[1] The current opera house, designed by George G. Adams, a leading architect of public buildings in New England,[2] was finished on August 23, 1899.

Its theater was used until World War I for all manner of performances, meetings, and lectures, and fell into decline with the advent of motion pictures.

[4] In the decades that followed its opening, the opera house served as a venue for staged plays, speakers, traveling shows, bands, and politicians.

People such as Helen Keller, Eugene V. Debs, George M. Cohan, Emma Goldman, John Philip Sousa and Tom Mix graced its stage.

As other, competing movie venues were built in and around Barre, the opera house fell out of favor with the advent of motion pictures and closed its doors in January 1944, remaining vacant for nearly 40 years.

[4] For a decade after its reopening, the opera house underwent a series of incremental upgrades which added curtains, stage lights and a working heating system.

:[6] "The proudly blue-collar city supports the arts; rust-peppered pickup trucks jostled newer cars in the overflowing parking lot of the 1899 Barre Opera House for a recent performance of Carmen.