James M. Hamilton, a shoe merchant of St. Louis, was persuaded by his friend Charlie Tamme to construct this Opera House in 1882. Tamme, a German, and George W. Ward, a Kentuckian, co-proprietors of the popular Monarch Billiard Hall, were responding to editor Russell Kistler's published challenge to the community in his Daily Optic newspaper, for someone to establish an opera house. The Las Vegas Dancing Academy moved into the Opera House. The Opera House was sold in 1893 to William, Charles, and Saul Rosenthal after Tamme had established his larger opera house on Douglas Ave. The Rosenthal brothers, had a general merchandise and furniture business and also purchased the Lockhart & Co. building, eventually replacing it with a brick building. The Optic said of their father that, "N.L. Rosenthal's was the pioneer mercantile house of the eastside." Only the outer shell and some columns remain of the original building.

Optic Building Edition 1899, pg. 25