In Ogden, Utah, Thomas G. Moses came into contact with the Browning Brothers. Moses wrote, “the chief owners of the theatre were the Browning brothers, the famous gun makers and Mormons. We were treated mighty fine.”
Jonathan Browning (1805-1879), Sr. had moved from Quincy, Illinois to Nauvoo, Illinois in 1843 where he established a gunsmith business. In 1852, Browning migrated with Mormon Pioneers to Ogden, Utah, where his son John Moses Browning and his brothers founded the Browning Arms Company. Jonathan Browning is recognized is credited with being the inventor of the automatic rifle, pistol, shot gun and machine gun. He registered 128 patents for more than eighty separate and distinct firearms. Browning’s designs were the basis for many models manufactured by Winchester, Colt, and Remington. There is a John M. Browning Firearms Museum in Ogden, Utah. The site recounts the Browning got his start while working in his father’s gun shop.
In 1878, a man brought a rifle in for repair and after studying it, the young Brown declared the he could build a better gun himself. His father had responded, “I know you could John Moses, And I wish you’d get at it. I’d like to live to see you do it!” It took him a little more than a year before he received a patent for his first design – a single shot rifle. He used this as the basis for his first gun designed for Winchester (Model 1885). Browning and his brothers soon were selling as many single shot rifles as their small shop could produce. Here is a link to the museum site: http://theunionstation.org/john-m-browning-firearms-museum/
In May 1890, J.M. Browning, M.S. Browning, D. Eccles, and Jos. Clark, suggested that they were all in a position to supply Ogden with an opera house. No sooner was it conceived when operations began in June 1890.
There was a full-page review about Ogden’s new Grand Opera House in the December 30, 1890 newspaper, “The Standard” (No. 308, Vol. 3, front page). The article noted some figures pertaining to the construction of the building, including 40,000 cubic feet of sand and stone being quarried; 2,200,000 bricks to use in the main walls; 693,946 linear feet of timber used for the roof, floors, galleries, bridges, and trusses; 1,500 incandescent lights installed; and 16,500 feet of piping to supply steam heating and water supply.
The architect and superintendent of the endeavor was S. T. Whitaker. The article praised Whitaker who “through this one structure erected a monument to prosperity, which will stand as long a rock, bricks and mortar hold together.” Well, only until 1982 when it was demolished to provide parking spaces. The article continued to describe Whitaker as a comparatively a young man who had now established a reputation that would last his life; “By this one effort he has laid the foundation for a fortune.” The interior decorator for the complex was T. C. Morris. The scenic artists Sosman & Landis, Thomas G. Moses and Ed Loitz. John Wikoff, a stage machinist from Sosman & Landis, did all of the “stage work.”
There was an extensive description of the scenic artists’ contribution to the endeavor and the painting of the front curtain.
To be continued…
