Staub's Theatre

Peter Staub, born in Glarus, Switzerland, trained as a tailor, reached the United States in 1854 and opened a Gay Street tailor shop in 1856. He put his profits into real estate, then built the city's first opera house. He served twice as mayor, in 1874 and 1881, and as Switzerland's consul in Tennessee for fifteen years; in 1869 he bought the plateau land that became the Swiss colony of Gruetli. The theatre later became the Lyric and was demolished in 1956. Staub died in 1904 after a carriage accident.

What the plaque says

Staub's Theatre Built on this spot by Peter Staub, native of Switzerland, and opened October 1, 1872. In excellence and popularity it rivaled theatres of New Orleans and Richmond. Adolph Ochs, later publisher of New York Times, was its first chief usher.

Where it stands

Worth the stop nearby

• Blount Mansion — steps away
  The 1792 frame house of William Blount, governor of the Southwest Territory, Knoxville's only National Historic Landmark, where the people he enslaved are named.
• Beck Cultural Exchange Center — 1.3 mi
  Knoxville's Black history museum and archive, opened in 1975 in the 1912 Dandridge Avenue house the community bought for $22,500.
• Green McAdoo Cultural Center — 16 mi
  The 1935 school in Clinton that sent twelve Black students down Foley Hill to desegregate Clinton High School in August 1956, now a museum with bronze statues of the Clinton 12.
• Museum of Appalachia — 17 mi
  John Rice Irwin's 65-acre collection of moved log cabins and mountain objects north of Knoxville, opened in 1969, with a cabin believed to be Mark Twain's father's.

More markers nearby

• Old Knox County Courthouse — steps away
• Treaty of Holston — steps away
• White's Mill — steps away
• First Presbyterian Church — steps away