Edward H. Couse purchased this lot and the original store building on it from Charles P. Ingalls. By 1885 Couse had succeeded well enough with his hardware business to expand his operation and replace his original wood framed building with a brick-veneered store building (shown above).
Building began during the summer of 1886. The cost of the Opera House was about $9,000. It was a 44-foot x 80-foot brick-veneered structure with two floors and a basement. There was an elevator at the back of the building running to the basement and up to the second floor, to move furniture, props and other large items. December 1886, was the opening of the Couse Opera House housed on the second floor.
The Opera House became the center of community activities and remained so for more than two decades. Sometime before the US entered WWI in 1917, Edward Couse sold his business, and it became the Miller Opera House. In the late twenties it became a JC Penney store and remained so for about thirty years. It is now the home of Ward's Store.
Pa's first building in town was located at the northwest corner of Second Street and Calumet Avenue. He had an office building and stable on this lot and his store was diagonal across the street from it.
The store had a tall false-front, a front door with a window on either side,
one long room and a back door with a side window near it. The family spent a short time here before they quickly moved out to the claim, fearful of claim-jumpers.
By the Shores of Silver Lake
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