
Romanesque style it once was, and the interior renovation
has turned the Opera House into luxury apartments unlike
any others in North Dakota.
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