Yucca Drive-In
200 Marguerite Street,
Gallup,
NM
87301
200 Marguerite Street,
Gallup,
NM
87301
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The Yucca Drive-In was opened September 28, 1951 with Dana Andrews in “Canyon Passage”. It was operated by R.I. Payne & Frontier Theatres Inc. It was still listed in 1957, but had been demolished by 1962.
Contributed by
A.L. Vazquez-Hernandez
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Found It!
The drive-in was located on the west side of the town at 200 Marguerite St, Gallup, NM 87301. By 1962, the drive-in had been demolished.
Today, the property has a Shop ‘n Save store and there is no trace of the drive-in remaining.
http://tinyurl.com/ybxxbu8b
Its last listing in the Motion Picture Almanac series was the 1959 edition, showing capacity 249, run by Frontier Theaters. In Gallup, the 1960 MPA showed only the Zuni, a larger drive-in on the other side of town and also run by Frontier.
Boxoffice, July 28, 1951: “GALLUP, N. M. – Construction has been launched on this city’s first drive-in, a 300-car ozoner being built by William Nagle and Theatre Enterprises. It is being constructed on a ten-acre site on Highway 66. Theatre Enterprises also operates the Chief and El Morro, conventional houses here, with Bruce Waugh as city manager.”
Boxoffice, Sept. 22, 1951: “GALLUP, N. M. – Construction of Gallup’s first drive-in by Theatre Enterprises and William Nagle is proceeding on schedule, according to Bruce Waugh, manager of the Chief and El Morro theatres. The project is located on Highway 66 just west of the city limits. J. E. Waller, Roswell, N. M., contractor, has installed five poles 46 feet high to support the screen tower. Ramps are already built and grading and drainage are now being processed.”
After co-existing with the newer Zuni Drive-In for just over a year, the Yucca’s final show was probably on July 21, 1958. An ad that ran three days earlier in the Gallup Daily Independent included at the end “Note - Yucca will close for season Monday”. That was the last newspaper ad I could find; the Yucca apparently never reopened after that mid-summer close.