Coates Opera House (1870-1901)

Established by influential Kansas City residents Kersey and Sarah Coates, this was the location of the city's most ornate theater in the 1870s. The Coates family acquired and platted many of the streets that now make up this part of the city, and they also established a nearby hotel at a time when this location was nearly a mile from the center of the city. Coates hoped his theater would only feature operas and other productions that brought high culture to Kansas City, but smaller productions, including minstrel shows, were held frequently to draw regular crowds and maintain a steady flow of income. After being destroyed by a 1901 fire, the location sat vacant until 1910, when a tobacco warehouse was constructed. In 1912, the current structure was complete and home to the Rothenberg & Schloss Cigar Company. In a nod to the area's history, the building is now known as the Opera House Lofts.

The theater was part of Kersey and Sarah Coate's plan to support Kansas City's growth, something that was important to the Quaker couple who arrived in the territorial period and were ardent supporters of the Free State and Union cause during the Civil War. The theater was located on the outskirts of the city when it was completed in 1870, as was their hotel. Within a decade, the twin institutions brought many people to the area that would be known as Quality Hill. “For the quickly growing city to become truly exceptional," the Kansas City Public Library explained, "Coates believed it needed an opera house that could bring first-class entertainment to Kansas City."

The Coates Opera House was a central part of the city's cultural life when it was destroyed by a fire on January 31, 1901. The Coates Hotel, located just south and east of this theater, was the site of the city's most deadly structure fire seventy-seven years later. Fortunately, the 1901 fire occurred just after the evening's production had ended, and no one was injured in the blaze. The last performance at the theater was originally going to be a much longer production, Shakespere's Hamlet. Had Hamlet been performed, the theater would have been full of patrons at the time of the blaze. Some actors were still present at the time of the fire, but they were able to escape through open windows.

For nine years after the fire, the area sat vacant, and many residents hoped another theater would be constructed in its place. By that time, however, the city was home to several large theaters, and its lot became home to the Rothenberg & Schloss Cigar Company. The site of the former hotel is now home to the Opera House Lofts. In recent years, the Quality Hill Playhouse has carried on the tradition of live performances in the area.

Editors, kchistory.org. “Coates Opera House Theater.” KC History, 2024, kchistory.org/islandora/object/kchistory%253A99609. 

Roe, Jason. “Last Night at the Opera House.” KC History, kchistory.org/week-kansas-city-history/last-night-opera-house. Accessed 4 Nov. 2024.