movies,” she said. “As children, we
weren’t supposed to go to either one of
those theaters.”
Another theater could also be found on
Church Street. “The only other building
in Ottumwa that I know was built specifically
to be a theater was the Zephyr
at Five Corners. It’s now the Masonic
Temple.”
Her research also uncovered a fourth
downtown theater on Green Street:
“There was another theater that was
not in use,” Myers Naumann said. “I do
not even remember it being a theater. I
found it out through research, but it sat
on Green Street on the side where the
parking lot is now, and it sat right on the
alley. That appears to have been in use at
the latest in the ‘30s and maybe, maybe
the ‘40s, but I don’t even remember it.”
Despite the large number of theaters,
there was a need at the time for so many
of them.
“We didn’t have TVs,” Myers Naumann
said. “I think most people had radios. But
we didn’t have DVDs. I mean, back then
what you did for enjoyment was you went
to a movie, and it was a cheap date, so to
speak.
“We think about movies being such an
everyday thing. But you have to remember
that the first ‘talkie’ came out in the
late ‘20s and movies were still a comparative
novelty.”
She also said the population at the time
was at least what it is now, so there was a
need for the theaters and movies. She said
the movies played for four or five days
at a time before they left and something
new came.
“The weekends were big nights downtown,”
Myers Naumann said. “There
were movies all week, but it was Fridays
and Saturdays people really came up
to see the films. And those are the days
when, if a new movie had come out that
had really been promoted, the lines would
run around the corner and up Green
Street or down along Main Street for
several buildings.”
It was also the day of double features.
She said you could walk into a movie at
anytime, watch it to the end, watch the
second film and then stay to catch a replay
of the first film. “You could be there
for hours,” she said.
The last movie she remembers seeing in
the Ottumwa Theater was “Blazing Sad-
CAPRI THEATRE BUILDING 1986
“ [THE STAIRCASES] WERE
WIDE AND CARPETED, AND TO
A LITTLE GIRL, YOU COULD
JUST IMAGING FLOATING
DOWN THOSE STEPS IN
A BEAUTIFUL DRESS OR
PRETEND BEING A BRIDE AND
COMING DOWN. I MEAN, IT
WAS REALLY, REALLY NEAT,
SOMETHING SPECIAL.”
-MOLLY MYERS NAUMANN
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