Sandusky Drive-In

3711 Cleveland Road West,
Sandusky, OH 44870

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Additional Info

Architects: George M. Peterson

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Sandusky Drive-In

The Sandusky Drive-In opened on May 26, 1948, screening the musical comedy “Copacabana” with Groucho Marx and Carmen Miranda. The second feature was the 1946 documentary short subject “Down Singapore Way”. It was operated by Earl Seitz, William C. Seitz and Alden Seitz of Seitz Amusements, were was also operating the indoor Sandusky Theatre, State Theatre and Plaza Theatre. George M. Peterson, a Cleveland architect who had been designing drive-in’s for the past 15 years, prepared and designed the new drive-in. Co-Operative Theatres of Ohio from Cleveland, OH, was the buying and booking agency along with Berlo Vending Company from Cleveland, who operated the concession stand.

The thirteen parking ramps could park 625 cars with RCA in-a-car speakers. There were five RCA speakers installed for the 220-seat walk-in space in front of the first parking ramp for cars. Selby (now Products) Engineering Co. from Cleveland, OH erected a 60ft x 58ft tower with a 39ft x 52ft screen mounted on it. Later wings were added to the screen tower for screening CinemaScope movies in the mid-1950’s. In the late-1950’s and into the 1960’s the First Presbyterian Church sponsored drive-in church services. Going into the late-1960’s and 1970’s the drive-in received a lot of letters to the editor of the local newspaper complaining about the movies they were showing. Their reply was “family pictures aren’t made very often anymore. You have to screen what movies are being released”. The Seitz family closed the Sandusky Drive-In at the end of the season in 2001.

In 2002, projectionist Tim Bretz along with Steve Megyesi, who spent the last 27 years as projectionist at the drive-in was quoted in saying “The theatre wasn’t kept up right. The theatre needed to be repainted and cleaned. The snack bar was removed about 10 years ago. David Seitz wasn’t investing in or making any money on the theatre”. How can you run a drive-in without a snack bar? My thinking is they used the drive-in as a tax write-off. On October 28, 2007, the drive-in property was sold to the City of Sandusky for $456,000. The property will be part of a new Sports Force Parks. Philip Seitz who was now executive director of Seitz Amusements decided to dissolve the company. On December 31, 2007, Seitz Amusement was dissolved and no longer in business. That became the end of the Sandusky Drive-In and Seitz Amusements.

Contributed by Ken McIntyre, Randy Studer

Recent comments (view all 8 comments)

kencmcintyre
kencmcintyre on February 25, 2008 at 6:45 pm

Here is a November 20, 2007 article with photos and audio commentary:
http://tinyurl.com/2fpmzl

Silicon Sam
Silicon Sam on March 12, 2010 at 4:32 pm

Good video with lots of memories. Cheesy music though….

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uEGdgbugywM

Drive-In 54
Drive-In 54 on July 3, 2012 at 9:24 am

Uploaded Goggle Earth 1995. It’s all gone now.

jwmovies
jwmovies on November 20, 2012 at 1:34 pm

The address for this drive-in was 3403 Cleveland Road West.

dallasmovietheaters
dallasmovietheaters on August 25, 2015 at 11:25 pm

George M. Peterson architected the Sandusky D-I.

Kenmore
Kenmore on July 27, 2016 at 10:48 am

JWMovies is correct, the address is 3403 Cleveland Road West, Sandusky, OH. Today, you can still see the ramps, outline, entrance, and exit roads. http://tinyurl.com/h6sjqor

Drive-In 54
Drive-In 54 on January 11, 2021 at 12:56 pm

The adress is 3711 Cleveland Road West

GPS:41.426875, -82.644732

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