The Walker Grand Opera House. Operascope. Organ of Amusement and Advertising Medium for Salt Lake City. Vol. 1, Number 26

Folio (35 cm x 25.5 cm), [4] pp, lithographically printed, with an illustrated masthead; the central column of the front page is devoted to the Walker Grand Opera House concert for Saturday evening, July 29, 1882, with a detailed programme for a performance by The Original Tennessee Jubilee and Plantation Singers (the programme is continued on the second page); the remainder of the publication is filled with advertisements (several illustrated) for an array of Salt Lake City businesses, including F. H. Nelden's Wasatch Drug Store and mercantile printery, W. H. Yearian & Co., Joslin & Park, Rudolph Alff, Mulloy & Paul, Walker Bros., Chapman & Whytock, Goldsmith & Co., Cohn Bros., W. L. Pickard, G. M. Peirce, F. E. Schoppe, A. L. Williams, Jos. Baumgarten, Kelly Bros., John S. Lindsay, J. D. Farmer, Careless & Croxall, Buckle & Son, Durst & Trimble, Great Western Trunk Factory, C. J. Gustaveson, F. M. Bishop, and Geo. A. Meears; the third page contains numerous pieces of advertising copy for some of the aforementioned enterprises, plus a cryptically-worded paragraph spruiking celebrated Salt Lake City artist Alfred Lambourne's spectacular drop curtain in the Opera House. A well preserved, clean and complete example of a very rare ephemeral Salt Lake City publication. The Walker Grand Opera House was opened on June 5, 1882; Operascope was published for its proprietors- apparently two or three times weekly- by Frank Nelden, a Salt Lake City druggist and printer. For how long Operascope remained in circulation, or how many issues were printed in total, is not clear. However, in The Utah Directory for 1883-84, Frank Nelden & Co. are still listed as Fine Book and Job Printers and Binders, Publishers of the Operascope, 1222 2nd South St., bet. E. & W. Temple, Salt Lake City, Utah. Frank Holcomb Nelden (1858-1936) is an interesting figure in the history of commerce in the early American West. With regards to his profession, he was a druggist first and foremost; printing appears to have been for him only a business sideline during the earlier part of his career in Salt Lake City. The following extract gives an overview of Nelden's pharmaceutical career in Salt Lake City from 1883 up until 1892. It is taken from Utah: her cities, towns and resources. Together with a condensed but comprehensive account of her financial, commercial, manufacturing, mining and agricultural enterprises, her educational, religious and social advantages, her progress and population in the past, and possibilities for the future (Chicago : Manly & Litteral, 1891-1892). "Roberts & Nelden, wholesale and retail dealers in drugs. This enterprise was established about 1883 by Messrs Roberts & Nelden, the latter however purchasing the interests of the former in March 1891, though business is still continued under the name of the old firm. This house carries a very large stock of drugs, chemicals etc., and transacts a heavy business, the trade, principally wholesale, being throughout Utah, Idaho, Montana, Wyoming, Eastern Nevada and Western Colorado, and footing up $100,000 annually. They occupy a large and commodious three storey and basement rear, brick building, together with a warehouse filled with one of the most extensive lines of drugs of the purest qualities in the West. Mr. Nelden is a practical druggist of twenty-five years experience and has been a resident of Utah for twelve years. He devotes his personal attention to all the details of his immense business, and employs none but experienced and skillful pharmacists as assistants. He is a native of New Jersey and for a number of years was engaged in business at Phillipsburgh in that State. He is an active enterprising man, of recognized commercial abilities; is broad and liberal in his transactions, and has the confidence of all with whom he does business. He is highly esteemed in social circles and his facilities for doing business as also his superior qualifications for its management are unsurpassed, while.…