Ashland’s Chautauqua dome, rebuilt and remodeled twice since its creation in 1893, sits prominently at the end of Lithia Park in 1928. Today, the Oregon Shakespeare Festival’s Elizabethan Theatre occupies that same site.
The Oregon Historical Society. Negative #59290. Photo by Brubaker Aerial Photography for The Oregon Journal.
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In the 1800’s, America's Chautauqua movement was gaining popularity across the country as a campaign of adult education, featuring lecturers, musicians, preachers and entertainers. Nationally, many Chautauquas took place under canvas tents. Ashland was one of the few towns that constructed a building to house these fashionable events.
Constructed in 1893 in just 10 days, Ashland's Chautauqua dome held 1,000 people. Rebuilt and remodeled twice since its construction, the dome was dismantled in 1933. Two years later, on the site of the building's ruins, the First Annual Shakespearean Festival was presented in the tradition of the open theaters of Shakespeare’s time. This stage evolved into the current Elizabethan Theatre, built on that same site in 1959 to seat 1,200 people.