Next door to the Sprague Block, on the southwest corner of State and Tioga, stood the Wilgus Block (1868). Brothers John M. Wilgus, an architect, and Henry L. Wilgus, a real estate dealer, built the Wilgus Block on the site of Dwight Tavern, an early "publick house." Wilcox and Porter of Buffalo designed the building. The Wilgus Opera House, seating 1600 people, occupied the third and fourth floors. Retail stores occupied the first floor, offices the second. The opera house was Ithaca's main entertainment center until the Lyceum Theater was built on South Cayuga Street in 1893. From 1894 until 1911 (except for occasional years), the Ithaca Conservatory of Music occupied the second and third floors of the Wilgus Block. http://tcpl.org/local-history/documents/ithaca-tc/Ithaca_and_its_Past/001to48.pdf

December 3, 1884