Clovis News-Journal, July 4, 1982, in a retrospective: “(W.O. Bearden and Lloyd Franklin) bought the 4-Lane Drive-In Theater between Clovis and Texico about 1958, later selling it to Stuckey’s.”
The Starlite’s last ad in the Alamogordo Daily News was on Sept. 23, 1983, noting that it would close for the season after the show Saturday, Sept. 24. The final “wing ding” program included “Overnight Models,” “Voluptuous Vixens,” “Forbidden Lessons,” and “Tempting Roommates.”
To amplify DavidAndrews’s note, it appears that the last Yucca Drive-In movie ad in the Alamogordo Daily News was on Oct. 25, 1974. It promised two retitled German-made films “Island of Lost Girls” (Kommissar X - Drei goldene Schlangen) and “How Did A Nice Girl Like You?” (Mir hat es immer Spaß gemacht) running through Sunday, Oct. 27.
There is evidence that the Yucca planned to reopen in 1975. On March 9 that year, it advertised in the Alamogordo Daily News for help at the concession stand. On May 28, it joined about every other business in town in saluting the high school graduating class. (Then again, the Yucca didn’t advertise in that issue although the local “Starlight” drive-in did.)
Workers toppled the Yucca’s sturdy screen tower on Jan. 6, 1981 to make way for construction of a Sierra Ice & Water warehouse.
According to the Alamogordo News, in April 1952, Marshall R. Sanguinet appeared before the Alamogordo City Commission to request water service for “a new drive-in theatre which he has under construction”. The board told him the price difference for a business outside the city limits. On the spur of that moment, Sanguinet requested that the city annex the drive-in site, and the commission agreed.
In December that year, Sanguinet publicly announced his candidacy for a seat on the commission, but he failed to file the paperwork on time. Within a couple of months, he left town to run a construction project in Iceland. His wife looked after his local businesses for a while, then joined him overseas in late 1953. So maybe that was a cause for the Yucca’s delayed opening?
The Sanguinet family must have bounced around. They adopted a daughter while in Turkey, and Marshall died in June 1967 in Pakistan during another construction project.
This photo appeared in the December 1952 issue of Technicolor News and Views. Since it was published without a copyright, it should be in the public domain.
To amplify ScreenTower’s caption, this photo was part of a three-page spread in the Dec. 10, 1938 issue of Motion Picture Herald, which is now in the public domain.
Boxoffice, April 7, 1951: “KINGFISHER, OKLA. - The Thomas Drive-In, south of here, has been sold to Marsy Exhibitors, who already own two other theatres here. John Thomas, former owner of the house, has no immediate plans.”
Boxoffice, April 7, 1951: “George L. Western of Yoakum, Tex., has been named manager of the Twin City Drive-In Theatre, succeeding E. W. Grisham, who resigned to accept a position in Richmond. The drive-in, which is owned by Mart Cole, is located between Rosenberg and Richmond.”
Boxoffice, April 7, 1951: “Dale Stewart, manager of the Goodland Drive-In, has spent some $6,000 in new sound and projection equipment and minor improvements for his house. This family-style theatre will (re-)open around April 13.”
This photo by B. A. Lang, date unknown, is part of the collection entitled: Rescuing Texas History, 2007 and was provided by the Heritage House Museum to The Portal to Texas History, a digital repository hosted by the UNT Libraries. It was donated by the Orange Chamber of Commerce, and its copyright status is undetermined.
This 1955 photo is part of the collection entitled: Abilene Photograph Collection and was provided by the Hardin-Simmons University Library to The Portal to Texas History, a digital repository hosted by the UNT Libraries.
This 1982 photo by John Margolies is part of the John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive at the Library of Congress, and is effectively in the public domain.
This beautiful 1949 postcard is part of the Curt Teich Postcard Archives at the University of Illinois. Since it was published before 1964 without a copyright notice, it appears to be in the public domain.
This postcard photo is from the Curt Teich Postcard Archives Collection at the University of Illinois. Since it was published before 1964 without a copyright notice, it is apparently in the public domain.
There’s a larger, sharper version of this photo on Flickr, posted by Orange County Archives. It says it’s from the OC Parks Collection, and “There are no known copyright restrictions on this image. All future uses of this photo should include the courtesy line, "Photo courtesy Orange County Archives.” "
That photo was printed in the April 29, 1948 issue of the Amarillo Globe-Times. The original caption:
Amarillo’s new drive-in theater, the Trail, opens tonight on Highways 60 and 66 near the “Y.” Owner and operator W. O. Bearden said the first show will begin at 7:45 o'clock tonight, but the gates will be open an hour before showtime. The picture for the opening is “Gunfighters” starring Randolph Scott. The sign in the foreground is at the highway entrance to the drive-in. In the background is the back of the screentower on which Artist Tex Merrick of Tri-State Advertisers is finishing a huge mural of a covered wagon going down a canyon trail.
“Drive-In Theatre” opened on Saturday, Sept. 11, 1948, with the movie “There Goes My Heart”. By Sept. 12, its ads in the El Reno Daily Tribune had changed to “El Reno Drive-In Theatre”.
Kennerado is absolutely right about the Grande’s soft opening night. Here are a couple of other notes:
A “baby tornado” hit the Grande the afternoon of Oct. 8, 1959. The west wall was blown down, plenty of neon was wrecked, and the concession stand roof was “extensively damaged”. Yet “the show went on a usual” that night under the direction of 20-year-old owner-manager Tommy Shaffer.
Four years later, in October 1963, Shaffer was beaten and killed, his body found in roadside brush. A suspect was arrested in Kentucky, where he had been already wanted for an unrelated kidnapping case, and he was later tried on an unrelated murder of a St. Louis man.
Ted Siebenman managed the Grande in early 1965, and Myron Woodcock took over on July 1 that year.
I also found that photo, with a softer focus and a fuzzier “circa 1940: date, at the St. Louis Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri St. Louis. That page said that it’s a St. Louis Globe-Democrat photo, and UMSL would be happy to sell you reproduction rights.
Clovis News-Journal, July 4, 1982, in a retrospective: “(W.O. Bearden and Lloyd Franklin) bought the 4-Lane Drive-In Theater between Clovis and Texico about 1958, later selling it to Stuckey’s.”
The Starlite’s last ad in the Alamogordo Daily News was on Sept. 23, 1983, noting that it would close for the season after the show Saturday, Sept. 24. The final “wing ding” program included “Overnight Models,” “Voluptuous Vixens,” “Forbidden Lessons,” and “Tempting Roommates.”
To amplify DavidAndrews’s note, it appears that the last Yucca Drive-In movie ad in the Alamogordo Daily News was on Oct. 25, 1974. It promised two retitled German-made films “Island of Lost Girls” (Kommissar X - Drei goldene Schlangen) and “How Did A Nice Girl Like You?” (Mir hat es immer Spaß gemacht) running through Sunday, Oct. 27.
There is evidence that the Yucca planned to reopen in 1975. On March 9 that year, it advertised in the Alamogordo Daily News for help at the concession stand. On May 28, it joined about every other business in town in saluting the high school graduating class. (Then again, the Yucca didn’t advertise in that issue although the local “Starlight” drive-in did.)
Workers toppled the Yucca’s sturdy screen tower on Jan. 6, 1981 to make way for construction of a Sierra Ice & Water warehouse.
The ad ran in the Jan. 28, 1954 issue of the Alamogordo News.
According to the Alamogordo News, in April 1952, Marshall R. Sanguinet appeared before the Alamogordo City Commission to request water service for “a new drive-in theatre which he has under construction”. The board told him the price difference for a business outside the city limits. On the spur of that moment, Sanguinet requested that the city annex the drive-in site, and the commission agreed.
In December that year, Sanguinet publicly announced his candidacy for a seat on the commission, but he failed to file the paperwork on time. Within a couple of months, he left town to run a construction project in Iceland. His wife looked after his local businesses for a while, then joined him overseas in late 1953. So maybe that was a cause for the Yucca’s delayed opening?
The Sanguinet family must have bounced around. They adopted a daughter while in Turkey, and Marshall died in June 1967 in Pakistan during another construction project.
A note in the Aug. 10, 1961 Page Signal mentioned that the Mesa was owned by Stan Dewsnup at that point, and that it seated 620.
The Nov. 2, 1966 Lake Powell Chronicle said that the Mesa had been damaged by fire in the summer of 1964 and remained closed until Nov. 4, 1966.
This photo appeared in the December 1952 issue of Technicolor News and Views. Since it was published without a copyright, it should be in the public domain.
To amplify ScreenTower’s caption, this photo was part of a three-page spread in the Dec. 10, 1938 issue of Motion Picture Herald, which is now in the public domain.
Boxoffice, April 7, 1951: “KINGFISHER, OKLA. - The Thomas Drive-In, south of here, has been sold to Marsy Exhibitors, who already own two other theatres here. John Thomas, former owner of the house, has no immediate plans.”
Boxoffice, April 7, 1951: “George L. Western of Yoakum, Tex., has been named manager of the Twin City Drive-In Theatre, succeeding E. W. Grisham, who resigned to accept a position in Richmond. The drive-in, which is owned by Mart Cole, is located between Rosenberg and Richmond.”
Boxoffice, April 7, 1951: “Max E. Davis resigned as manager of the El Dorago Theatre to operate a drive-in at Lyons which he purchased”
Boxoffice, April 7, 1951: “Dale Stewart, manager of the Goodland Drive-In, has spent some $6,000 in new sound and projection equipment and minor improvements for his house. This family-style theatre will (re-)open around April 13.”
That link to the The Legend article has gone bad. Here’s a link to a saved version at the Internet Archive.
This photo by B. A. Lang, date unknown, is part of the collection entitled: Rescuing Texas History, 2007 and was provided by the Heritage House Museum to The Portal to Texas History, a digital repository hosted by the UNT Libraries. It was donated by the Orange Chamber of Commerce, and its copyright status is undetermined.
This 1955 photo is part of the collection entitled: Abilene Photograph Collection and was provided by the Hardin-Simmons University Library to The Portal to Texas History, a digital repository hosted by the UNT Libraries.
This 2009 photo by Matt H. Wade was published to Wikimedia Commons with a Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 3.0 Unported license.
This 1982 photo by John Margolies is part of the John Margolies Roadside America photograph archive at the Library of Congress, and is effectively in the public domain.
This beautiful 1949 postcard is part of the Curt Teich Postcard Archives at the University of Illinois. Since it was published before 1964 without a copyright notice, it appears to be in the public domain.
This postcard photo is from the Curt Teich Postcard Archives Collection at the University of Illinois. Since it was published before 1964 without a copyright notice, it is apparently in the public domain.
This photo is also in the Wikimedia Commons, which believes that it’s in the public domain.
There’s a larger, sharper version of this photo on Flickr, posted by Orange County Archives. It says it’s from the OC Parks Collection, and “There are no known copyright restrictions on this image. All future uses of this photo should include the courtesy line, "Photo courtesy Orange County Archives.” "
That photo was printed in the April 29, 1948 issue of the Amarillo Globe-Times. The original caption:
Amarillo’s new drive-in theater, the Trail, opens tonight on Highways 60 and 66 near the “Y.” Owner and operator W. O. Bearden said the first show will begin at 7:45 o'clock tonight, but the gates will be open an hour before showtime. The picture for the opening is “Gunfighters” starring Randolph Scott. The sign in the foreground is at the highway entrance to the drive-in. In the background is the back of the screentower on which Artist Tex Merrick of Tri-State Advertisers is finishing a huge mural of a covered wagon going down a canyon trail.
“Drive-In Theatre” opened on Saturday, Sept. 11, 1948, with the movie “There Goes My Heart”. By Sept. 12, its ads in the El Reno Daily Tribune had changed to “El Reno Drive-In Theatre”.
Kennerado is absolutely right about the Grande’s soft opening night. Here are a couple of other notes:
A “baby tornado” hit the Grande the afternoon of Oct. 8, 1959. The west wall was blown down, plenty of neon was wrecked, and the concession stand roof was “extensively damaged”. Yet “the show went on a usual” that night under the direction of 20-year-old owner-manager Tommy Shaffer.
Four years later, in October 1963, Shaffer was beaten and killed, his body found in roadside brush. A suspect was arrested in Kentucky, where he had been already wanted for an unrelated kidnapping case, and he was later tried on an unrelated murder of a St. Louis man.
Ted Siebenman managed the Grande in early 1965, and Myron Woodcock took over on July 1 that year.
I also found that photo, with a softer focus and a fuzzier “circa 1940: date, at the St. Louis Mercantile Library at the University of Missouri St. Louis. That page said that it’s a St. Louis Globe-Democrat photo, and UMSL would be happy to sell you reproduction rights.