The first families brought with them a taste for the ‘finer things.” No sooner had the bare necessities of daily life been established, than these people began to enrich their lives with whatever outlets were available.
The men were quick to form a Social Club for the purpose of conversation and recreations. By 1882, they met regularly in a false-fronted frame shack called the “Bachelor’s Den.” This build was off limits to the fair sex.
The pioneering families, who sank their roots into the promise of a new home on wilderness soil, had higher goals than the ‘get-rich-quick” focus of mining town dwellers. They intended to make a good life for their families, and brought as much as they could of the civilization they left behind them. Sadly it was often very little, as the necessities of life were much more demanding of space.
A major impetus came with the construction of the Anna Dora Opera House a top the brick hardware store building on the northwest corner of Third and Main. It was built by J. Frank Sanders and Ray Simpson. The name they gave the theater was the combination of their daughter’s names.
Life in Delta became both more convenient and more complex as the steady increase in population offered her citizens a wider range of materials and choices. By 1890 Delta claimed 810 of the approximately 2,500 people in the county. There were five saloons, one general store, one drug store five lawyers, and two doctors.
Linda
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