Site of Steger Opera House

Touring companies reached Bonham through the Steger Opera House, the Handbook of Texas says, and so did one famous former outlaw. Cole Younger, sentenced for a bank robbery in 1876 and paroled in 1901, toured on a lecture circuit afterward. The Commission says he lectured at the Steger in 1913, with advertisements in the Bonham Daily Favorite and a reporter's account of meeting him. In 1907 he had come to Bonham for the funeral of Major B. F. Hays, whom the Honey Grove Signal called his old comrade under Quantrill.

What the plaque says

Site of Steger Opera House 1890-1920 An opera house was constructed at this site in 1890 by a stock company headed by Benjamin Dabney. Two years later it was purchased by Ed D. Steger. Under his direction, the Steger Opera House became a popular spot for early residents of the Bonham area. It was the scene of many theater productions, traveling shows, civic activities and local talent events. the opera house later briefly served as a motion picture theater and then was used by a variety of commercial establishments. A landmark in the town for many years, it was razed in 1980. (1983)

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Sam Rayburn House State Historic Site — 2.2 mi
  The two-story farmhouse west of Bonham that the longtime Speaker of the House built in 1916 and kept as his home, left as he lived in it and open as a museum since 1975.
• Eisenhower Birthplace State Historic Site — 24 mi
  The small frame house beside the Katy tracks in Denison where Dwight Eisenhower was born in 1890, bought by townspeople in 1946 and given to Texas in 1958.
• Eisenhower State Park — 29 mi
  A bluff-top park on Lake Texoma opened in 1958 on land leased from the Corps of Engineers, in the Red River country of Fort Johnson, Colbert's Ferry and the Butterfield stages.

More markers nearby

• Confederate Commissary — steps away
• Constantine Lodge No. 13, A. F. & A. M. — steps away
• Fannin County — steps away
• First Baptist Church — steps away