Rocket Drive-In
2881 North Avenue,
Grand Junction,
CO
81501
2881 North Avenue,
Grand Junction,
CO
81501
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One minor clarification to Nick Genova’s excellent summary: According to a story in the March 20, 1986 Daily Sentinel, Westland/Commonwealth’s 10-year lease had expired. (Westland had leased the Rocket before the 1976 season.) Leonard Scales allowed his daughter and son-in-law, Melanie and Alan Gates, to manage the Rocket for what became its final two seasons.
The Rocket’s final ad in the local Daily Sentinel said it was showing “Summer School” and “Back to the Beach” on “FRI-SAT-SUN”. That ad ran through Labor Day, Sept. 5, 1987, all the way through Thursday, Sept. 10. It was gone on Friday, Sept. 11, so I’m guessing that the Rocket’s final night was Sept. 4.
Motion Picture Herald, April 16, 1955: “Leonard Scales has opened his new 350-car (with room for expansion) Rocket drive-in, Grand Junction, Colo., with Clarence Batter doing the buying and booking.”
Opened with “Five guns west” and “The fast and the furious”.
This opened on April 16th, 1955 and closed in 1987.
Now a Walmart.
Located the opening date, April 16, 1955. First show was Five Guns West followed by The Fast & the Furious.