Pine Hill Drive-In

NeonMichael: It is nice of you to mention my grandparents, Alva “A.B.” and Maude Jefferis. They built the Pine Hill Drive In Theater (as well as the Jefferis Theater in town), and built the house that you list as adjacent. (The house, and property, are behind the back fence of the drive in.) Grandmother did photograph a number of strange (and strange-behaving) lights in the sky as seen over the theater’s screen (which put them in the direction of the sky over and past Clarke’s Mountain). Grandmother had the dam (which is topped by the driveway to the house) rebuilt in the 1980s. Granddad had a train (12" between the tracks, live steam) he named “the 4 Spot”. Before he died, the track was put around the pond between the house and drive in theater. That engine and the cars are now a part of a railroad club in Atchison, KS. My older brother is a part of that club, so we get to “keep an eye on Granddad’s train”. Grandmother was a teacher in town, as well as professional photographer in Piedmont. Wonderful people, now long gone but not forgotten.

There’s a nice paragraph about the Pine Hill in the June 9, 1956 Motion Picture Herald, under the headline “Maude and Jeff’s Movie Chatter Is Always Okay”:

That’s mild comment, but it fits as a headline, as we’ve said it before in various ways. But Jeff Jefferis, and his helpmate, Maudie, put more human relations into their program copy than you find in bound volumes of other stuff. We have never yet visited the Pine Hill Drive-In at Piedmont, Mo., but we feel like an old friend, at this distance, so folks who really live there must be members of a big, happy family. One thing for sure – and that is that Maude and Jeff are always looking out for the family trade, and making them feel at home, which is the best way to get them out to the movies. He says, it seems as if he spends the best part of his life either writing this monthly chatter or addressing movie calendars by the bushel. And he says further – he doesn’t have to apologize for a single one of the attractions for June – there isn’t a single “dawg” on the entire list! Organ concerts are a regular feature, and he believes the Pine Hill is the only drive-in theatre in Missouri with a Hammond organ.

Pine Hill has been purchased and we plan to be open spring of 2022.

We are open!! Come and see us and Pine hill in all it’s restored glory.Open Thursday with our throwback movies. New releases on Friday and Saturday double feature.

The actual opening date is May 19, 1953 with Sterling Hayden in “Kansas Pacific” along with an unnamed Popeye cartoon and an unknown comedy reel. It was first operated by Walter Wangler and owned by Mr. and Mrs. A. B. (Jeff) Jefferis who are also owners of the Jefferis Theatre.