SKOWHEGAN — More than 116 years ago, the people of Skowhegan were gearing up to watch the first shows at their town’s new opera house, part of a new municipal building to replace one that burned down a few years earlier.

Opening night, Feb. 13, 1909, was set to feature a production of Eugene Walter’s drama “The Wolf” put on by an “all star cast,” according to an advertisement published in the Somerset Reporter two days before.

A few days later, theatergoers could take in the musical “45 Minutes From Broadway” — dubbed “the play that impresses all America.”

Now more than a century later, the newspaper advertisement for the opening productions in 1909 has a new home right at the opera house, upstairs in the municipal building on Water Street.

A woman with local ties found the ad by chance and recently donated it to Lights Up Productions, the nonprofit formed last year to operate and renovate the historic space.

“The whole thing is pretty neat,” said Merrill Vaughn, who along with her husband, Glen Davis, presented it to the nonprofit’s leaders Tuesday.

Vaughn, who grew up in Skowhegan and now splits time between homes in South Solon and New Jersey, said she found the advertisement about two years ago behind a framed print that belonged to her grandmother.

“I took it apart to see if I could make it stronger, the frame,” she said Friday. “And there was this newspaper folded up as padding, if you will. And I unfolded it. The backside that you don’t see in the framed artwork was of advertisements in Skowhegan.”

“I turned the paper over and then I saw the advertisement for the opening show at the opera house,” Vaughn continued, “and I thought, ‘Oh wow, this is really cool.’”

Vaughn, who works as a senior editor at Forbes Magazine, then got the newspaper framed and put under archival glass to protect it.

Vaughn said she thinks the frame containing the newspaper, which held a print of Abraham Lincoln, likely originated with her great-grandmother, based on the date. It likely hung at a family cottage on Pleasant Pond in Caratunk, she said.

There are other interesting listings on the page, Vaughn said, like birth, death and marriage announcements, once common in newspapers before the dawn of the digital age.

“Just a snapshot of a day in time,” Vaughn said.

Lyn Govoni, president of Lights Up Productions, said the framed advertisement will be hung in the lobby outside the opera house.

Her group is about one year into a three-year agreement with the town to run the 840-seat opera house. The aging space, designed by noted Maine architect John Calvin Stevens, needed work and the town was not willing to take on the expense.

Over the years the venue hosted musical artists and other acts from around the country. Booker T. Washington, William Jennings Bryan, and William Howard Taft delivered speeches there, according to the National Register of Historic Places.

But in the last decade or so, as the space has aged and been flagged for safety issues, the venue has largely hosted local dance company recitals, an annual visit from comedian Bob Marley and a handful of other events and shows.

Planned renovations are expected to maintain the opera house’s historic character, nonprofit leaders said last year. Govoni said Friday that fundraising efforts are ongoing, though federal funding cuts have impacted the opportunity for grants for arts organizations.

For those interested in learning more about the building’s history, Govoni said Lights Up Productions is hosting local historian Melvin Burnham for another round of historical tours this summer. Tours are scheduled for July 16, with sessions running from 4:30-5:15 p.m. and 5:15-6 p.m.