Bolton Drive-In

StanMalone on October 16, 2016 at 4:15 pm

This location was built by Georgia Theater Company and opened in, I think, 1956. GTC was a big operator of drive ins in the Atlanta area and this was a standard looking build. I was only there once, in 1972, to check out the booth, but I never worked or saw a movie there. The booth had Simplex projectors and lamphouses that you had to push in the crank handles and crank to adjust the carbons. Sorry, but I can not remember the name of the brand. One odd thing was the presence of 6000' magazines on the projectors but no big reels, so it was still the changeovers every 18 minutes or so.

The feature the night I was there was “The Good, The Bad, and The Ugly.” I remember the big Civil War battle scene looking especially impressive.

This location was closed in 1974, and the manager, Mr. Bill Stephens, was transferred to the newly acquired Parkaire Twin in Cobb County. The managers house which was located on the lot was moved to the Northeast Expressway Drive In. The manager at that location lived in a nice house in the base of the screen, but after twice being flooded out when the creek that flowed alongside the west and southern boundary of the drive in left its banks they decided to put the Bolton house at the back of the lot where the land was higher.

Too late. After the house was moved but before it was hooked up and ready to live in there was yet another flood in March of 1975 which also washed out the newly built ramps for the twinning project that was then underway.