Tsaya Drive-In
948 Lebanon Road,
Cortez,
CO
81321
948 Lebanon Road,
Cortez,
CO
81321
1 person
favorited this theater
Showing 10 comments
Looking through back issues of the Cortez Sentinel, it appears that the Tsaya didn’t advertise regularly in 1955, though its competitors the Arroyo and indoor AnLe did. Perhaps because there was a full-page ad in the April 21, 1955 issue, the Sentinel also ran a front-page story which better answered davidcoppock’s question:
“(T)he Tsaya Drive-In Theatre southwest of the Cortez city limits … stages its formal opening tonight. Tsaya, a Navajo word, means "water under the rock,” and was the first Indian name for Cortez because of its proximity to Mitchell springs, less than two miles south of the present townsite."
The article’s headline mentioned a detail not included in the long story: “Tsaya Drive-In Theatre Stages Grand Opening Tonight After Four Nights of Operation”. That would suggest that the Tsaya had a soft open on April 17, but as I said, there were no other details about it.
This time, the answer to davidcoppock’s question took a little digging, though not a full year’s worth. (Sorry for the delay.) Tsaya is a Navajo word for “house under the rock,” and also the name of a trading post known to the Navajo near the Four Corners region.
That was pretty much the only use of the word until 2005, when Pablo Holman invented a small purse (or cell-phone holster) that straps to a woman’s thigh and named it the Tsaya. Was he thinking of the Navajo word when he did that? I’ll let you know if I ever find out.
(Update: That guy, Pablos Holman, wrote to explain that “Tsaya is the Japanese word for the sheath of a Samurai sword. Usually transliterated as "saya” though.“)
There was a drive-in on the northeast side of Cortez, and it’s very clear that it was the Arroyo. There was also a drive-in on the southwest side, at about 321 S. Broadway, so by elimination, that one must have been the Tsaya.
Motion Picture Herald, March 19, 1955: “A 300-car drive-in is being built at Cortez, Colo., by Taylor, Tanner & Armstrong.”
There’s a magnificent article by Mark Wolfe in the Winter 2007 issue of Colorado Heritage, which included most of the details of the Tsaya’s life. The article, “Silver Screens Under Starry Skies,” is hard to find (cough Google), but here are the high points:
Ralph Tanner and Raymond Taylor built the Tsaya, which opened on April 21, 1955. The opening show was “Rails Into Laramie”. The drive-in held 360 cars and had a wide 42x84-foot screen mounted on a 65-foot tower.
The owners of the Arroyo Drive-In acquired the Tsaya in the early 1960s. By May 1967, Margory Gai had closed the Tsaya, eventually repurchased by Tanner. “The theater was torn down in the 1970s and replaced by the Sikis Village mobile home court.”
The Tsaya fell off the Motion Picture Almanac drive-in list between the 1967 edition and 1969, a rare update for MPA for that period. The drive-in looked fairly intact even in a 1993 aerial, and it was included in a 1984 topo map.
Looks like it opened in 1955. From the April 30, 1955 Motion Picture Herald:
Taylor, Tanner and Armstrong have opened a 320-car drive-in, Cortez, Colo.
Why the name Tsaya?
the concession stand is gone though all of the ramps and screen foundation still remain
Approx. address for this drive-in was 948 Lebanon Road. Parts of the ramps, screen tower and concession building are still there.