Ritz Theatre

The Columbia Opera House (321 5th) showed movies for a time and the small building just to the east of it (323 5th) also was a movie theater in the 1910s.

The Ritz Theatre first appears in the FDY in 1928, which is also the first year in which two other theater names are not listed: the Scenic and the New Radio. Those two were listed 1926 through 1928. Correctionville does not appear in the 1914-1915 American Motion Picture Directory. I’ve been unable to discover if the Ritz was an entirely new house or if it was either the Scenic or the Radio under a new name. As the Ritz first appears in the 1928 FDY it must have opened in 1927, and would have appeared on the 1927 Sanborn (kdavis' first comment above) whether it was a new building or an older one. The Ritz was first listed with 200 seats, but no seating capacities were listed for the Scenic or Radio.

The local belief that Eddie Osipowicz built and operated the Ritz is partly correct. Boxoffice of October 27, 1951 reported that R. P. DeVries had sold the Ritz Theatre at Correctionville to Edward Osipowicz. After that, Osipowicz is mentioned in connection wit the Ritz in many issue of Boxoffice, as late as the issue of May 11, 1964. The Ritz might not have been providing an adequate income for him by then, though, as the item noted that Osipowicz was busy painting a drive-in restaurant that was to be operated by his brother-in-law. Earlier items had noted the Ritz closing, or re-opening after being closed for extended periods of time, and often operating on a limited schedule.

The Ritz theatre was one of several stand-alone theatre buildings in Correctionville, Iowa, the first of which was called “The Scenic” (later “New Scenic”), located in the former New Hardware store, next to the Columbia Opera House. The New Scenic closed permanently after a fire in 1927. The small hollow brick building that would later be called “The Ritz” was built by John Clark in 1922 and was first known as “The American.” When purchased by Cecil “Lefty” Seff, he renamed it to “The Radio” and then “New Radio,” selling the theater to the St. Peters brothers in 1928. It was Cecil and Eli St. Peters who named it “The Ritz” but they lost interest when their mother fell down the basement stairs of the theater and died. The brothers sold it to L. W. Splichal in 1929 and he ran it until 1939, introducing “talkies” and installing a street side well-lit marquee. Richard “Dick” DeVries owned it from 1939-1951, when he sold it to Edward Osipowicz. All subsequent owners kept the name “The Ritz” and the Osipowicz family ran full-time scheduled showings until about 1966, and the chairs and equipment were removed in about 1980. You can still see the chains that once held the grand marquee and location of the poster boxes on the streetside. The former theater building is now used for equipment storage.

Sources: 150th Anniversary History, Correctionville, Iowa; The Correctionville News; Interview with Denny Osipowicz; and “Bailey: A Wonderful Life.”