Park Vu Drive-In
433 S. Ash Street,
Nowata,
OK
74048
433 S. Ash Street,
Nowata,
OK
74048
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The Park Vu Drive-In was opened on September 3, 1952 with Gary Cooper in “You’re in the Navy Now”. Owner is Chester Fleming.”
The 1953-54 Theatre Catalog included two drive-ins in Nowata. The Park Vu held 300, owned by C. V. Fleming, and the Sky-Vu on “Rt. 60” held 265, owners Bud Hicks and J. J. Bowden. US 60 is the east-west highway through Nowata. The Park Vu Drive-In was closed in 1954.
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Michael Kilgore
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Recent comments (view all 6 comments)
I have a possible location, 459 S. Ash, Nowata, OK
A 1959 entry in the Nowata Daily Star states that Chester Fleming, the owner of the now-defunct Park-Vu drive-in on US 169 leased the land for a trailer court to be constructed.
Given the description, that trailer court was opposite Jack Gordon Park. The article states that the trailer court would have gas, electric, water, and sewer service, so the location makes sense.
A 1971 aerial photo shows several trailers placed close together at that location, but no trace of a drive-in. Today, there are still a few trailers on the site.
https://tinyurl.com/2mvzk8k3
The Park-Vu Drive-In opened its gates on September 3, 1952 with Gary Cooper in “You’re In The Navy Now” (unknown if extras added). The Park-Vu closed two years later in 1954.
Grand opening ad posted.
A slightly closer address is 433 S Ash St, Nowata, OK.
This is the entrance to the RV park which was also the entrance to the drive-in. Thanks to a 1958 aerial that confirms its location.
That same aerial also showed the screen was gone, so it had definitely closed. Today, there is no trace of the drive-in remaining save arguably for the first two ramps from the screen.
https://tinyurl.com/29h7t672
Drive-ins, like all businesses, fail for any number of reasons. The Park Vu did open about a month after the Sky Vue, but was basically in the town next to HWY 169 while the Sky Vue was a couple miles east of town on HWY 60.
The Park Vu also had its screen facing west, which meant that the setting sun would light the screen for longer compared to the Sky Vue’s screen which faced northeast. Whether that had any bearing on the short life of the Park Vu I cannot say.
These things are very minor, but the two drive-ins that operated were named the Park-Vu and the Sky-Vu and they were competing with each other (both are slightly incorrect in the database but these inaccuracies are trivially semi-significant). Chester V. Fleming - who had operated theaters in Sand Springs and Tulsa - moved to Nowata in 1936 and operated the Luxor and the Rainbo theaters. C.D. Hicks and J.J. Bowden operated the competing and superior New Rex Theatre.
Fleming announced the building of the Nowata Drive-Inn Theatre in 1952 across from Nowata City Park (aka “Southside Park,” informally to locals) on Highway 169. Hicks and Bowden countered fast-tracking the Sky-Vu Drive-In to the East of the City on Highway 60. Cheekily, Fleming renamed his project as the Park-Vu Drive-In. So heading into the TV age, the town of Nowata - a football team roster short of 4,000 residents - would have three hard top and two very similarly-named ozoner theaters. Something had to give.
Hicks and Bowden’s Sky-Vu won the race launching August 11, 1952. Weeks later, Chester launched his Park-Vu Drive-In on September 1, 1952 with “Macao” and “Skirts Ahoy!” Reading some of the stories is fairly amusing. One very cold April night, 8 cars showed up to the Sky-Vu and just 5 to the Park-Vu so Chester had the Park-Vu closed directing the 5 to the competition.
I know the database claims a 1954 closure - but that also is slightly incorrect and yet semi-significantly germane. Fleming’s Rainbo was Nowata’s first TV-era movie house casualty closing for the Summer of 1953 with the reopening of the Park-Vu on March 30, 1953. That closure came with a promise of a remodeling in time for the Fall of 1953 reboot. That wisely never happened.
Fast forward to 1956 and there are still four theaters operational in town (!). And operational costs generally included upgrades to CinemaScope in the mid-1950s coupled with a marketplace comprised of many fewer paying patrons. In other words, there were two theaters too many in a town the size of Nowata. For the 1955 season, Hicks and Bowden’s Sky-Vu had made the conversion to a widescreen tower to present CinemaScope titles staking its claim as the superior operation with the Park-Vu not making the switch.
Effective July 1, 1956, Fleming exited the cinema exhibition market altogether with all of the leases - the Park-Vu, the Luxor (1940-1960), and the expiring former Rainbo (1936-1956) transferred to Hicks and Bowden. The last film for Fleming’s career was at the Park-Vu - Debra Paget as the “Princess of the Nile” late on June 30, 1956. Hicks and Bowden didn’t reopen the Park-Vu the next night… or ever. It was dismantled with the lease apparently transferred back to Fleming (undoubtedly with a non-compete understanding). Fleming sublet it becoming a trailer park that was still going in the 2020s and across from the re-named Jack Gordon Park.
Meanwhile, the Luxor would close on the last day of its lease on February 28, 1960 with the town finally at closer to its fighting weight of one hard top and one ozoner in the Sky-Vu and the Rex. Both venues ultimately closed and both demolished.