Since the town’s early days as a small mining camp, theater has always been a part of the rich heritage of Cripple Creek. Theaters and opera houses have come and gone over the years, but one historical venue that began in the heyday of the gold rush still features exciting and original live entertainment to this day: the Butte Theater.
The “Butte Concert and Beer Hall” premiered in 1896, when proprietors Halbekann & Hertz featured nightly entertainment, including a Ladies’ Vienna Orchestra. Cripple Creek’s opera house went on to have many lives over its 100+ year history – it was a skating rink, a dance academy and an auto garage, to name a few. It even housed the Cripple Creek Fire Department! Today the Butte Theater is one of only a handful of theaters in the country still consistently producing Classic Melodramas.