In 1881, Wilson C. Edsell built the town's first bank and opera house. Edsell's Opera House was the primary entertainment venue in town for many years until the opening of the Nickelodeon (Irv Nichols's theatre venture) in 1909. An "Uncle Tom's Cabin" troupe played the Opera House stage on an annual basis. Native American vaudeville shows, called "medicine shows", were popular. Maro the Magician, stock theater groups, minstrel shows took the opera house stage on a regular basis, with the minstrel shows led by the town's one African American resident Jim Smith.