136-140 E. 4th St. – Bartholf Opera/Arcadia Hotel

(Known as A&B Building)

Frank G. Bartholf was fifteen in 1861 when his family moved west to homestead. By 1879, he operated a business in St. Louis (a small local community considered the forerunner to the city of Loveland) but the town was already fading. In nearby Loveland, E. S. Allen operated a harness shop on a corner lot that he owned. The two entrepreneurs teamed in 1884 to construct the A&B Building, which housed the area’s first opera hall on the second floor. Photographs show that there once was a cornice over the structure’s entrance that read A&B 1884. For many decades, the building housed W&T Pharmacy.

Eventually, Mr. Bartholf extended his land holdings to the Big Thompson Canyon where he built the Forks Hotel at Drake. A Larimer County Commissioner, he was instrumental in bringing the sugar factory to Loveland.