I think it’s really nice that the entirety of the old drive-in site is now Tanner Park, with a softball diamond, a baseball diamond, and a soccer field.
It appears that the Showboat’s last show was Oct. 1, 1956. The double feature was “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Tobacco Road.” Five days later, Boxoffice noted, “The Showboat Drive-In at Tracy was closed indefinitely October 1 by Principal Theatres”
The Showboat continued to host Easter sunrise services for a few years. The 1959 announcements called it the former Showboat Drive-In.
I now disagree with my 2019 sentiment. This drive-in is in the middle of Johnstonville, and that’s where it’s going in my book. In other unusual news, 50sSnipes was off by a couple of days.
The Hammer half of this “Siamese twin,” as the Stockton Record indelicately put it, opened on Aug. 1, 1969. It held 700 cars, compared to the West Lane’s 1210 capacity, and cost an extra $150,000 to build. The Hammer’s grand opening movie was “Gone With the Wind.”
Based on the drive-in listings in the San Francisco Examiner, I’d say the El Rancho’s last night was Saturday, Oct. 27, 1979. The final show, with only one active screen, was “The Deer Hunter” and “The Brink’s Job.”
In its final months, the El Rancho sometimes showed “free” programs on its second screen, but it used just one screen for its October weekends. A spot check of Summer 1980 listings in the Examiner did not include the El Rancho.
Using NewspaperArchive.com, which has had some hiccups lately, the last Del-Kern ad I could find in the Shafter Press was on May 8, 1968. In addition to movies for Friday and Saturday, May 10-11, the ad teased other movie titles that were coming soon.
50sSnipes, what’s your source for the Del-Kern’s 1970s activity?
The Star Vue’s “Grand Closing” was the night of Sept. 17, 1978. Unusual but nice to see a drive-in go out with the same fanfare it used when it opened.
It turns out the the Skyview was in the middle of Live Oak, a census-designated place east of Santa Cruz. Its Wikipedia page says that folks there expected to be annexed by Santa Cruz, but that never happened.
John Rice’s excellent coverage of the Richmond area theater history provides a closing date of November 24, 1978, which lines up with the property sale story that ran two days earlier. “Count Dracula and his Vampire Bride” and “Dark Places”, two minor British horror films from 1973 with Christopher Lee, were the Rancho’s final double feature program.
BTW, I’m working on my next book, “Drive-Ins of Northern California,” due out later this year. If rockyroadz or anyone else would like to help give me the real stories of these ozoners, please drop me a line at mkilgore (at) carload.com.
rockyroadz, who knows a lot about the Rancho, is correct that its address was 1220 Connecticut Ave. That was the address given by the San Pablo News, for example, in June 1978 in a story about a security guard there who accidentally shot his manager.
By the way, the theater was apparently still in operation in June 1978 and possibly a few months later. It was sold in November 1978 to be used for single-family homes and was soon referred to as the old Rancho site.
The Connecticut Avenue address is close, but CT style is to use present-day markers for old theater sites. Connecticut Avenue actually dead-ends today before touching where the Rancho had been. Based on HistoricAerials' comparison tool, the screen tower was just south of a cul-de-sac today. The closest house is at 1314 Madrone Ct, San Pablo, CA 94806.
According to Google Maps, the “Former Frontier Village Site” is a historic landmark with the address of 200 Edenvale Ave, San Jose, CA 95136. It’s inside the Edenvale Garden Park.
When was the exact closing date of the Skyview? (One-word name) The short answer is I’m not sure, it’s a little weird. Here’s what I found in the Sacramento Bee.
On Dec. 10, 1988, the Skyview ran an ad showing “Nightmare on Elm Street 4” + “Halloween 4” / “Iron Eagle II + They Live” / Closed for Repairs on screens 1, 2, and 3 respectively.
On Dec. 18, 1988, the Skyview ad changed the second screen to “Young Guns” + “Alien Nation,” but everything else stayed the same. The Bee’s editorial listing showed the same movies as Dec. 10.
On Dec. 22, 1988, there was no Skyview ad, and the listing again showed the same movies as Dec. 10.
I would have chalked it all up to a passive editorial crew that didn’t update listings for a freshly dead drive-in, that the final Screen 2 show was “Alien Nation.” Except that two weeks later a bad crash resulted in a Jan. 2, 1989 Sacramento Union photo (uploaded here) of the (already “old”) Skyview sign showing the same program as Dec. 10.
Did the Skyview really change back for shows on Christmas week? Was its Dec. 18 ad wrong because it had quietly closed earlier? And how did the Union writers discern that the freshly closed Skyview would never open again?
According to Google Maps, the old Skyview site is in the unincorporated, census-designated place called Parkway. Even Sacramento Bee ombudsman Art Nauman concurred in 1990: “Last week I blithely wrote that the Skyview drive-in theater was built outside Sacramento’s city limits in 1950 and later was annexed to the county. Three readers - including county Supervisor Illa Collin, who ought to know - emphatically pointed out the Skyview still is in the county, not the city. I should have double-checked.”
I am sad to report that the Sacramento 6 is not technically in Sacramento. Google Maps says that it is in the unincorporated, census-designated place of La Riviera, across US 50 from Rosemont (another CDP) and across Bradshaw Road from Rancho Cordova (a real city).
Based on Google Maps' city borders, the Hi-Lander wasn’t very close to Sacramento, over four miles away from the city’s nearest corner.
Maps says that the site is across Antelope Road from North Highlands, an unincorporated, census-designated area that was the source of the drive-in’s name and which was contemporaneously used as its location. But Maps says old Hi-Lander site is currently in Antelope, yet another census-designated area.
Anyway, after a big run-in with Sacramento County officials over noise complaints and X-rated movies, the Hi-Lander “shut down in September” 1975, according to its lawyer’s remarks a couple of months later. He assured the district attorney “that it would be used as a storage area instead of a theater.”
If a drive-in’s name is what’s on its sign, then this one should be numeric: “49” or “49'er”. Just sayin'.
The 49'er’s last night was Sept. 3, 2000. The following day, it was listed as “Closed for Season” and never reopened. The final twin bills on its six screens were:
The Marina Auto Movie (not plural) held its grand opening on June 19, 1968 with “The Sound of Music” and “High, Wild and Free.”
In the 1970s, the Marina Auto Movie dropped off the Salinas Californian movie pages as it pivoted to X-rated films. In early 1977, the Marina City Council banned “offensive nudity or sexually-explicit conduct at drive-ins.” That ordinance was to take effect March 28. I didn’t find any evidence of lawsuits or appeals, nor of any other mentions of the Marina Auto Movie in the Californian after that, so it’s possible that was the closing date.
Stories in the Petaluma Argus-Courier said that the Sonomarin’s owner, Dan Tocchini or San Carlos Cinema, kept the drive-in open until escrow closed on Sonoma County’s purchase of the site. Since the Sonomarin was open Friday-Sunday at that point, and working backwards from the escrow date, its final show was on March 12, 1989. The drive-in’s ads in that paper had ceased the previous summer.
Based on spot checks of the Paradise Post, the Pine Breeze’s final season might have been 1962. The town’s theaters were plagued by vandalism, and I didn’t see any later drive-in ads. Although the site looked intact in aerial photos, a letter to the editor in February 1970 said, “As the former Pine Breeze outdoor theatre now stands it is slowly rusting and disintegrating.”
The Sunrise was active until the summer of 2004, when it sort of lost its fight with Sacramento County code enforcement, which said the 70-foot screen was in danger of collapsing. Its final appearance in the Sacramento Bee’s theater listings was on July 27, 2004.
I think it’s really nice that the entirety of the old drive-in site is now Tanner Park, with a softball diamond, a baseball diamond, and a soccer field.
It appears that the Showboat’s last show was Oct. 1, 1956. The double feature was “The Grapes of Wrath” and “Tobacco Road.” Five days later, Boxoffice noted, “The Showboat Drive-In at Tracy was closed indefinitely October 1 by Principal Theatres”
The Showboat continued to host Easter sunrise services for a few years. The 1959 announcements called it the former Showboat Drive-In.
I now disagree with my 2019 sentiment. This drive-in is in the middle of Johnstonville, and that’s where it’s going in my book. In other unusual news, 50sSnipes was off by a couple of days.
The Hammer half of this “Siamese twin,” as the Stockton Record indelicately put it, opened on Aug. 1, 1969. It held 700 cars, compared to the West Lane’s 1210 capacity, and cost an extra $150,000 to build. The Hammer’s grand opening movie was “Gone With the Wind.”
Based on the drive-in listings in the San Francisco Examiner, I’d say the El Rancho’s last night was Saturday, Oct. 27, 1979. The final show, with only one active screen, was “The Deer Hunter” and “The Brink’s Job.”
In its final months, the El Rancho sometimes showed “free” programs on its second screen, but it used just one screen for its October weekends. A spot check of Summer 1980 listings in the Examiner did not include the El Rancho.
Using NewspaperArchive.com, which has had some hiccups lately, the last Del-Kern ad I could find in the Shafter Press was on May 8, 1968. In addition to movies for Friday and Saturday, May 10-11, the ad teased other movie titles that were coming soon.
50sSnipes, what’s your source for the Del-Kern’s 1970s activity?
The Star Vue’s “Grand Closing” was the night of Sept. 17, 1978. Unusual but nice to see a drive-in go out with the same fanfare it used when it opened.
It turns out the the Skyview was in the middle of Live Oak, a census-designated place east of Santa Cruz. Its Wikipedia page says that folks there expected to be annexed by Santa Cruz, but that never happened.
John Rice’s excellent coverage of the Richmond area theater history provides a closing date of November 24, 1978, which lines up with the property sale story that ran two days earlier. “Count Dracula and his Vampire Bride” and “Dark Places”, two minor British horror films from 1973 with Christopher Lee, were the Rancho’s final double feature program.
BTW, I’m working on my next book, “Drive-Ins of Northern California,” due out later this year. If rockyroadz or anyone else would like to help give me the real stories of these ozoners, please drop me a line at mkilgore (at) carload.com.
rockyroadz, who knows a lot about the Rancho, is correct that its address was 1220 Connecticut Ave. That was the address given by the San Pablo News, for example, in June 1978 in a story about a security guard there who accidentally shot his manager.
By the way, the theater was apparently still in operation in June 1978 and possibly a few months later. It was sold in November 1978 to be used for single-family homes and was soon referred to as the old Rancho site.
The Connecticut Avenue address is close, but CT style is to use present-day markers for old theater sites. Connecticut Avenue actually dead-ends today before touching where the Rancho had been. Based on HistoricAerials' comparison tool, the screen tower was just south of a cul-de-sac today. The closest house is at 1314 Madrone Ct, San Pablo, CA 94806.
That’s got to be what became known as the Pico Drive-In in Los Angeles, which looked like that and was California’s first drive-in.
According to Google Maps, the “Former Frontier Village Site” is a historic landmark with the address of 200 Edenvale Ave, San Jose, CA 95136. It’s inside the Edenvale Garden Park.
When was the exact closing date of the Skyview? (One-word name) The short answer is I’m not sure, it’s a little weird. Here’s what I found in the Sacramento Bee.
On Dec. 10, 1988, the Skyview ran an ad showing “Nightmare on Elm Street 4” + “Halloween 4” / “Iron Eagle II + They Live” / Closed for Repairs on screens 1, 2, and 3 respectively.
On Dec. 18, 1988, the Skyview ad changed the second screen to “Young Guns” + “Alien Nation,” but everything else stayed the same. The Bee’s editorial listing showed the same movies as Dec. 10.
On Dec. 22, 1988, there was no Skyview ad, and the listing again showed the same movies as Dec. 10.
I would have chalked it all up to a passive editorial crew that didn’t update listings for a freshly dead drive-in, that the final Screen 2 show was “Alien Nation.” Except that two weeks later a bad crash resulted in a Jan. 2, 1989 Sacramento Union photo (uploaded here) of the (already “old”) Skyview sign showing the same program as Dec. 10.
Did the Skyview really change back for shows on Christmas week? Was its Dec. 18 ad wrong because it had quietly closed earlier? And how did the Union writers discern that the freshly closed Skyview would never open again?
According to Google Maps, the old Skyview site is in the unincorporated, census-designated place called Parkway. Even Sacramento Bee ombudsman Art Nauman concurred in 1990: “Last week I blithely wrote that the Skyview drive-in theater was built outside Sacramento’s city limits in 1950 and later was annexed to the county. Three readers - including county Supervisor Illa Collin, who ought to know - emphatically pointed out the Skyview still is in the county, not the city. I should have double-checked.”
I am sad to report that the Sacramento 6 is not technically in Sacramento. Google Maps says that it is in the unincorporated, census-designated place of La Riviera, across US 50 from Rosemont (another CDP) and across Bradshaw Road from Rancho Cordova (a real city).
The final show at the Mather Auto Movie was on October 5, 1976. The final program was “The Outlaw Josey Wales” + “Magnum Force” + “Trackdown.”
BTW, Google Maps puts the Mather site clearly within the Rancho Cordova city limits.
Based on Google Maps' city borders, the Hi-Lander wasn’t very close to Sacramento, over four miles away from the city’s nearest corner.
Maps says that the site is across Antelope Road from North Highlands, an unincorporated, census-designated area that was the source of the drive-in’s name and which was contemporaneously used as its location. But Maps says old Hi-Lander site is currently in Antelope, yet another census-designated area.
Anyway, after a big run-in with Sacramento County officials over noise complaints and X-rated movies, the Hi-Lander “shut down in September” 1975, according to its lawyer’s remarks a couple of months later. He assured the district attorney “that it would be used as a storage area instead of a theater.”
If a drive-in’s name is what’s on its sign, then this one should be numeric: “49” or “49'er”. Just sayin'.
The 49'er’s last night was Sept. 3, 2000. The following day, it was listed as “Closed for Season” and never reopened. The final twin bills on its six screens were:
“The Art of War” + “The Replacements”
“Bring It On” + “Nutty Professor II: The Klumps”
“The Cell” + “Scary Movie”
“Godzilla 2000” + “Hollow Man”
“Bless the Child” + “Shaft”
“What Lies Beneath” + “Coyote Ugly”
The Marina Auto Movie (not plural) held its grand opening on June 19, 1968 with “The Sound of Music” and “High, Wild and Free.”
In the 1970s, the Marina Auto Movie dropped off the Salinas Californian movie pages as it pivoted to X-rated films. In early 1977, the Marina City Council banned “offensive nudity or sexually-explicit conduct at drive-ins.” That ordinance was to take effect March 28. I didn’t find any evidence of lawsuits or appeals, nor of any other mentions of the Marina Auto Movie in the Californian after that, so it’s possible that was the closing date.
After a preview show (“The Farmer’s Daughter”) on May 8, 1947, the Motor-In held its grand opening the following night, May 9.
Stories in the Petaluma Argus-Courier said that the Sonomarin’s owner, Dan Tocchini or San Carlos Cinema, kept the drive-in open until escrow closed on Sonoma County’s purchase of the site. Since the Sonomarin was open Friday-Sunday at that point, and working backwards from the escrow date, its final show was on March 12, 1989. The drive-in’s ads in that paper had ceased the previous summer.
The Oaks' final newspaper ad was on Oct. 26, 1985. The double feature that night was “National Lampoon’s European Vacation” and “My Science Project.”
Based on spot checks of the Paradise Post, the Pine Breeze’s final season might have been 1962. The town’s theaters were plagued by vandalism, and I didn’t see any later drive-in ads. Although the site looked intact in aerial photos, a letter to the editor in February 1970 said, “As the former Pine Breeze outdoor theatre now stands it is slowly rusting and disintegrating.”
The old Mesa was replaced by Oroville Manor, a housing unit that is still there today. Its address is 2750 Lincoln Blvd, Oroville, CA 95966.
The Sunrise was active until the summer of 2004, when it sort of lost its fight with Sacramento County code enforcement, which said the 70-foot screen was in danger of collapsing. Its final appearance in the Sacramento Bee’s theater listings was on July 27, 2004.