Building
Fulton Hall, named after Robert Fulton, Lancaster County's steam engine pioneer, was built on the foundation of Lancaster's pre-Revolutionary jail. In 1763, a vigilante gang known as the Paxtang Boys massacred the Conestoga Indians being held there for their protection. This was a monumental event throughout the colonies and became the subject matter for the first plays ever written on American soil - A Dialogue Between Andrew Trueman and Thomas Zealot About the Killing the Indians at Cannestogoe and Lancaster and The Paxton Boys, a Farce. The exterior wall of the jail courtyard is now the back wall of the theatre. Christopher Hager, a Lancaster merchant and civic leader, commissioned the renowned Philadelphia architect Samuel Sloan (who later designed the Lancaster County Courthouse) to create a building that would serve as a community center for meetings, lectures, concerts, and theatrical performances. The building was erected in 1852.
The Fulton Theatre was later modified by noted theatrical architect Edwin Forrest Durang, is one of only three theatres recognized as National Historic Landmarks (the others are the Walnut Street Theatre in Philadelphia and the Goldenrod Showboat in St. Louis, Missouri). The 1959 production of Our Town, starring Jeanne Clemson, marked that first time that a live theater production had been performed at the Fulton Opera House in thirty years.
Read more about this topic: Fulton Opera House
Famous quotes containing the word building:
“For we know that if the earthly tent we live in is destroyed, we have a building from God, a house not made with hands, eternal in the heavens.”
—Bible: New Testament, 2 Corinthians 5:1.
“It would be naive to think that peace and justice can be achieved easily. No set of rules or study of history will automatically resolve the problems.... However, with faith and perseverance,... complex problems in the past have been resolved in our search for justice and peace. They can be resolved in the future, provided, of course, that we can think of five new ways to measure the height of a tall building by using a barometer.”
—Jimmy Carter (James Earl Carter, Jr.)
“An island always pleases my imagination, even the smallest, as a small continent and integral portion of the globe. I have a fancy for building my hut on one. Even a bare, grassy isle, which I can see entirely over at a glance, has some undefined and mysterious charm for me.”
—Henry David Thoreau (1817–1862)