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"Greetings," he said. "I'm William Mauthe, one of the first residents of our fine city. I built the first brick house in the town of Franklin and the first hotel, the Franklin House.
"Franklin wasn't much of a town, but something was about to happen. In 1853, the first train came to town."
Gabi Unnerstall, dressed in period dress with a large lace shawl collar, white gloves and a hat was Susan Jeffries, who recalled stories told by her husband C.S. Jeffries who arrived in Labadie in 1819 when Franklin County was just a frontier.
"My husband loved to tell the story of how long it took them to cross the Mississippi River and when they reached the other side that cold December day," she said.
"So do you remember when the Pacific Railroad came?" Merchant Mauthe asked.
"I was at a party like we'd never seen," Mrs. Jeffries answered.
One by one, young actors, dressed for the occasion, walked onto the stage and entered the conversation.
Jenna Halker, dressed in a floor length dress, white gloves and a wide-brimmed hat, was Franciska Kessler, wife of the town's cabinetmaker and undertaker. Her husband had been a master carpenter who learned his craft in Germany, she said. He also became the undertaker because he could build caskets.
"We didn't have banks then," she said. "My Henry would loan money to families to get a start if they could convince him they were serious."
Enter Olivia Lindemann as Emma Ottman. Her husband had learned the carpenter trade from Uncle Henry. He later started the first city fire department and served as fire chief for 20 years.
Next came Christiana Gross, wife of the town baker. On a record day, the family bakery sold 2,300 loaves of fresh baked bread.
"Good evening ma'am," said tall and lanky Jacob Penrod, who introduced himself as Louis Zitzman, the town's first blacksmith. With heat and a hammer, he said, he crafted everything from kitchen pots to plows. He greeted Ethan Penrod, who played Dr. Henry Davis, the frontier doctor who is credited with saving St. Louis from the yellow fever.
The doctor said due to wear and tear on his horse and buggy he was well aware of the blacksmith's skills.
"I was one of the best customers Zitzman's blacksmith shop had," he said.
"I was always glad to get your buggy ready to go," the blacksmith said. "We were grateful for how you helped people and your work with the yellow fever."
Easing their way into the conversation, Courtney Shearin as Sophia Straumann and Olivia Unnerstall as Blanch Pletcher talked about the specials at Straumann's Meat Market and recalled the Civil War and the time Gen. Sterling Price burned the Frisco Railroad bridge and the train depot.
Audience members who knew her commented that the late Blanch Pletcher would have loved the beaded dress and hat that Olivia wore.
The show concluded with a scene where Lauren Penrod as Mrs. Dailey danced onto the stage twirling a lace umbrella. She set aside the umbrella to give a hug to her sister-in-law Mrs. McHugh, played by Madison Skiljan. The two ladies reminisced about the adventure of their husbands building the fine brick building with materials from the St. Louis World's Fair and raising 15 children together on its second floor.
The players showed no eagerness to leave the stage after the production ended. They invited family members onto the stage to participate in an old-fashioned hoedown.
Shirley Hillhouse wrote the one-act play, which was based loosely on Sue Reed's book "In Retrospect."
Reed, who was in the audience for the show, dubbed the production "delightful," and said for her it was the realization of a dream.
"One of the reasons I wrote the book was to get local people involved in local history," she said. "Especially children."
Reed, who helped restore the McHugh-Dailey third floor opera house for little theater in 1972, said she could not resist a comparison.
"So here we have little theater come alive again," she said. "It's wonderful."
The 1972 little theater was disbanded when the fire marshal closed the third floor of the McHugh-Dailey Building because there was only one entrance.
An elevator has since been added and the third floor is undergoing extensive renovation. If repairs are completed in time, the third annual children's theater workshop will be held in the old opera house, according to Mary Beth Schmidt, organizer of Art's Alive, which sponsored the event.
"This show was a whopping success," Schmidt said. "It's a thrill to see what these young people can do. We were blessed to have the Pacific High School auditorium. If we can do a production of this caliber in our second year, just wait to see what we do next year."
The young players have been asked to perform "Pacific: The Early Years" at the Tri-County Community Senior Center, the Pacific Care Center, Cruise Night and for Railroad Days.
For information about the show, contact Hillhouse at 636-742-3926.
