Two merchants, P. Otto Elzner and S. D. Green, put this up in 1889 for about fifteen thousand dollars, building it behind Elzner's store on the site of an old stable and copying the design of the opera house at Taylor rather than paying an architect for a new one. It had large fireplaces in the east and west walls, which was the entire heating system, and it opened on the first of October, 1889, with a military ball and supper attended by more than sixty couples. A building like this was how a Texas town of the period announced that it intended to be somewhere, and Bastrop got in early. Elzner and Green were merchants rather than impresarios, and the building was as much an advertisement for the town as a place to see a show in. What happened next is the standard arc for a building of this type, compressed into one address. Live stage shows gave way to silent film, and by 1941 it had been renamed the Strand and taken over by a cinema chain. Through the late fifties and early sixties it served as a teenage hangout known as the Teen Tower. Then it closed and sat. A non profit took possession in 1979 and spent decades restoring it, with the serious structural work finished in the early 2000s. It now runs about twelve productions a year, a mix of professional and youth theatre with dinner shows, which is a substantial programme for a town this size. It stands on Spring Street, a short walk from the iron bridge.
Getting there
30.1115, -97.3194
Locations are approximate and may be inaccurate, on private land, or otherwise inaccessible. Check before you travel.
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