The Tabor Opera House, built in 1879, is one of the best-preserved Victorian theatres in the American West. Silver baron Horace Tabor spent $78,000 — a staggering sum for a Colorado mountain town — on a building that could hold 880 people and hosted performers including Harry Houdini and John Philip Sousa. When the silver boom collapsed in 1893, the opera house declined with it, but never quite disappeared.
Today the opera house is partially restored and open for tours. The interior retains much of its original painted decoration, and the stage and backstage areas give a real sense of what Victorian theatre looked like. It still occasionally hosts performances. For a small town of 2,700 people, having a functioning opera house from 1879 is remarkable — and the building's survival owes much to the determination of local preservationists who resisted demolition in the 1950s.