Here, in 1928, Franklin Delano Roosevelt delivered a “Happy Warrior” speech in behalf of presidential nominee, Al Smith.

John Drew, grandmother of the Barrymores, starred in She Stoops to Conquer. Sullivan, the world champion gave a boxing exhibition, and Mrs. Oscar Wilde and Williams Jennings Bryan lectured here John L.

“Blind Tom” Bethune, the Negro musical prodigy born near Columbus, performed here often. Here Edwin Booth played Hamlet, February 15, 1876, on his first Southern tour after the War. The Springer’s forty-foot deep stage held a continuous round of shows of every description. Theater in Columbus found its finest home on February 27, 1871, when Francis Joseph Springer, originally of Alsace, opened his opera house. When the newly renovated Springer Opera House reopened in 1965, Southerners once again hurried to their seats beneath the huge brass chandelier to enjoy the very best in theatre, music and dance.Springer Opera House. As the wrecking ball hovered above the stage house, a group of citizens determined to save the Springer aroused community support and began to raise the funds to bring it back to life. In 1964, the theatre where the Barrymore's and the Booth's performed was slated for demolition. With the onset of the Great Depression, the vast network of road companies which provided the lifeblood of American theatre collapsed and the Springer succumbed to the advent of the newest technology, movies. The Springer continued as a major theatre center until the stock market crash of 1929. The Springer Opera House opened Februand soon became nationally known as the finest house between Washington and New Orleans. Springer became prosperous in the grocery business but had brought his love of theatre, music and dance from his native Rhine River Valley to the burgeoning Chattahoochee River Valley and dreamt of building a European style theatre here on the banks of this great Southern waterway. The spectacular American treasure was built by Francis Joseph Springer, an immigrant from Alsace who moved to Columbus before the War Between the States.

Springer opera house