Exterior view of the Pipers Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada, showing fire hydrant and crumbling brick wall, ca.1935

Photograph of an exterior view of the Pipers Opera House in Virginia City, Nevada, showing fire hydrant and crumbling brick wall, ca.1935. A split-level two-story building is shown at center on a gentle slope. The building, constructed in what appears to be the Second Empire style of architecture, is primarily clapboard, with its colonnaded face surfaced in brick, while this face of the building also bears a decorative medallion. Each of the main doors and windows is framed by a decorative arch. The building is in a slight state of disrepair: the shingles of its roof are uneven and warped, a brick and stovepipe chimney on the lower roof is bent, some of the clapboard has come undone and several panes of glass appear to be missing from the leftmost window. A fire hydrant and crumbling brick wall are visible in the left foreground.; Pipers Opera House, the oldest theatre in Nevada, was built by John Piper in 1864. In its heyday, it played the best talent available. The front was a bar room, while another part of the building was once used as a city jail. At the time of the photograph, it was the oldest theater in Nevada.