Piper’s Opera House

This building, the grandest surviving theater in the West, is the third Piper's to stand on the Comstock. German immigrant John Piper ran a theater here from the 1860s; the first burned in the great fire of 1875, the second burned in 1883, and he rebuilt this one in 1885—raked stage, proscenium boxes, original painted scenery and all. "Opera house" meant everything: Shakespeare and Caruso and Lily Langtry, but also political debates, prizefights, and the town's own Mark Twain at the lectern. It still hosts performances, a remarkable survivor of a vanished theatrical age.

What the plaque says

This building, the most significant vintage theatre in the West, was erected by John Piper in 1885. Third in a succession of theatres which he operated on the Comstock, Piper’s Opera House, with its original scenery, raked stage, and elegant proscenium boxes, is a remarkable survivor of a colorful era in American theatrical history. Many popular nineteenth-century touring stars and concert artists appeared here.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Virginia City — steps away
  The boomtown that sits on top of the richest silver strike in America—fewer than a thousand people now, on streets built for twenty-five thousand
• Chollar Mine — 0.6 mi
  A real Comstock silver mine you can still walk into—four hundred feet of original timbered tunnel under C Street, where the work that built a state was done by hand, in the dark
• Carson City — 12 mi
  The capital one man platted before there was a territory—where the Comstock's silver became coin at a U.S. Mint and a small sandstone city that has run Nevada ever since
• Stewart Indian School — 15 mi
  The federal boarding school that took Great Basin children from 1890 to 1980 to erase their cultures—its student-built stone campus now a tribally-guided museum telling the story in alumni voices

More markers nearby

• African Americans and the Boston Saloon — steps away
• The Great Fire of 1875 — steps away
• Mark Twain — steps away
• Mackay Mansion — 0.3 mi