Site of the Old Wheeler Opera House - NW Corner of Monroe and St. Clair
The old Wheeler Opera House stood where the Sea Gate Convention Center is today -- the North-west corner of Monroe and St. Clair Streets. Lyman Wheeler I, one of Toledo's pioneer settlers, established a retail store here in 1836. His son Robert Jeffrey Wheeler built the Wheeler Opera House in 1871. It burned down in a spectacular fire in 1893. A commercial building, known as the Wheeler Block, was built at this site soon afterwards and it was in the possession of the Wheeler family until 1935. Wheeler block was demolished during early 1980s. St. Clair Street north of Monroe was blocked off and the Convention Center now occupies the NW and NE corners of Monroe and St. Clair.
July 2003
