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Lecture Tour of America 1882

Writing and Research on Oscar Wilde

Topeka

Kansas

Crawford's Opera House

Thursday, April 20, 1882

The Decorative Arts

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Verification

Newspaper report

The Topeka Daily Capital, April 21, 1882, 8

Newspaper advertisement

The Daily Commonwealth (Topeka, KS) April 16, 1882, 3

Venue

Crawford's Opera House

612—614 Kansas Avenue (SE corner of Sixth Street), Topeka, KS

Built: 1881 (Lester M. Crawford)

Opened: September 5, 1881

Seating capacity: c. 1,000

On this site Lorenzo Costa purchased an 1861 building and opened the first play house in Topeka in 1870. L. M. Crawford bought the property in 1880, made extensive alterations operating as Crawford's Opera House. This structure was destroyed by fire on December 2, 1880, and replaced the following summer by a new building where Wilde lectured.

This opera house is not to be confused with the Grand Opera House on lots 193, 195, and 197 Jackson Street, which opened in September 1882, several months after Wilde lectured in Topeka.

Accommodation

Windsor Hotel

Built: 1860 (as Tefft House)

Opened as Windsor Hotel: February 1, 1882

Closed: 1889 when bought by the First National Bank of Topeka who incorporated their business into a hotel under the name of the National Hotel.

Ephemera

The Daily Commonwealth (Topeka, KS), April 22, 1882

The Atchison Daily Globe (Atchison, KS), April 21, 1882, 1

John Cooper on Oscar Wilde © 2026