Skyline Drive-In
1302 Skyline Road,
Laramie,
WY
82070
1302 Skyline Road,
Laramie,
WY
82070
1 person
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Commonwealth Theaters Corp.
Functions: Storage
Nearby Theaters
Opened by Westco Theatres in August 1949. Car capacity was listed at 200 cars. The Skyline Drive-In screen faced I-80 which gave a great view of the movie from those passing by. The drive-in had two marquees angled so that both faced the freeway also.
The drive-in was last operated by Commonwealth Theatres and closed in the mid-1980’s. The property is now home to Skyline Self Storage.
Contributed by
Chuck
Want to be emailed when a new comment is posted about this theater?
Just login to your account and subscribe to this theater.
Recent comments (view all 6 comments)
On the Map the Drive-In is West of the Red Dot. You can plainly see the Skyline Self Storage. The self storage is using the same marquee the drive-in used.
Commonwealth Theaters, Inc. of Kansas City, Mo., Richard H. Orear, President, had over 110 theaters in Arkansas, Colorado, Iowa, Kansas, Missouri, Nebraska, South Dakota and Wyoming.
More info and photos are always welcome.
RVD
I have being owned by Skyline Amusement Co,and Russ Dauterman in 1956 of course.
There are some additional pictures in this theater’s gallery page at Drive-ins.com: http://www.drive-ins.com/gallery/wytsky2
Just added a 1994 photo credit John Tretten.
When my husband and I were students at the University of Wyoming in the 80s and early 90s, we lived in a trailer court next to I-80 close to the overpass. The Skyline Drive-In was just beyond it, and its movie screens faced toward the highway, so we could actually watch what was showing from where we lived. Because of the thin and unobstructed air, on a clear night we could hear it, too. The experience was never near-paying ticket quality, of course, but it made the night a little less lonesome and more cozy knowing that there were things going on in the world while we were memorizing Krebs cycle and synthesizing chemicals, and balancing chemical equations and deriving carboxylic acid compounds with th Grignard reagents in our sleep.
Because of the special air quality and location, we’d sometimes drive up near the Lincoln Monument and watch the stars fall in meteor showers visible in the evening sky. When we tired of country music on the Curt Gowdy network, we had free PBS television programming because of the location of the transmitter on Pilot Hill.
The Skyline was due to open in late summer 1949, per a note in the Aug. 6, 1949 issue of BoxOffice: “Russ Dauterman and Robert Adams are building a drive-in at Laramie, Wyo., for an August 15 opening.”
And it must have happened before the end of 1949. From the May 6, 1950 issue of Box0ffice: “LARAMIE, WYO. – Manager Bob Adams has opened the Skyline Drive-In for the season. A new steel screen was erected to replace a screen destroyed by wind.”
Boxoffice, May 27, 1950: “The Skyline Drive-In was opened recently by Manager Bob Adams after installation of its third screen. The new steel structure has double reinforcements. The last two screens at the drive-in have been blown down by strong gusts of wind.”