Parker's Opera House, also known as Opera House Store, Woolworth's and Parker Place, is a historic building located in

Mason City, Iowa Mason City is a city and the county seat of Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, Cerro Gordo County, Iowa, United States. The population was 27,338 in the 2020 United States census, 2020 census. Mason City is known for its musical heritage, a significant ...

, United States. It was designed by the prominent Des Moines architect William Foster. Cousins H. G. and A. T. Parker built this structure as an opera house, the first in the community. with While it initially filled a need in Mason City, it was replaced by more modern theatres around the turn of the 20th century. The third floor was added in 1909, spanning the middle of the auditorium. The first floor initially housed a clothing store, and was occupied by F. W. Woolworth Companystarting in the mid-1920s, while the upper floors housed the local offices of the

Standard Oil Company Standard Oil Company was a corporate trust in the petroleum industry that existed from 1882 to 1911. The origins of the trust lay in the operations of the Standard Oil Company (Ohio), which had been founded in 1870 by John D. Rockefeller. The ...

at the same time. A two-story addition at the rear was built in the 1960s. The first floor was redesigned in 1997 for Central Park Dentistry and the upper floors were converted into apartments in 2013. Stone was used for both structural and decorative purposes and a metal

cornice In architecture, a cornice (from the Italian ''cornice'' meaning "ledge") is generally any horizontal decorative Moulding (decorative), moulding that crowns a building or furniture element—for example, the cornice over a door or window, ar ...

caps the main facade. The building was individually listed on the

National Register of Historic Places The National Register of Historic Places (NRHP) is the Federal government of the United States, United States federal government's official United States National Register of Historic Places listings, list of sites, buildings, structures, Hist ...

in 1998, and was designated as a

contributing property In the law regulating historic districts in the United States, a contributing property or contributing resource is any building, object, or structure which adds to the historical integrity or architectural qualities that make the historic dist ...

in the Mason City Downtown Historic District in 2005. with

References

Theatres completed in 1883 Apartment buildings in Mason City, Iowa National Register of Historic Places in Mason City, Iowa Victorian architecture in Iowa Opera houses on the National Register of Historic Places in Iowa Individually listed contributing properties to historic districts on the National Register in Iowa {{Iowa-struct-stub