Structure Type: built works - performing arts structures - opera houses; built works - performing arts structures - theatres
Designers: [unspecified]
Dates: [unspecified]
Overview
Maguire's New Opera House was in operation on 02/16/1857. (See Maguire's New Opera House Advertisement, Daily Alta California, vol. 9, no. 46, 02/16/1857, p. 1.) T. Maguire was the proprietor.
Building Notes
At age 39, Thomas Maguire, with his opera house only open a short time, had done very well financially The 1860 US Census recorded that the impresario owned $70,000 worth of real estate and had a personal estate of $5,000. The value of his real estate, likely that of his theatre, made him a wealthy man by standards of the time. One striking aspect of the 1860 Census page was the cosmopolitan nature of his residential neighborhood. Nearby residents had been born in Prussia, Ireland, the Isle of Man, Saxony, Württemberg, Hesse, China, Hanover, Bavaria, Norway and Hungary, as well as across the US. San Francisco truly had become a world city by 1860, if not in cultural attainment, by mix of population. It suggests the true reach and drawing power of the Gold Rush to magnetize fortune seekers from all over the globe. (See Ancestry.com, Source Citation Year: 1860; Census Place: San Francisco District 3, San Francisco, California; Page: 9; Family History Library Film: 803067, accessed 02/21/2021.)
PCAD id: 20470