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Looking back at the beloved Decker’s Opera House

By Jade Heasley/Correspondent - | Oct 4, 2024

The parking lot between the library and the former Clinton Baptist church was once the home of George Decker’s Opera House, known for dances and entertainment in Montgomery’s early days. The first floor of the building was a store, and the second story was the opera house.

George Decker was a member of the prominent Decker family. His father was Henry Decker, a businessman who built many homes in Montgomery. George was one of 12 children, and three of his brothers, William, Isaac and J.C., were also well-known business owners whose companies contributed significantly to the economic growth that put Montgomery on the map in the late 1800s and well into the 20th century.

A variety of forms of entertainment were provided by the opera house over the years. In the Montgomery Area Bicentennial Celebration book by Jackie Pick, Dorothy Shelley, Lorraine Norris, and Marion McCormick, under a section of the book entitled, “Anecdotes from the pen of Mrs. Ralph Decker,” it was written that the opera house hosted dances, silent movies, and musicals.

The book recorded that when dances were held, the women who traveled to Montgomery from neighboring towns and the surrounding countryside wouldn’t wear their elegant gowns on the wagon rides into town. Geneva Decker recalled in the book that the ladies would bring them along and stop by the nearby Decker home to change before going to the opera house. Bringing their gowns was most likely not only to prevent them from wrinkling, but probably an effective way of keeping them clean from the dust that the horses kicked up from dirt roads.

Years after the dances had ended, they were reminisced about by Mrs. Ralph Decker, who wrote, “Oh, those fancy ‘dress up’ dances the Susquehanna Club men sponsored in the Opera House, owned by George Decker. The orchestra (not a juke box) would sit on the platform and play the beautiful waltzes and two-step and the dancers crowded the dance floor.”

The Susquehanna Club was founded in 1900, according to the Aug. 26, 1900, issue of The Evening News, a Williamsport newspaper.

One of the Susquehanna Club dances was reported in The Evening News on Nov. 24, 1903. At that time the club’s membership was comprised of thirty-five men. They had their own club rooms on Main Street on the second floor of the Miller’s Drug Store building. But on Friday, Nov. 20, 1903, they held a special event in the opera house that was attended by 175 people. The gathering was simply referred to as a reception, but the paper stated that the activities included dancing with music from a live orchestra and card games as well. “The opera house was beautifully decorated with flags and club colors — orange and black. A parlor was arranged in one end of the room for card playing and presented a very cozy appearance.” It also said that the room was decorated with palms and evergreens.

The paper reported, “The refreshments which consisted of turkey sandwiches, chicken salad, olives, ice cream, cake, coffee, and salted peanuts were served by B.G. Toby.”

Various events and social column pieces were written in several local newspapers about the Susquehanna Club until the 1920s, but none of the available historical resources recorded when or why the club disbanded.

The Opera House building was torn down in 1976 as part of a community improvement project, according to Joan Wheal-Blank’s book Around Montgomery.