One more thing: The IMPAs listed the Melody as a single-screen drive-in through its last list in 1988. When did they add a second screen? It had to have been before 2013, when a storm knocked down one of the two screens.
There’s an old YouTube video, uploaded in 2010 but apparently from 2006. Owner Fred Heise says he has owned the Melody since 1970, “bought it from my father that year.”
All three owners are in the 1952 Theatre Catalog, but the 1955-56 edition only mentions J. R. Hand. Both set the capacity at 400.
The 1959-76 IMPAs list it in Bass Lake, capacity 300, run by the Melody Theatre Co. The 1982 IMPA has the capacity down to 200.
The current owners say that Opening Day was May 3, 1956. It was sold around 1985 to Bruce Shinabarger, and then to Steve and Mike Cotton in 2000.
A December 2010 blizzard knocked down the screen, but they got it back up in May to open for the 2011 season. (Photo here.) The owners said the original wooden screen had blown done years earlier “while a film was being shown.”
When did this drive-in open? Little Lake County says the Skyline opened in 1943, but it didn’t show up in the 1948-50 Theatre Catalogs. As I type, Bryan’s summary says it opened in 1955, but it’s in the 1952 Theatre Catalog. (Capacity 750, Exec: R. J. Miller.)
The answer comes from a post earlier this year in the McHenry Public Library District blog. Working from McHenry Plaindealer archives, it says Roy Miller opened the Skyline in July 1951, matching the Catalog listing. (It says “the screen was listed as facing northwest,” which must have been a typo considering the well-drawn parking area that points northwest to a screen facing southeast.) “It also had illuminated speaker posts and a refreshment stand.” The screen was widened in 1956, and the Skyline was sold to Stan Kohlberg of Chicago in 1963.
When did it change names? The 1976 IMPA still has the Skyline (capacity 600) but the 1982 IMPA has the McHenry (owned by “Rhyan”).
By the way, the IMPAs listed the Galesburg through their final drive-in list in 1988. I know that the IMPAs were sometimes slow to notice closed theaters, but it would make me want to double-check that 1980 closure date.
During the weekends of June 2017, the Blue Moonlight’s four movies (all free) were: Split Decisions (1988), The Smurfs (1981), Rambo III (1988), and Jetsons: The Movie (1990).
All indications are this is a great place to visit, (I want one of those tenderloins!), but it should no longer be considered First Run.
The 1952-56 Theatre Catalogs list it under Prairieville, capacity 400, Exec: John Kontos, L. G. Rorer, Prairieville Th. Corp.
The 1959 IMPA lists it in Prairieview (sic), capacity 475, owned by “Kontos & Rorer”. The 1963 edition gets Prairieville right.
The 1969-76 IMPAs didn’t list it at all. Weird! It’s back by the 1982-84 editions, now in Sterling, run by L&M Mgt. The 1986-88 IMPAs switched the owner to Bowman Ths.
Speaking on the Idaho Falls' local TV station, owner Marcia Leonard made it official yesterday. The Motor Vu will not open for the 2017 season.
She maintains that selling the Sky Vu, still on the market with no buyers, would provide enough cash to buy a digital projector. Heaven forbid that it would be considered a cost of doing business. “We could (take out a loan), but because we are a seasonal business, I don’t want to go into debt,” Leonard said.
That TV station link includes a video so you can see what the Motor Vu looks like these days. Leonard says she hopes to reopen one day, and I hope she’s right. Until then, I’ve marked the Motor Vu as Closed in Carload.com’s database.
The 1982 IMPA still listed the place as the Winnebago, owned by Melcher Ent. The 1984 edition had it as the Dells, owned by D Legros (sic). I know that IMPAs are unreliable, trailing indicators, but this suggests that the first name change happened when LeGros bought the place.
Ol' Charles Bruss should have mentioned the May 2008 article in the Wisconsin Dells Events that quotes him. More importantly, the article sets the opening date of the Winnebago as Aug. 14, 1953. “Owned by Don Deakin, the theater screened a newsreel, two cartoons and the feature film ‘Raiders of the Seven Seas,’ and gave patrons a souvenir ashtray.”
The article continues to say that the Winnebago later became known as the Dells, saw a windstorm knock down the screen in June 1977, and was sold to the Don LeGros family in 1980. They changed the name to Big Sky in 1993 and added the second screen in June 1994.
On September 24, 1951, Sarah Eskin acquired land east of Richland Center to be used as a drive-in theater. She was not able to purchase the land outright, but was granted a lifetime lease of 20 acres. The deed states the premises to be used for a drive-in theater, provided that when such premises cease to be used for such purposes title thereto shall revert to the grantor, his heirs, or assigns. The grantee can pass the business on to her heirs or assigns. The Hi-way 14 Outdoor Theater opened its gates on May 16, 1952. It is now known as Starlite 14. The Starlite 14 has upgraded, using FM radio for sound for many years. Speaker posts are still there to help cars park in the appropriate spot. The Starlite 14 is a county treasure; one of 11 in the state of Wisconsin. It is the last one in Southwest Wisconsin and has withstood the test of time. At one time in the late 1950’s there were 79 drive-in theaters in Wisconsin.
If the drive-in was sold in 1988, its renaming came before that. The 1984 IMPA still listed the Highway 14 Outdoor, but the 1986 IMPA had changed it to Starlight (sic) Outdoor.
I’ve seen several mentions online that the Starlite 14 opened in 1953, but Google Maps said it has been open since 1952.
That got me checking, and sure enough, the Highway 14 is listed in the 1952 Theatre Catalog. Exec: Sarah Eskin and Ervin Morris, Muscoda Th. Capacity 538. I think that Google Maps got this one right.
I visited the Aircadia in its last season (though I didn’t know it at the time). I saw The Lion King there, which proves that it didn’t shut down until the end of the 1994 season. I remember a large drive-in sloping down to the screen and run by some large theater chain. The 1988 IMPA says Westland, but I don’t think that was it.
I hated to hear that it was gone, but the way Colorado Springs was expanding, there’s no way it could have survived much longer. Now it’s my poster child for old drive-ins that became Walmarts.
The aerial view from Google Maps shows the Rocket’s footprint mostly untouched in 2017. Even the projector / concession building is still there.
Google Street View from 2012 shows the base of the marquee still there along with a “10 acre for sale” sign. Makes you wonder if they’d have been better off keeping the drive-in alive.
In a 2009 YouTube video, owner Tim Vande Wettering said the capacity was 300 cars. Today, the web site says Screen one fits the first 300 cars and screen two fits the first 250 cars.
The marquee was very tall, but just right for US 285, where it was pointed. The developers wisely kept the signage, but replaced it with an ad for the condos that replaced the Cinderella, as you can see in this Google Street View.
They used to have an area with kiddie rides next to the concession stand. It was there when I first started going, probably around 1998, but soon stopped, citing insurance. I always had a good time at the Cinderella. RIP indeed.
I agree completely. Those old guides were often slow to notice drive-ins, then slow to remove them when they closed. And that’s when the listings were accurate! :)
Anyway, KDLT ran a video with Cecil ‘Slim’ Harsin this week. Worth watching.
KDLT said the nonprofit Gregory Horizon Development Corporation actually bought the digital projector on a loan.
As shown in the video, Last weekend the Hilltop showed the latest Smurfs installment, released nine weeks earlier. This weekend, they’ve scheduled Baywatch, released three weeks earlier. I’m still not convinced on “First Run”.
The 1955-56 Theatre Catalog listed the Port Outdoor, Hwy 57, Exec: Erwin L. Nowak, capacity 550.
The 1959 IMPA listed the Port Outdoor in Grafton, capacity 576, owned by Port Outdoor Theatres, Inc.
The 1963 IMPA said the Hy 57 Outdoor in Grafton, capacity 576, was owned by Ben Poblocki. I guess he renamed it after buying it from the corporation. The 1969-76 IMPAs listed it as just Hy 57 in Grafton.
The 1982-88(!) IMPAs list the Highway 57 Outdoor (capacity 600) in neighboring Cedarburg, even though that’s on the other side of Grafton, with owner “Marcus”.
I can’t find anything anywhere on the net that indicates when the Vali Hi opened. A 2013 article in the Star-Tribune said that (then-?) owner Bob O'Neill had operated the projector “(p)retty much every summer night since 1984”.
It’s not in the 1955-56 Theatre Catalog Minneapolis territory, which would have surely noticed it in its back yard.
The 1963 IMPA doesn’t have it. The 1969-76 (at least) IMPAs list the Vali Hi, capacity 750, in nearby St. Paul. The 1982 IMPA had corrected(?) the location to Lake Elmo, owner “Plitt”, capacity 500. And sure enough, “R O'Neill” had taken over as owner in the 1984 IMPA.
In short, the Vali Hi probably opened in the mid-1960s.
Per a 2014 story in the Dairyland Peach, Laurel Meier and her husband bought the Long in 1985, and sold it to her daughter Michelle Claseman and her family in 2013. That’s when they switched to digital projection.
In 1948, while the State Theater was being built in Baxter, Benton Young was opening the Young’s Drive-In Theater on the northeast corner of Highway 70, and Peach Orchard Road.
Four years later, Stacy Wilhite, president of Mid-South Theaters, approached Benton Young with plans to build a bigger and better drive-in theater, with or without Young’s support.
They decided to work together and built a new drive-in theater, the Putnam Drive-In Theater, which opened in 1952, across the street from where Young’s original drive-in theater was. This new theater, the Putnam Drive-In Theater, thrived for almost 40 years.
The 16 acres that it stood on was sold in 1993 to make way for the Mid-South Machine and Supply Co. The owners of Mid-South wanted to save the marquee, because they knew of the historical significance it had to the community, but it was accidentally torn down.
An August 2015 article in Willmar’s West Central Tribune said Tim Eiler was the guy who bought the Starlite in 1997. He was up to five screens in 2015 when he sold the place to David Quincer, who owns the Cozy Theater, a vintage indoor cinema in Wadena.
As of June 2017, the Starlite has only two active screens and is open Friday-Sunday.
Google Books has that issue of Life, Dec. 22 1958, available for viewing. https://books.google.com/books?id=Yj8EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA4&dq=Eyerman&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q=Eyerman&f=true
The caption reads “At Oak Hills near Salt Lake City, as jets etch the evening sky, Moses in The Ten Commandments casts his biblical wrath down at the parked cars.” Yes, jets. As originally printed in that two page spread, jet trails were clearly visible above the left mountain peaks.
Trick question: What movie was playing when the photo was taken? As I guessed in 2013, it was not The Ten Commandments. Think about it – it’s barely dark enough to see a movie, but we’re already at the Red Sea scene?
In a sidebar from the Salt Lake Tribune, it revealed that the photographer “lured dozens of local college students to the showing of the 1956 film ‘… And God Created Woman’ featuring Brigitte Bardot, said his daughter Kathryn Marshall.” Then he swapped in that Heston frame.
So if you want to prove where it was taken, find the newspaper ad for that movie, not The Ten Commandments.
One more thing: The IMPAs listed the Melody as a single-screen drive-in through its last list in 1988. When did they add a second screen? It had to have been before 2013, when a storm knocked down one of the two screens.
There’s an old YouTube video, uploaded in 2010 but apparently from 2006. Owner Fred Heise says he has owned the Melody since 1970, “bought it from my father that year.”
All three owners are in the 1952 Theatre Catalog, but the 1955-56 edition only mentions J. R. Hand. Both set the capacity at 400.
The 1959-76 IMPAs list it in Bass Lake, capacity 300, run by the Melody Theatre Co. The 1982 IMPA has the capacity down to 200.
The current owners say that Opening Day was May 3, 1956. It was sold around 1985 to Bruce Shinabarger, and then to Steve and Mike Cotton in 2000.
A December 2010 blizzard knocked down the screen, but they got it back up in May to open for the 2011 season. (Photo here.) The owners said the original wooden screen had blown done years earlier “while a film was being shown.”
I found a nice video from 2009:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nkDXB_P4vdg
When did this drive-in open? Little Lake County says the Skyline opened in 1943, but it didn’t show up in the 1948-50 Theatre Catalogs. As I type, Bryan’s summary says it opened in 1955, but it’s in the 1952 Theatre Catalog. (Capacity 750, Exec: R. J. Miller.)
The answer comes from a post earlier this year in the McHenry Public Library District blog. Working from McHenry Plaindealer archives, it says Roy Miller opened the Skyline in July 1951, matching the Catalog listing. (It says “the screen was listed as facing northwest,” which must have been a typo considering the well-drawn parking area that points northwest to a screen facing southeast.) “It also had illuminated speaker posts and a refreshment stand.” The screen was widened in 1956, and the Skyline was sold to Stan Kohlberg of Chicago in 1963.
When did it change names? The 1976 IMPA still has the Skyline (capacity 600) but the 1982 IMPA has the McHenry (owned by “Rhyan”).
By the way, the IMPAs listed the Galesburg through their final drive-in list in 1988. I know that the IMPAs were sometimes slow to notice closed theaters, but it would make me want to double-check that 1980 closure date.
During the weekends of June 2017, the Blue Moonlight’s four movies (all free) were: Split Decisions (1988), The Smurfs (1981), Rambo III (1988), and Jetsons: The Movie (1990).
All indications are this is a great place to visit, (I want one of those tenderloins!), but it should no longer be considered First Run.
The 1952-56 Theatre Catalogs list it under Prairieville, capacity 400, Exec: John Kontos, L. G. Rorer, Prairieville Th. Corp.
The 1959 IMPA lists it in Prairieview (sic), capacity 475, owned by “Kontos & Rorer”. The 1963 edition gets Prairieville right.
The 1969-76 IMPAs didn’t list it at all. Weird! It’s back by the 1982-84 editions, now in Sterling, run by L&M Mgt. The 1986-88 IMPAs switched the owner to Bowman Ths.
Speaking on the Idaho Falls' local TV station, owner Marcia Leonard made it official yesterday. The Motor Vu will not open for the 2017 season.
She maintains that selling the Sky Vu, still on the market with no buyers, would provide enough cash to buy a digital projector. Heaven forbid that it would be considered a cost of doing business. “We could (take out a loan), but because we are a seasonal business, I don’t want to go into debt,” Leonard said.
That TV station link includes a video so you can see what the Motor Vu looks like these days. Leonard says she hopes to reopen one day, and I hope she’s right. Until then, I’ve marked the Motor Vu as Closed in Carload.com’s database.
The 1982 IMPA still listed the place as the Winnebago, owned by Melcher Ent. The 1984 edition had it as the Dells, owned by D Legros (sic). I know that IMPAs are unreliable, trailing indicators, but this suggests that the first name change happened when LeGros bought the place.
Ol' Charles Bruss should have mentioned the May 2008 article in the Wisconsin Dells Events that quotes him. More importantly, the article sets the opening date of the Winnebago as Aug. 14, 1953. “Owned by Don Deakin, the theater screened a newsreel, two cartoons and the feature film ‘Raiders of the Seven Seas,’ and gave patrons a souvenir ashtray.”
The article continues to say that the Winnebago later became known as the Dells, saw a windstorm knock down the screen in June 1977, and was sold to the Don LeGros family in 1980. They changed the name to Big Sky in 1993 and added the second screen in June 1994.
From the Starlite 14’s history page:
On September 24, 1951, Sarah Eskin acquired land east of Richland Center to be used as a drive-in theater. She was not able to purchase the land outright, but was granted a lifetime lease of 20 acres. The deed states the premises to be used for a drive-in theater, provided that when such premises cease to be used for such purposes title thereto shall revert to the grantor, his heirs, or assigns. The grantee can pass the business on to her heirs or assigns. The Hi-way 14 Outdoor Theater opened its gates on May 16, 1952. It is now known as Starlite 14. The Starlite 14 has upgraded, using FM radio for sound for many years. Speaker posts are still there to help cars park in the appropriate spot. The Starlite 14 is a county treasure; one of 11 in the state of Wisconsin. It is the last one in Southwest Wisconsin and has withstood the test of time. At one time in the late 1950’s there were 79 drive-in theaters in Wisconsin.
If the drive-in was sold in 1988, its renaming came before that. The 1984 IMPA still listed the Highway 14 Outdoor, but the 1986 IMPA had changed it to Starlight (sic) Outdoor.
I’ve seen several mentions online that the Starlite 14 opened in 1953, but Google Maps said it has been open since 1952.
That got me checking, and sure enough, the Highway 14 is listed in the 1952 Theatre Catalog. Exec: Sarah Eskin and Ervin Morris, Muscoda Th. Capacity 538. I think that Google Maps got this one right.
I visited the Aircadia in its last season (though I didn’t know it at the time). I saw The Lion King there, which proves that it didn’t shut down until the end of the 1994 season. I remember a large drive-in sloping down to the screen and run by some large theater chain. The 1988 IMPA says Westland, but I don’t think that was it.
I hated to hear that it was gone, but the way Colorado Springs was expanding, there’s no way it could have survived much longer. Now it’s my poster child for old drive-ins that became Walmarts.
The aerial view from Google Maps shows the Rocket’s footprint mostly untouched in 2017. Even the projector / concession building is still there.
Google Street View from 2012 shows the base of the marquee still there along with a “10 acre for sale” sign. Makes you wonder if they’d have been better off keeping the drive-in alive.
In a 2009 YouTube video, owner Tim Vande Wettering said the capacity was 300 cars. Today, the web site says Screen one fits the first 300 cars and screen two fits the first 250 cars.
The marquee was very tall, but just right for US 285, where it was pointed. The developers wisely kept the signage, but replaced it with an ad for the condos that replaced the Cinderella, as you can see in this Google Street View.
They used to have an area with kiddie rides next to the concession stand. It was there when I first started going, probably around 1998, but soon stopped, citing insurance. I always had a good time at the Cinderella. RIP indeed.
I agree completely. Those old guides were often slow to notice drive-ins, then slow to remove them when they closed. And that’s when the listings were accurate! :)
Anyway, KDLT ran a video with Cecil ‘Slim’ Harsin this week. Worth watching.
KDLT said the nonprofit Gregory Horizon Development Corporation actually bought the digital projector on a loan.
As shown in the video, Last weekend the Hilltop showed the latest Smurfs installment, released nine weeks earlier. This weekend, they’ve scheduled Baywatch, released three weeks earlier. I’m still not convinced on “First Run”.
The 1955-56 Theatre Catalog listed the Port Outdoor, Hwy 57, Exec: Erwin L. Nowak, capacity 550.
The 1959 IMPA listed the Port Outdoor in Grafton, capacity 576, owned by Port Outdoor Theatres, Inc.
The 1963 IMPA said the Hy 57 Outdoor in Grafton, capacity 576, was owned by Ben Poblocki. I guess he renamed it after buying it from the corporation. The 1969-76 IMPAs listed it as just Hy 57 in Grafton.
The 1982-88(!) IMPAs list the Highway 57 Outdoor (capacity 600) in neighboring Cedarburg, even though that’s on the other side of Grafton, with owner “Marcus”.
I can’t find anything anywhere on the net that indicates when the Vali Hi opened. A 2013 article in the Star-Tribune said that (then-?) owner Bob O'Neill had operated the projector “(p)retty much every summer night since 1984”.
It’s not in the 1955-56 Theatre Catalog Minneapolis territory, which would have surely noticed it in its back yard.
The 1963 IMPA doesn’t have it. The 1969-76 (at least) IMPAs list the Vali Hi, capacity 750, in nearby St. Paul. The 1982 IMPA had corrected(?) the location to Lake Elmo, owner “Plitt”, capacity 500. And sure enough, “R O'Neill” had taken over as owner in the 1984 IMPA.
In short, the Vali Hi probably opened in the mid-1960s.
Per a 2014 story in the Dairyland Peach, Laurel Meier and her husband bought the Long in 1985, and sold it to her daughter Michelle Claseman and her family in 2013. That’s when they switched to digital projection.
From an article in the Cookville Herald-Citizen:
In 1948, while the State Theater was being built in Baxter, Benton Young was opening the Young’s Drive-In Theater on the northeast corner of Highway 70, and Peach Orchard Road.
Four years later, Stacy Wilhite, president of Mid-South Theaters, approached Benton Young with plans to build a bigger and better drive-in theater, with or without Young’s support.
They decided to work together and built a new drive-in theater, the Putnam Drive-In Theater, which opened in 1952, across the street from where Young’s original drive-in theater was. This new theater, the Putnam Drive-In Theater, thrived for almost 40 years.
The 16 acres that it stood on was sold in 1993 to make way for the Mid-South Machine and Supply Co. The owners of Mid-South wanted to save the marquee, because they knew of the historical significance it had to the community, but it was accidentally torn down.
An August 2015 article in Willmar’s West Central Tribune said Tim Eiler was the guy who bought the Starlite in 1997. He was up to five screens in 2015 when he sold the place to David Quincer, who owns the Cozy Theater, a vintage indoor cinema in Wadena.
As of June 2017, the Starlite has only two active screens and is open Friday-Sunday.
Google Books has that issue of Life, Dec. 22 1958, available for viewing. https://books.google.com/books?id=Yj8EAAAAMBAJ&lpg=PA4&dq=Eyerman&pg=PA17#v=onepage&q=Eyerman&f=true
The caption reads “At Oak Hills near Salt Lake City, as jets etch the evening sky, Moses in The Ten Commandments casts his biblical wrath down at the parked cars.” Yes, jets. As originally printed in that two page spread, jet trails were clearly visible above the left mountain peaks.
Trick question: What movie was playing when the photo was taken? As I guessed in 2013, it was not The Ten Commandments. Think about it – it’s barely dark enough to see a movie, but we’re already at the Red Sea scene?
In a sidebar from the Salt Lake Tribune, it revealed that the photographer “lured dozens of local college students to the showing of the 1956 film ‘… And God Created Woman’ featuring Brigitte Bardot, said his daughter Kathryn Marshall.” Then he swapped in that Heston frame.
So if you want to prove where it was taken, find the newspaper ad for that movie, not The Ten Commandments.