There was one building that I kept wanting to get into, but never could. That building was the old movie theater. It was located on the end of Main Street.

The theater was used right when motion pictures came out, but caught fire and was burned pretty badly. Quite a few people died when this happened. They did fix it up and try to get the movies going again, but nobody wanted to go to the shows there. They would rather travel the 20 miles to a nearby city, so the theater was shut down for good. This was around the late 1930s, I believe. So this thing had sat with its door locked for the better part of 70 years. I wanted to get into this building badly. It took me quite a few years to gain access to it.

Many years later, I was able to get into it. I was older, and ready to give it a shot. The other buildings I had explored were still being used, so I would just ask for permission from the owners. This one was illegal to get into, however.

I had to wait 'till about 2 in the morning, when the town was dead. The street-lights go off at 2 am, so that is my chance to get in unnoticed. I used a crowbar to wrench the padlock setup they had on the door off. There was just a single door in the front, so I had to use that. The door opened up, revealing stairs going down into what I called "extreme" darkness. You know how you can stand in the dark and still kinda see after your eyes adjust? Well, in this dark, you couldn't see anything. It was like being in a cave because there was absolutely no light source down there.

Thankfully I had brought a mag light and a lantern, so it wasn't that big of a deal. I made my way down the steps, making sure to close the door on my way down. I didn't want anybody to know I was there, since it was trespassing. The stairs led down quite a ways. Soon the hot, humid summer air ended, and was replaced with cold, dank air. It was quite a relief, actually. The air was pretty stagnant, however. Anyway, the stairs leading down met up with a short sort of hallway, then stairs leading up. It didn't make any sense to me then, and still doesn't now. I walked up those stairs and come to another door. Thankfully there was no lock on it, nor the handle. I simply pushed it open and walked into the room. The room I entered was the lobby. A moderately large room, with a booth for tickets, and some old chairs fixed to the floor. The lobby didn't yield anything interesting, so I marched onward.

I walked down a narrow hallway, and came to the screen room. It wasn't very large at all. It was about the size of a 2 car garage. The screen was gone, but the seats were all still intact. There was no projector room that I could see, but a fixed metal stand was in the back of the room. I could only assume that the film projector must have sat on it. I looked around there for a while and found an old wheat-penny! Finally this exploration was paying off. I walked back to the lobby to check out a doorway that I had saw before.

The light from my lantern showed a padlock on this door. That must mean there is some good stuff behind it! I pry off the lock and open the door. Inside is a small room that used to be an office. There's an old rotting desk in it, a wooden chair, and newspapers lying all over the floor. I tried to look at the newspapers, but the years of humidity had gotten to their print. There was nothing of interest in the desk, and the only framed picture on the wall was a painting of a flower pot.

There was another door at the other end of the office though, so I moved onto it. I tried to open it, but it wouldn't budge. The door was warped pretty bad. I had to shoulder it a couple times to get it to pop open. When it did, I almost tumbled quite a ways. Behind the door was steps leading down. I figured it must be the basement.

I made my way down the creaky old stairs, and walk into a very large room. I compared it to a basketball court in my mind. Scattered through the room were old brick pillars that made up the support for the building. Some of them were in bad shape, but still appeared to be holding strong. As I'm checking out one of the pillars, I hear the pitter-patter of feet off in the darkness behind me. I whipped out the mag light and shone it around. I can't see anything, however. I chalked it up to my imagination, and continued my exploring.

I first checked out what would be the north end of the room and I see a bunch of stuff under sheets. I pulled them off to find chairs stacked up neatly. Nothing too interesting. Next to the chairs are some boxes with old movie reels in them. I really wanted to take one with me, but I didn't. I'm not a thief.

More pattering off in the distance alarmed me. I call out to determine if anyone is there, but am met with no answers. I had thought someone had followed me into the theater, or that there was an animal in here with me. The mag light didn't shine as far as it normally would. The light beam would cut out after about 8 feet, so I didn't have a good view of everything that was around me. I was on guard now, since I knew something was in here. I started walking towards the noise with the flashlight and lantern glowing. I reached a wall, and hadn't seen anything. I didn't know what to think at that point. It's an old building though, so it could just be random noises that old buildings make. I decided to walk towards the east wall and check out anything that might be over there.

I get there and find a ton of wooden boxes piled to the ceiling, which was about 7 foot high. I start grabbing them off the top and checking the contents. There is nothing inside the boxes. All of the ones I searched through are empty. I get down to about 4 feet and see something behind where I had just pulled the box from. It's the outline of a hole. This interested me greatly.

I quickly remove the other boxes that are along the wall, and am soon greeted with a large hole in the wall. It is about 4 feet tall, and 3 feet wide. It wasn't neatly cut out of the wall, either. It seemed that bricks were torn from the foundation to reveal this hole.

I shine my light into the hole, and can now see a tunnel of sorts. It is very crudely made. It looked like something you would see in a prison escape movie. Rough walls lined it, and it was kinda circular. The floor of it was flat though. It took me all but a half a second to decide to explore it. A tunnel under a town in Iowa. "How often do you find something like this?" I muttered to myself.

I hunched over and stepped into the tunnel. I heard that pattering noise behind me once again. I look over my shoulder and see nothing. I shrugged it off and started going into the tunnel.

After about 10 feet the tunnel started to shrink a bit. It is now about 3 and a half feet tall. For a 6 foot person at the time, that is quite a strain. I hunched over and started slowly moving onward. I was basically walking with my rear end on my feet. About 20 feet in, the tunnel takes a sharp turn to the left. Then after another 20 feet it opened up into a small room. Well, not really a room, more like a bigger, wider opening. I notice 2 tunnels cut off from this one, and I decide to take the one on the right.