Mineola Opera Houses

Among the artists who played Mineola's opera houses was Thomas "Blind Tom" Wiggins, who was born enslaved in Georgia in 1849, blind from birth. Wikipedia says he and his parents were sold in 1850 to a Columbus lawyer, James Neil Bethune, and that from age eight he was hired out to a promoter who toured him up to four times a day. He played at the White House in 1860, and the Bethune family's fortune from his work was estimated at $750,000. Custody fights over him ran into the 1880s, and a stroke ended his performing around 1904.

What the plaque says

Mineola Opera Houses The Opera House Era in Mineola lasted from the 1870s until the 1910s and was an important period in the city's social history. Rail connections to bigger cities brought many famous artists here. In 1877, William J. McDonald opened McDonald Hall, and the Johnson String Band of Marshall provided music for a grand ball that was the venue's debut. Julius Caspary later opened an opera house near the Mineola State Bank. Renowned actors Louis James, Helena Modjeska and Frederick Warde and musician "Blind Tom" Wiggins performed here. During the Vaudeville Era, opera houses offered operettas, soliloquies, tableau, recitations and comedic acts. The advent of movie theaters signaled the end for opera houses, the foundation of the arts in Mineola. (2008)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Governor Hogg Shrine — 9.0 mi
  Quitman's 27-acre city park, once a state historical park, where two houses tied to James Stephen Hogg's marriage stand beside an arboretum, a nature walk and the grounds of the Old Settlers Reunion.
• Tyler State Park — 17 mi
  A 985-acre park eight miles north of Tyler, built by the Civilian Conservation Corps from 1935 to 1941 around a 64-acre spring-fed lake, with more than 13 miles of trails.
• Camp Ford Historic Park — 23 mi
  A free county park north of Tyler on the site of the largest Confederate prison camp west of the Mississippi, with a kiosk, an interpretive trail and a historical society museum downtown.
• Goodman-LeGrand House and Museum — 24 mi
  A Tyler house begun in 1859 as four rooms, enlarged by the Goodman family over 73 years, and left to the city in 1939 with its furnishings, in a garden that fills a city block.

More markers nearby

• Select Theater — steps away
• Gov. James Stephen Hogg and Wood County — steps away
• O. P. Pyle — steps away
• Mineola — steps away