made to save it, the building had become structurally unsafe and was torn down in 1993. Burtis Opera House The Burtis Opera House was opened in Davenport in 1867 at 415 Perry Street. The theater could hold an audience of 1,600 and it was a widely used facility. Mark Twain spoke to a sold-out house on his "The American Vandal Abroad" tour in 1869. In March 1874 Susan B. Anthony lectured on the woman's right to vote. Al Jolson performed on the stage years after he worked as a singing waiter at Brick Munro's Pavilion in Bucktown. The Quad City Symphony Orchestra played its first concert as the Tri-City Symphony in the Burtis on March 29, 1916. The Burtis was an elegant building constructed in the Second Empire style. It featured a mansard roof with heavily hooded dormer windows. A bracketed cornice defined the transition from the roofline to wall elevation. A projecting pavilion with its own mansard roof contained the building's main entrance in the center of the façade. On April 26, 1921, an arsonist set fire to the building and it was largely destroyed. Charles T. Kindt, the building's owner and operator of the opera house, had the damaged building remodeled for the Thomas Cusack Company, an outdoor advertising firm from Chicago. Kindt was the district manager of the firm's Davenport branch. The Chicago architectural firm of Zimmerman, Saxe & Zimmerman designed the building's renovation, which was built by John Soller & Sons. Zimmerman worked nationally for Cusack, the world's largest outdoor ad firm at the time. The building's appearance was altered in the rebuilding process. The third story with its mansard roof, as well as the second floor, were not retained. The pilasters on the corners were shortened and a simple cornice was added across the top. The roof is flat and a raised parapet defines the main entrance. The arched windows that flanked the center pavilion were retained in an altered form. The building's style now resembles the Renaissance Revival style. By 1925 the building housed the General Outdoor Advertising Company. It was later occupied by a VFW post and state offices. The building stands on its own next to the raised railroad tracks since the Kimball House/Vale Apartments and the rail station have been torn down. Tri-City Electric occupied the building for several years before the United States Department of Veteran Affairs. In 2020 the