Snapshots of History
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By Mike Avitt
Take notice of the upstairs windows. There are four upstairs windows on the left storefront and five on the right; same building. I have never seen that before.
Tingley’s Opera House was built in 1894 and had quite a formal opening.
Colonel William P. Hepburn, a Republican Congressman from Clarinda, Iowa, was the featured speaker and approximately 500 people attended the event in October 1894.
Hepburn would eventually serve eleven terms as a U. S. Congressman and was a well-known and respected orator.
The Tingley Opera House was dedicated November 10, 1894.
When this photo was taken, about 1910, George Slentz had a dry goods store on the ground floor. Mr. Slentz had been a successful retailer in Mount Ayr for thirty years by 1910 and had several branch stores in towns such as Tingley, Benton, and Kellerton.
The Tingley Centennial Book says Slentz opened here in Tingley in 1895. My notes say 1897.
The upstairs of the opera house was used for events like basketball games, public speaking, plays, commencement exercises, and other larger events.
Most towns in Ringgold County had an opera house.
In 1922 the opera house was condemned with M. Mariner as the owner at that time. In 1923, H. H. Dufty and his workforce removed the second story.
In early April 1930, the opera house was damaged by fire and there was no insurance. A new community building, which also served as a movie theatre, was built on the corner of the old opera house. The new structure was called the Avon Theatre.
On May 6, 1944 the Avon Theater was destroyed by fire. The building was owned by the town and the theatre business and equipment was owned by Elmer R. Burch of Beaconsfield. A malfunction with the projector was the cause of the fire.
By September 1944 work had started on the new community building with H. H. Dufty as the contractor.
Tingley’s annual Halloween Celebration has used the community building and in 1974, the community building became the home of the Tingley Congregate Meal Site with Nancy Jarred as director.
On April 26, 2024, the Tingley Community Building was destroyed by a tornado. But, as we have seen, Tingley has a history of rebuilding and I feel more than certain that a new community building is on the way.
Even though the Avon Theatre was in existence less than fifteen years, Clair Heyer secured an excellent photo of the theatre which appears in the Tingley Centennial Book.
I took a photo in 2006 of the last community building and I’m sure there are many more.
