St. George Opera House

The St. George Opera House, also known as the St. George Social Hall, is a historic building in St. George, Utah. It was originally built by the St. George Gardeners' Club as a wine cellar. As wine demand decreased, the building was expanded to host theatrical productions. It operated in this capacity until sold to the Utah-Idaho Sugar Company in 1936. It was restored to an opera house in 1988 and is again open to the public.HistoryIn 1861, Brigham Young sent three hundred Mormon families to the south reaches of Utah Territory to establish a new settlement. Young envisioned a Mormon state that was completely self-sufficient, and one important goal in this regard was the production of cotton. The region settled was much warmer than the northern Salt Lake City, and it was thought that this would be good weather for cotton. Unfortunately for the settlers, this was not the case. The climate was too hot during the summer, producing only small harvests of cotton.The original function of the St. George Opera House was a wine cellar. Grape production was an important secondary source of income for the settlers. The St. George Gardeners' Club formed in the mid-1860s to provide community support for farmers. In 1864, as one of their first projects, they built the cellar as a cool place to store surplus wine and to process grapes. It was mostly constructed below-ground along a hillside.