Guyer Opera House

Dr. Oscar K. Guyer, a Lewisville physician, began building this opera house in 1901 over years of pushback from skeptical townspeople, but died that March at 49 — he never saw it open, and his own funeral was held in its auditorium. In the spring of 1923, six-year-old Newell Calpha was accidentally shot in the forehead during a firearms demonstration while watching from the third row and died without regaining consciousness. Staff describe dressing-room lights turning on one by one, banging from the back of the auditorium, sudden temperature drops, growling that has driven workers from the light booth, and the outline of a figure seen in the backstage windows.