“The 40 boys in the Koshare Boy Scouts, La Junta, Colo., decided to go to the La Junta Drive-In following one of their evening meetings. And they all went for $1, since it was ”$1 night,“ and any car was admitted regardless of the number of occupants. They went in their bus.” – The Exhibitor, July 8, 1953
The La Junta’s first appearance in the Film Daily Year Book drive-in list was the 1949 edition, and it stayed there through at least 1966.
The Theatre Catalog first listed the La Junta in its 1949-50 edition, capacity 350, owners C. Alderson & W. Barton. The 1952 edition updated that info to 550 and Basil Smith, and that’s how it stayed through at least 1955-56.
The Motion Picture Almanac had the same info in its first drive-in list (1950-51) as the 1949-50 Catalog. Unlike the Catalog series, it kept that owner info through the 1953-54 MPA. In 1955, that changed to Basil Smith & C. M. Alderson. That info continued through 1966, then the La Junta was listed as a 350-car drive-in through 1976. When the MPA rebooted its drive-in list for 1977, it noticed that Commonwealth now owned the La Junta. The drive-in fell off the drive-in list in 1985, though Commonwealth’s circuit listings didn’t drop the La Junta till 1986.
Thanks for adding the drive-in, DDiT. In the 1959 aerial, it sure looks like a auto parts lot. In 1966, it looked like an auto parts lot with even more wrecked cars. The 1974 aerial is really odd – only about two dozen cars linger, there are trees growing among the ramps, but the screen is still up.
If if closed early, the Logan also opened early. Its first appearance in the Film Daily Year Book was the 1948 edition. The Logan (capacity 300, owner Elmer Brown) was also in the first Theatre Catalog list in the 1948-49 edition.
The Logan was in the first Motion Picture Almanac drive-in list (1950-51 edition) with a capacity of 300, owner “Logan Drive-In Theatre; Elmer H. Brown”. It stayed that way through the 1966 edition, proving once again that the MPA was slow to notice change, and the Logan kept its listing until somebody rebooted the MPA list in 1977.
On Sept. 5, 2019, the Beaver County Times wrote “Starting their local empire in 1949 with the Rose Drive-In in Harrison City, the Warrens eventually came to own the Blue Dell and Bel-Aire drive-ins in North Huntingdon and the Super 30 Drive-In in Irwin.”
On the other hand, I can’t find any listing for the Rose before the 1952 Theatre Catalog.
The Buckskin’s final appearance in the Motion Picture Almanac series was the 1976 edition, implying that it closed during the 1967-76 decade when the MPA folks didn’t notice many changes.
Topo maps showed the intact Valley through 1979. The 1985 topo map had the Valley’s outline without the line for the screen.
Aerials showed nothing growing where the screen once stood, and the most recent Google Earth view showed two skinny metallic lines at the old screen tower, but nothing is visible from the road in the 2018 Google Street View.
There was a weird little article in the Sept. 12, 2003 issue of Steamboat Today (Steamboat Springs CO) that mostly listed “Colorado drive-in theatres within mud season driving distance”. We know it’s not 100% accurate because it included the Sunset of Canon City, and we have a 1999 aerial to prove that it was gone by then. But its note for the Big Sky in Delta added:
Playing this weekend: “Open Range”.
When: 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
That really was a 2003 movie, so Steamboat Today didn’t pick up an old listing. Why did its writer believe the Big Sky was open and showing that movie twice per night?
The Delwood’s 1956 topo map showed a wide screen along the northeast side. An aerial photo from 1952, like all later aerials, showed only a screen in the southeast corner of the lot, but the 1952 photo more clearly showed something that looked like a couple of screen supports where the topo marked it.
The point here is not that the topo was wrong or slow to update (the latter was much more common), but that the Delwood might have switched screens within a couple of months of opening.
The top part of the old Starlite sign is “on display” in front of Media Station Design Works in Bozeman, according to a note posted by the local radio station. I put that in quotes because the photo with the story showed the sign fragments resting in the grass supported only by leaning against a building, which I would characterize as merely “visible” rather than on display. Anyway, some moron stole the “lite” part, but the cops later found it. A happy ending.
It appears that the Sky View’s original screen tower was destroyed (or fatally damaged) by a tornado on Aug. 10, 1974. The National Weather Service described it as follows: “Tornado first observed 2.5 miles S of Litchfield and moved NE approximately 2.75 miles. Observers described the funnel as 50-100 feet wide, 500-800 feet long, white to grayish white and debris apparently corn stalks. At 1:49 pm, the tornado touched down E of U.S. Highway 66 destroying a brick garage, a chicken house, uprooted a tree while passing through a cemetery, and blew lawn chairs and tree limbs into a house.”
That would account for the large screen tower’s presence in a 1973 aerial photo but its skinny replacement by 1993. The only odd thing about the description is that I’d think it would mention something big such as a 50-foot screen tower getting hurt that badly.
The 1952 Theatre Catalog included the Basin Drive-In, capacity 340, owner T. R. Knox. For the 1955-56 edition, it had changed to the Knox.
The Basin’s first appearance in the Motion Picture Almanac series was the 1951-52 edition, capacity 350, owner Knox-Trosper Invest Co. That continued until 1955, when it changed to the Knox. By 1959, the Knox’s owner had changed to Knox Theatres. In 1960-61, the drive-in changed to the Bell, capacity 350, owned by Tom Wade. In 1962-66, the owner changed to John A. Wade. The Bell continued in the IMPA through 1976 (a period when the directory noticed few changes), then fell off the list in 1977.
KIRO radio’s MyNorthwest ran an article celebrating the Blue Fox’s 60th birthday. For folks who care about these things, its first movie was April Love with Pat Boone and Shirley Jones. The article also included co-owner Darrell Bratt’s elaboration of SteveFratelli’s naming story.
“The reason it’s called the Blue Fox, from what I understand from the original owner, was when he built the place in ’59 he didn’t have a name for it,” Bratt recalled. “He contacted a sign company to build a sign for him. The maker of the sign says, ‘I’ve got a deal for you if you’re not picky on your name.’ He had a sign that was the Blue Fox Drive-In, you know the old drive-in restaurants. He goes, ‘It’s a repossessed sign, so if you call it that I can make you a heck of a deal on a sign!’ That’s how it got the name of the Blue Fox drive-in.”
Since the Internet Archive is having trouble saving the Auto Drive-In’s official history page, (which happens to be one of the best official drive-in histories that I’ve read), here’s what it says as I type:
The Drive In, with only its original screen, opened for its first season in 1945 and played until 1955 under the eyes of Olin Turner. Pete Zouras took over in 1955 and replaced the screen with a new state-of-the-art Screen Tower. Just in time to play Walking Tall! Pete stayed until the mid 1980’s. It’s a point of pride to us to know that Pete never played an “X” rated movie at this drive in, and instead chose to close with a showing of King Kong. The Screen remained dark until the summer of 1999 when it ran for 4 or 5 weeks. The highlight of that run was a showing of Will Smith’s Wild Wild West. Unfortunately, the drive in went dark again after that.
Then, along came Tommy and Carolyn (Mom and Pop). They had been in the restaurant business for 27 years when on the way to work in 2007, they noticed some profanity sprayed onto the sign. After covering up the profanity, they saw what terrible condition the drive in was in, and decided to call the owners to see what the trouble was! The owner came over and after a ten cent tour they went on about their day, but a dream had planted its seed in their minds. 3 months later, the renovation began, and went on for almost a year. In 2009 the drive in opened again and has been playing movies ever since. In 2011, the second screen was added. In 2014, the drive in successfully managed to convert to digital projection and sound! In 2015, we added a third screen! In 2017, we put the patio over the concessions stand. In 2018, we expanded the women’s bathroom to double its previous capacity! This year, we’ve begun work on sprucing up the men’s restrooms.
The obituary for Richard “Dick” Fox in the Reading Eagle implied that the Fox Theatres chain started with the Sinking Spring in 1957. “It was fate that brought Dick to Reading, where he built one of the largest independent movie theater empires and raised a family. Dick was living in Buffalo, N.Y., and drove a delivery truck for his father-in-law, Leo Katz, who had concession and drive-in movie theater businesses. In 1957, Dick jumped at the opportunity to run the Sinking Spring Drive-In.”
On the Starlite 14’s Facebook page, Bill & Lisa Muth wrote that they are retiring and will soon put the Starlite 14 up for sale. If no one buys it, the drive-in won’t reopen in 2020. WMTV ran a short video clip about the possible closing last night.
And by the way, it’s called the Starlite 14 because it’s adjacent to US Highway 14.
Poor Dick Crumpler. “A tornado in eastern Oklahoma demolished Dick Crumpler’s 69 Drive-In, Checotah. Dick also operates the downtown Gentry and is serving as city manager of Checotah. We have not learned whether he will be able to reopen the 69 Drive-In this season.” — Boxoffic, Aug. 8, 1960
Same drive-in? From the June 24, 1939 issue of Motion Picture Herald: “A new drive-in theatre has been opened in Fort Wayne, Ind., by Roy Gordon, managing director of Allen Theatres, Inc. Mr. Gordon plans to open a similar house for colored patronage.”
The first appearance of a Fort Wayne drive-in the the Film Daily Year Book was the 1947 edition as simply “Drive-In”.
As described in a two-page spread in the July 9, 1962 issue of Boxoffice, the Oasis had a straight 500-foot driveway from the highway to the boxoffice. But when traffic was heavy, they’d reroute cars through a 350-foot hairpin driveway to then pass through the same boxoffice in the other direction.
The May 7, 1962 issue of Boxoffice did its best to clear up the confusion:
Construction is under way of a new twin drive-in theatre in Little Rock, Ark., by the Arkansas Amusement Co. (Rowley United). The theatre is build on Cantrell Road at the site of the present Riverside Drive-In which was closed for the winter.
To be called the Twin-Razorback, the theatre will replace the Riverside and the present Razorback. Lease on the ground at the present Razorback in the east end of the city has been released to the school board for construction of a new junior high school.
The new theatre will have space for a total of 800 to 1,000 cars.
“The 40 boys in the Koshare Boy Scouts, La Junta, Colo., decided to go to the La Junta Drive-In following one of their evening meetings. And they all went for $1, since it was ”$1 night,“ and any car was admitted regardless of the number of occupants. They went in their bus.” – The Exhibitor, July 8, 1953
The La Junta’s first appearance in the Film Daily Year Book drive-in list was the 1949 edition, and it stayed there through at least 1966.
The Theatre Catalog first listed the La Junta in its 1949-50 edition, capacity 350, owners C. Alderson & W. Barton. The 1952 edition updated that info to 550 and Basil Smith, and that’s how it stayed through at least 1955-56.
The Motion Picture Almanac had the same info in its first drive-in list (1950-51) as the 1949-50 Catalog. Unlike the Catalog series, it kept that owner info through the 1953-54 MPA. In 1955, that changed to Basil Smith & C. M. Alderson. That info continued through 1966, then the La Junta was listed as a 350-car drive-in through 1976. When the MPA rebooted its drive-in list for 1977, it noticed that Commonwealth now owned the La Junta. The drive-in fell off the drive-in list in 1985, though Commonwealth’s circuit listings didn’t drop the La Junta till 1986.
Thanks for adding the drive-in, DDiT. In the 1959 aerial, it sure looks like a auto parts lot. In 1966, it looked like an auto parts lot with even more wrecked cars. The 1974 aerial is really odd – only about two dozen cars linger, there are trees growing among the ramps, but the screen is still up.
If if closed early, the Logan also opened early. Its first appearance in the Film Daily Year Book was the 1948 edition. The Logan (capacity 300, owner Elmer Brown) was also in the first Theatre Catalog list in the 1948-49 edition.
The Logan was in the first Motion Picture Almanac drive-in list (1950-51 edition) with a capacity of 300, owner “Logan Drive-In Theatre; Elmer H. Brown”. It stayed that way through the 1966 edition, proving once again that the MPA was slow to notice change, and the Logan kept its listing until somebody rebooted the MPA list in 1977.
On Sept. 5, 2019, the Beaver County Times wrote “Starting their local empire in 1949 with the Rose Drive-In in Harrison City, the Warrens eventually came to own the Blue Dell and Bel-Aire drive-ins in North Huntingdon and the Super 30 Drive-In in Irwin.”
On the other hand, I can’t find any listing for the Rose before the 1952 Theatre Catalog.
The Buckskin’s final appearance in the Motion Picture Almanac series was the 1976 edition, implying that it closed during the 1967-76 decade when the MPA folks didn’t notice many changes.
Topo maps showed the intact Valley through 1979. The 1985 topo map had the Valley’s outline without the line for the screen.
Aerials showed nothing growing where the screen once stood, and the most recent Google Earth view showed two skinny metallic lines at the old screen tower, but nothing is visible from the road in the 2018 Google Street View.
There was a weird little article in the Sept. 12, 2003 issue of Steamboat Today (Steamboat Springs CO) that mostly listed “Colorado drive-in theatres within mud season driving distance”. We know it’s not 100% accurate because it included the Sunset of Canon City, and we have a 1999 aerial to prove that it was gone by then. But its note for the Big Sky in Delta added:
Playing this weekend: “Open Range”.
When: 7 p.m. and 9:30 p.m.
That really was a 2003 movie, so Steamboat Today didn’t pick up an old listing. Why did its writer believe the Big Sky was open and showing that movie twice per night?
The Delwood’s 1956 topo map showed a wide screen along the northeast side. An aerial photo from 1952, like all later aerials, showed only a screen in the southeast corner of the lot, but the 1952 photo more clearly showed something that looked like a couple of screen supports where the topo marked it.
The point here is not that the topo was wrong or slow to update (the latter was much more common), but that the Delwood might have switched screens within a couple of months of opening.
The 66postcards web site credits Tulsa City-County Library.
The top part of the old Starlite sign is “on display” in front of Media Station Design Works in Bozeman, according to a note posted by the local radio station. I put that in quotes because the photo with the story showed the sign fragments resting in the grass supported only by leaning against a building, which I would characterize as merely “visible” rather than on display. Anyway, some moron stole the “lite” part, but the cops later found it. A happy ending.
It appears that the Sky View’s original screen tower was destroyed (or fatally damaged) by a tornado on Aug. 10, 1974. The National Weather Service described it as follows: “Tornado first observed 2.5 miles S of Litchfield and moved NE approximately 2.75 miles. Observers described the funnel as 50-100 feet wide, 500-800 feet long, white to grayish white and debris apparently corn stalks. At 1:49 pm, the tornado touched down E of U.S. Highway 66 destroying a brick garage, a chicken house, uprooted a tree while passing through a cemetery, and blew lawn chairs and tree limbs into a house.”
That would account for the large screen tower’s presence in a 1973 aerial photo but its skinny replacement by 1993. The only odd thing about the description is that I’d think it would mention something big such as a 50-foot screen tower getting hurt that badly.
The 1952 Theatre Catalog included the Basin Drive-In, capacity 340, owner T. R. Knox. For the 1955-56 edition, it had changed to the Knox.
The Basin’s first appearance in the Motion Picture Almanac series was the 1951-52 edition, capacity 350, owner Knox-Trosper Invest Co. That continued until 1955, when it changed to the Knox. By 1959, the Knox’s owner had changed to Knox Theatres. In 1960-61, the drive-in changed to the Bell, capacity 350, owned by Tom Wade. In 1962-66, the owner changed to John A. Wade. The Bell continued in the IMPA through 1976 (a period when the directory noticed few changes), then fell off the list in 1977.
KIRO radio’s MyNorthwest ran an article celebrating the Blue Fox’s 60th birthday. For folks who care about these things, its first movie was April Love with Pat Boone and Shirley Jones. The article also included co-owner Darrell Bratt’s elaboration of SteveFratelli’s naming story.
“The reason it’s called the Blue Fox, from what I understand from the original owner, was when he built the place in ’59 he didn’t have a name for it,” Bratt recalled. “He contacted a sign company to build a sign for him. The maker of the sign says, ‘I’ve got a deal for you if you’re not picky on your name.’ He had a sign that was the Blue Fox Drive-In, you know the old drive-in restaurants. He goes, ‘It’s a repossessed sign, so if you call it that I can make you a heck of a deal on a sign!’ That’s how it got the name of the Blue Fox drive-in.”
According to the Cape Cod Chronicle, it was Charles Zehnder and Don Jentz who opened the Wellfleet in 1957.
Since the Internet Archive is having trouble saving the Auto Drive-In’s official history page, (which happens to be one of the best official drive-in histories that I’ve read), here’s what it says as I type:
The Drive In, with only its original screen, opened for its first season in 1945 and played until 1955 under the eyes of Olin Turner. Pete Zouras took over in 1955 and replaced the screen with a new state-of-the-art Screen Tower. Just in time to play Walking Tall! Pete stayed until the mid 1980’s. It’s a point of pride to us to know that Pete never played an “X” rated movie at this drive in, and instead chose to close with a showing of King Kong. The Screen remained dark until the summer of 1999 when it ran for 4 or 5 weeks. The highlight of that run was a showing of Will Smith’s Wild Wild West. Unfortunately, the drive in went dark again after that.
Then, along came Tommy and Carolyn (Mom and Pop). They had been in the restaurant business for 27 years when on the way to work in 2007, they noticed some profanity sprayed onto the sign. After covering up the profanity, they saw what terrible condition the drive in was in, and decided to call the owners to see what the trouble was! The owner came over and after a ten cent tour they went on about their day, but a dream had planted its seed in their minds. 3 months later, the renovation began, and went on for almost a year. In 2009 the drive in opened again and has been playing movies ever since. In 2011, the second screen was added. In 2014, the drive in successfully managed to convert to digital projection and sound! In 2015, we added a third screen! In 2017, we put the patio over the concessions stand. In 2018, we expanded the women’s bathroom to double its previous capacity! This year, we’ve begun work on sprucing up the men’s restrooms.
The obituary for Richard “Dick” Fox in the Reading Eagle implied that the Fox Theatres chain started with the Sinking Spring in 1957. “It was fate that brought Dick to Reading, where he built one of the largest independent movie theater empires and raised a family. Dick was living in Buffalo, N.Y., and drove a delivery truck for his father-in-law, Leo Katz, who had concession and drive-in movie theater businesses. In 1957, Dick jumped at the opportunity to run the Sinking Spring Drive-In.”
On the Starlite 14’s Facebook page, Bill & Lisa Muth wrote that they are retiring and will soon put the Starlite 14 up for sale. If no one buys it, the drive-in won’t reopen in 2020. WMTV ran a short video clip about the possible closing last night.
And by the way, it’s called the Starlite 14 because it’s adjacent to US Highway 14.
Poor Dick Crumpler. “A tornado in eastern Oklahoma demolished Dick Crumpler’s 69 Drive-In, Checotah. Dick also operates the downtown Gentry and is serving as city manager of Checotah. We have not learned whether he will be able to reopen the 69 Drive-In this season.” — Boxoffic, Aug. 8, 1960
The first appearance of the East 30 in the Film Daily Year Book was the 1951 edition, which implies a 1950 opening.
Same drive-in? From the June 24, 1939 issue of Motion Picture Herald: “A new drive-in theatre has been opened in Fort Wayne, Ind., by Roy Gordon, managing director of Allen Theatres, Inc. Mr. Gordon plans to open a similar house for colored patronage.”
The first appearance of a Fort Wayne drive-in the the Film Daily Year Book was the 1947 edition as simply “Drive-In”.
As described in a two-page spread in the July 9, 1962 issue of Boxoffice, the Oasis had a straight 500-foot driveway from the highway to the boxoffice. But when traffic was heavy, they’d reroute cars through a 350-foot hairpin driveway to then pass through the same boxoffice in the other direction.
Thanks for uploading this. It’s part of a three-page spread mostly about the Hiawatha in the June 4, 1962 Boxoffice.
From a three-page spread about the Twin in the June 4, 1962 issue of Boxoffice.
The May 7, 1962 issue of Boxoffice did its best to clear up the confusion:
Construction is under way of a new twin drive-in theatre in Little Rock, Ark., by the Arkansas Amusement Co. (Rowley United). The theatre is build on Cantrell Road at the site of the present Riverside Drive-In which was closed for the winter.
To be called the Twin-Razorback, the theatre will replace the Riverside and the present Razorback. Lease on the ground at the present Razorback in the east end of the city has been released to the school board for construction of a new junior high school.
The new theatre will have space for a total of 800 to 1,000 cars.
From the April 9, 1962 issue of Boxoffice.