Constructed in the Italian Renaissance Revival style by Ed and Fred Cary, the Lodi Opera House was completed in October 1904. Financed by businessman Charles Lever Van Buskirk, who along with his wife Angie supported temperance and envisioned the venue as a moral alternative to saloons, it stood above E. Oppenheim's ground floor store. The 900-seat entertainment space hosted 650 patrons for the January 26, 1905 opening of "King Dodo," performed by San Francisco's Tivoli Opera Company. It presented recitals, plays, operas, minstrel shows, concerts, graduations, dances, orations, and hypnotists until 1913, when Lodi's two moving picture houses popularized film over live entertainment. Newfield & Sons occupied the retail space from 1919 to 1988, when Thornton House relocated to Lodi from Stockton.