Ski-Hi Drive-In
500 Texas Avenue,
Lebanon,
MO
65536
500 Texas Avenue,
Lebanon,
MO
65536
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The Ski-Hi Drive-In was opened on July 2, 1952 with Fred MacMurray in “Callaway Went Thataway”. By 1955 it was operated by Earl Hargis. This drive-in was closed in the early-1980’s.
Contributed by
Ken McIntyre
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Recent comments (view all 8 comments)
The opening of the Sky-Hi Drive-In was tentatively set for July 1, 1952, according to Boxoffice of May 31 that year. The theater was being built for Earl Hargis, owner of the Sky-Hi Cafe, and was his first venture into movie exhibition.
The Ski-Hi Drive-In was located on Millcreek Road.
I believe I found it.
A 1959 aerial reveals a drive-in located on the northeast corner of Texas Avenue & Crisp Road. The drive-in sat on the southwest side of the town.
Today, the Truck Parts & Supplies Company sits on the property with no trace of the drive-in remaining.
Note: I found no evidence of any drive-in located along Millcreek Road in the 1959 aerial.
https://tinyurl.com/y9cn2r9p
A more accurate address for this theater is 550 Texas Ave, Lebanon, MO 65536.
Please update.
An odd note in the Feb. 13, 1957 issue of Variety: “Earl Hargis whose ozoner is near Lebanon, had closed it for an indefinite period and no relighting date has been set for another in the same area.”
Motion Picture Exhibitor, March 7, 1962: “The SkiHi Drive-In, Lebanon, has been sold to Olen Barton, of St. Louis.”
Motion Picture Exhibitor, April 18, 1962: “Another drive-in, the Ski-Hi, Lebanon, Mo., was sold again. Olen Barton, who bought it recently from Earl Hargis, has sold it to Howard E. Thompson.”
If you want to get picky, the drive-in was bounded by present-day Texas and Ohio avenues, and by Crisp Road and Kansas Street, which was its entrance. The building that’s on the site today, Truck Parts and Supply Co., has an address of 500 Texas Avenue.
The Motion Picture Almanac changed its drive-in listing from the Sky-Hi (owner F. Kennedy) in its 1982 edition to the Sundowner (owner R. Bethel) in 1983. The MPA had all sorts of problems noticing changes on a timely basis, but the fact that it bothered to change suggests that the drive-in was active enough to request the update then.
Except that a thorough search of the local newspaper failed to turn up any mention of a Sundowner Drive-In nor any Sky-Hi ads in 1982-83. My guess is that the MPA got a wire crossed with another Sky-Hi and that Lebanon’s drive-in, never renamed, was simply dead by 1982.
Yeah you might be right Michael. The screen was gone after the early 1980s arrived.