77 Drive-In

9301 S. Shields Boulevard,
Oklahoma City, OK 73160

948 cars

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Additional Info

Previously operated by: Peerless Theatres

Styles: Streamline Moderne

Previous Names: Odom Drive-In, Barton's 77 Drive-In

Nearby Theaters

The Odom Drive-In Theatre Screen...1947

The Odom Drive-In opened on July 2, 1947 with John Wayne in “Angel and the Badman”. It was owned by R. Lewis Barton and Peerless Theatres Inc. On March 28, 1948 it was renamed Barton’s 77 Drive-In. On July 7, 1968 the name was changed to the 77 Drive-In.

It was a single screen and could accommodate 948 cars. The 77 Drive-In was closed on September 2, 1975.

Contributed by Chuck

Recent comments (view all 19 comments)

rivest266
rivest266 on August 22, 2018 at 6:55 pm

Reopened as the Barton’s 77 Drive-In on March 10th, 1949. Another grand reopening ad from July 7th, 1968 (along with the Airline Drive-In). Both ads posted.

davidcoppock
davidcoppock on October 20, 2018 at 10:32 am

Also opened with a Bugs Bunny cartoon(not named), and a Three Stooges short(Fright night).

MichaelKilgore
MichaelKilgore on May 27, 2019 at 1:00 pm

Management built a new concession stand in the 1955-56 offseason, per a Feb. 25, 1956 note in the Motion Picture Herald.

MichaelKilgore
MichaelKilgore on July 18, 2019 at 5:56 pm

More personal details than normal from the June 21, 1947 BoxOffice:

Robert L. Barton, son of the R. Lewis Bartons, and Betty Lou Humphrey were married recently. Both the bride and bridegroom were Oklahoma City university students. The bride was president of her senior class. The couple is on a one-month wedding trip to Canada and Niagara Falls. Young Barton is associated with his dad in the theatre business but plans to continue his college education in the autumn. His father owns a chain of houses in Oklahoma, including the Home, Knob Hill and Redskin here. He also is building a new drive-in near the city which will have a 1,000-car capacity. It is three miles south of the city on Norman Highway 77, and will be known as the Odom.

davidcoppock
davidcoppock on March 19, 2021 at 1:19 am

Name changed to Burton’s 77 Drive-in on 10/3/1949 with “That wonderful urge”. Reopened on 7/7/1968 with “Cool Hand Luke” and “Wait until dark”.

MichaelKilgore
MichaelKilgore on September 28, 2021 at 10:51 am

I would double- and triple-check any source I found that contradicted Wesley Horton’s work. In this case, it’s undeniably true that March 6, 1948 was not a Friday. But March 26, 1948 was.

One more minor flaw in Horton’s date, this March 26 ad specifies that the 77 will open for the season on Easter Sunday - March 28, 1948.

77 Drive-In, first ad with new name77 Drive-In, first ad with new name 26 Mar 1948, Fri The Daily Oklahoman (Oklahoma City, Oklahoma) Newspapers.com

whorton
whorton on October 7, 2021 at 4:22 pm

Note to MichaelKilgore,

You need to recheck your data. March 6, 1948 was indeed a Friday. Note the advert from the Oklahoman archives on that date:

https://imgur.com/a/D6cxGrH

MichaelKilgore
MichaelKilgore on October 8, 2021 at 12:06 pm

To Wesley Horton, Welcome back! So great to hear from you! I just read your name in the “Tulsa Movie Theaters” book I bought this week. Please drop me an email at mkilgore@carload.com!

I bow to you in your superior Oklahoma drive-in knowledge, and probably much more, but every calendar I’ve accessed insists that March 6, 1948 was a Saturday. That would line up with the Daily Oklahoman believing that the 26th was a Friday. All I know is what I read.

MichaelKilgore
MichaelKilgore on October 13, 2021 at 4:21 pm

Tough question: WHY was this drive-in named the Odom? When it was built, the future Odom Road didn’t exist.

The easy answer would be that the Sullivan Theatre chain, which opened the NW Hi-Way the same night as the Odom’s debut, had something to do with it, since the head of that chain was Odom Farrell (O.F.) Sullivan. That theory would say that Sullivan sold it to Barton during the first off-season, and that’s why he renamed it Barton’s 77.

If only I hadn’t found the June 21, 1947 BoxOffice note above, which clearly shows that Barton finished the Odom. BUT look who started it before Barton bought it.

Motion Picture Herald, Feb. 15, 1947: “First drive-in theatre for this area has been announced for opening about April 15 with construction started last week on a 1,000-car unit to cost $100,000, as announced by C. C. McCollister of Wichita, Kan., president of Peerless Theatres, Inc., Sanford Swim is vice-president and Merle L. Barnes is secretary-treasurer of the company. The new theatre will be called the Odom.”

I’ll keep looking, but right now I’d say that O.F. Sullivan probably had a piece of Peerless.

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