Craigmiles Hall

An 1878 brick opera house and commercial block, the most distinctive building in downtown Cleveland

Craigmiles Hall is the architectural highlight of downtown Cleveland — a tall, ornate brick building completed in 1878 by Pleasant M. Craigmiles, a Confederate veteran who turned to the dry-goods trade after the Civil War. The ground floor was a store, the upper floor an opera house with a horseshoe gallery that hosted touring companies, lectures, and the occasional political rally for half a century. By the 1920s it had been converted to a furniture shop; by the 1990s it stood empty.

A long restoration in the 2010s brought back the cast-iron storefront and the original façade ornament. The hall is open during occasional events and is the centrepiece of the small Cleveland Commercial Historic District that surrounds it.

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