[Texas]. [Theater]

Craddock's Opera House. Lambert & Richardson's Superb Dramatic Co. Silver Band and Orchestra [caption title]

Dallas: Carter & Gibson, 1883. Small silk broadside, 8.5 x 3.5 inches. Frayed at edges, cut from a fabric printing multiple advertisements. Minor soiling and foxing. Good plus. Item #1859

Scarce silk handbill that advertises a performance of the play “Banker’s Daughter” on, April 6, 1883 at Craddock's Opera House in Dallas. Craddock opened the Opera House in the late 1870s on the second floor of his liquor store at the corner of Main and Austin. The theater proved quite popular, but was eventually run out of business during the mid-1880s by the opening of the large Dallas Opera House. This broadside promotional was published by short-lived Dallas job printers Carter & Gibson, and, according to the imprint, "perfumed with 'Fleur de Alba' one of 42 “odors” manufactured by the Florentine Perfumers, Chicago, with the compliments of Mr. H.L. Leach" (scent no longer present). A scarce relic of theatrical history in early Dallas; OCLC locates only one copy, at SMU.

Price: $600.00