Garberville Drive-In
1330 Redwood Drive,
Garberville,
CA
95542
1330 Redwood Drive,
Garberville,
CA
95542
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The Garberville Drive-In opened on Friday, July 17, 1953, according to a story the next week in Boxoffice magazine. It had a capacity of 462 cars with room to expand to 562, and it was owned by Earl Vann of Eureka and B. B. Byard of Happy Camp.
The 1955-56 Theatre Catalog also included the Garberville, owned by Byard, but with a capacity of 300 cars.
The drive-in was still in operation in the summer of 1963, when Bob Smith was doing the booking on San Francisco’s Film Row.
Contributed by
Michael Kilgore
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Recent comments (view all 10 comments)
can we get an address please?
A drive-in with a 300 car capacity seems awfully large for small towns and hilly countryside, let alone 450+.
A 1963 topo map reveals nothing and neither does a 1968 aerial photo. If it did exist, it is either quite far away from Garberville or it was demolished immediately so that the area was unrecognizable as a drive-in. Or perhaps we have the wrong Garberville.
In any case, some more info to at least narrow down its location would be nice.
Motion Picture Herald, Oct. 18, 1952: “Gale Santocono has been commissioned to design a 500-car drive-in about a mile north of Garberville for A. E. Vann and B. B. Byard.” (At the time, the two also owned the indoor Garberville in Garberville.)
Independent Film Journal, May 2, 1953: “Shearer installed 3-D equipment for May openings at the following drive-ins: … A. E. Van & B. B. Byard’s 101 at Garberville”
Motion Picture Herald, July 25, 1953: “B. B. Baird opened his new drive-in at Garberville, July 17.”
Like Kenmore, I can’t find any good candidates in Historic Aerials' grainy 1968 aerial photos. But the drive-in was north of town on Highway 101, which in 1952 followed today’s Redwood Drive toward Redway. How about today’s Caltrans Garberville Maintenance Station on the west side of the road? That location, roughly 1330 Redwood Dr, Garberville, CA 95542, is a large enough cleared area in 1968 to have been a 450-car drive-in. Maybe.
I agree with Michael Kilgore that the address he mentions seems like the only candidate to hold a drive-in anywhere near the town.
The 1951 and 1963 topo maps indicate that at least part of that land had buildings on it. Perhaps the same buildings that are on the south side of the maintenance area today.
There are also three buildings indicated on the north side and a trail that cuts across the river (a ford) which can be seen in the 1968 photo. That reduces the area to hold a drive-in considerably.
Now, consider a 500 car capacity drive-in for a town and surrounding communities within a 20 mile radius that doesn’t add up to 5,000 residents today? That seems incredibly excessive.
Plus, the entire maintenance area doesn’t appear to be able to hold more than 200 cars at best, even if you remove the buildings.
Something is off. If this location did have a drive-in, it would have to be 200 car capacity or less given how little land seems available. And, I’m not sure what other location exists anywhere near the town that could hold more.
I found some big clues in the Eureka CA Humboldt Standard. The Oct. 8, 1952 issue said the the county board of supervisors “approved plans of B.B. Byard and A. E. Vann for opening of a drive-in theatre one-quarter mile north of Garberville”
The Jan. 13, 1957 issue reported that car plunged 200 feet off US 101 “just north of Garberville”. It was believed to have been traveling north when the driver lost control “and plunged down a 200-foot canyon just north of the Garberville Drive-Inn.” The canyon just north of town is Bear Canyon, and that report places the drive-in just south of it.
Another clue in the Standard on Feb. 28, 1964. An assault victim told police “that he was sleeping in his car on the beach at Eel River, near the Garberville Drive-In Theater,” which pretty much guarantees that it was somewhere along today’s Redwood Drive.
My current guess is that the drive-in was east of Redwood Drive about where the Eel River bends farthest east. When preparing to build the modern Redwood Highway (completed between 1967 and 1969, per official state highway maps), CDOT probably bought the drive-in’s land. That would place the site just on the north side of the current US 101 intersection with Redwood Drive.
About the resident to capacity ratio, I would argue for desperation. A lot of those towns along 101 (and other towns about a dozen miles east and west of Garberville) had no theaters, and I’ll bet TV reception was difficult. I’m not saying the Garberville sold out every night, but maybe the developers saw that the incremental cost of the last 100 speakers was worth not having to turn anyone away on a busy weekend. OTOH, we are talking about a drive-in that died within 15 years - sometimes developers made poor choices. (See the Sands in Needles CA.)
In looking over the Google Street view and comparing that to the 1968 aerial along with the 1963 topo map, the maintenance station is still the best candidate for the location of the drive-in, IMHO.
A 200 car capacity drive-in (maybe). I think it is easier to believe that someone fudged the capacity numbers for whatever reason. 462 cars requires an area at least double the size of the maintenance shop.
And while topo maps are notorious for being out of date, they tend to accurate in terms of elevation changes. And we see that on the east side of Redwood Drive. If you use Google street view and go up 101, the highway was carved out between the hills. Nothing to me looks suitable for being the location of a drive-in along that stretch.
Now CalTrans maintenance yard and Renner petroleum @ 1330 Redwood Dr, Garberville, CA 95542.
Please update.
Jamey_monroe45 - Both MichaelKilgore and I are guessing as to the location of the drive-in. While I believe the maintenance yard seems the most likely candidate, there is no concrete evidence that it is.
A 1968 aerial shows the maintenance yard and no topo map indicates that it ever was a drive-in, though that is hardly uncommon.
Until there is proof, no update is needed.
The drive-in still existed in this Jan. 26, 1965 road conditions report in the San Francisco Chronicle. For US 101 convoys, “Heavy commercial vehicles assemble at the Garberville maintenance yard and all pickups and passenger cars assemble in the drive-in theater at Garberville. Chains should be carried.” The Humboldt Standard ran a similar note.
It’s a very minor data point, but it makes me wonder whether the current CalTrans yard existed then and was separate from the drive-in. Then I look again at the topo map, the note about the canyon north of the drive-in, and its described position (only?) a quarter-mile north of town. The topo map shows that the current Redwood Drive shifted from its old position when it was US 101.
Could it be that there was a flat area, perhaps on a plateau, just south of Bear Canyon, large enough for the drive-in? The new 101 would have used as much of it as possible, obliterating any trace of the drive-in in the 1968 aerial photo. I just don’t know.
After years of frustration, I found the Garberville! The great, helpful folks at the UC-Berkeley library pointed me to FrameFinder, an aerial photo tool hosted by UC-Santa Barbara. A 1954 aerial photo shows the drive-in pretty much exactly where the Caltrans yard is today.
I’ll leave it to Kenmore and others to estimate the capacity based on that photo. There are a lot of ramps there.