LEAD, S.D. (AP) - In the Dirty ’30s, Ki Caserio was a youngster hell-bent on finding something to do in this mile high town that didn’t cost much, because coins were as rare as the elusive gold that miners were digging from the ground.
Every Saturday morning, Caserio would join a throng of classmates gathered in front of the Homestake Opera House in a line extending to Main Street, waiting for the doors to open about 9:30 a.m.
“It was a big deal,” 90-year-old Caserio said. “I think pretty near all the kids in town went.”
For a nickel, youngsters were treated to the tunes of an organ player who performed until the lights dimmed and the real show started.
“They had a comedy, then a Western cowboy and Indian show, then a serial, and it would last until noon,” Caserio recalled, lamenting how even a nickel then seemed an extravagance. “You could buy penny candy, so a nickel was quite a bit at the time. Nobody had much money in the ’30s, so you didn’t get many nickels.”
In the tightest of times, Caserio told the Rapid City Journal (https://bit.ly/2pm92sm ), he and his cohorts eventually found a way to avoid even paying the 5-cent entry fee.
“One guy would pay to get in,” he reluctantly admitted. “After the show started, when it was dark, he would go to the balcony and open the exit door, and a half-dozen of us would scramble up the fire escape and go sit in the dark theater until the show was done.”
With its opulent theater, swimming pool, bowling alley and billiard room, the Homestake Opera House quickly became a fixture in the mining town after philanthropist Phoebe Hearst gifted it to the Black Hills community in August 1914. But when a devastating 1984 fire gutted the structure, and the Homestake Mining Co. later shuttered its shafts in 2002, few gave the facility’s future much hope.
Despite the setbacks, and more than a century after it opened to fanfare, the Historic Homestake Opera House is experiencing a modern-day renaissance and a new lease on life.
More than $3 million has been invested in the fabled structure since the conflagration that took its roof and charred an ornate interior that featured gold-leaf, plaster corbels and an angel-topped proscenium. Those investments helped fund a “smart center,” complete with statewide teleconferencing capabilities, to assist out-of-work miners in gaining new employment.
In 2015 alone, the opera house hosted 83 events, including musical and theatrical performances, conferences and presentations, said Executive Director Sarah Carlson. Restoration of its large lobby was done from 1999 to 2002, returning it to its original grandeur, she noted.
“This building was built by Homestake for Homestake miners and their families, and the citizens of Lawrence County and the Black Hills,” Carlson said last week. “It was restored by former miners. And now, it is continuing to be restored with the Homestake name in place and the miners’ legacy in mind.”
While a 2013 assessment by TSP Inc., a Rapid City-based architectural and design firm, pegged costs of restoring the theater’s stage area at $8 million, Homestake Opera House supporters have been content to tackle the massive project one wall at a time.
Evidence of their commitment came last week in the form of a newly restored wall near the stage - the first stride toward returning the elegance of a bygone era to the interior of the performance venue.
“People have wanted to see the color come back to the theater for a long time and this is the first step, so very important,” Carlson said.
This historic and painstaking work was completed by Jerry Aberle, a former Homestake engineer and also restoration project lead for the Homestake’s building restoration from 1999 to 2004; and Dennes Barrett, Homestake facility manager and former Black Hills Power lineman; with assistance from Chad Aberle of Avid Painting. All three men are natives of Lead, Carlson noted.
Funded through an anonymous $10,000 donation in honor of the late Jim and Betty Dunn, longtime Homestake supporters and community activists, and a matching grant from Deadwood Historic Preservation, the project has restored a 30-by-10-foot wall near the stage. Homestake supporters already have contributed $25,000 toward restoring a similar section of the opposite wall, a project Carlson said would be completed by the end of August, marking the 104th anniversary of the historic opera house.
“This project wouldn’t be happening if it weren’t for those who have come before us who also saw this work as important - not only for our history, but for our future, and the likes of Jim and Betty Dunn, Jerry Aberle and hundreds of people who have believed in this building over the years,” Carlson said. “It is almost a tribute to their tenacity, and we are only trustees of this building for those who come after us.”
For Caserio, who spent a lifetime in Lead and long ago created lasting memories sneaking into the Homestake theater with his buddies for Saturday morning shows, the transformation of the opera house has been nothing short of remarkable.
“When it first burned down, I didn’t give it much hope and I thought they were putting money into a dead horse,” he said. “But now there’s something going on all the time, and I think it will make it.”
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Information from: Rapid City Journal, https://www.rapidcityjournal.com
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