News
ENLARGE
The old days of the drive-in theater are alive and well and living just down the road in Delta and Montrose. If you haven't taken the time or lived up to that promise you made yourself — that you would go this year — then don't let yourself down, go to the drive-in. Even if the movie's a bomb, the experience is still the same.
Sometimes for me and the hubinator, it's the last stop after a day down south or a fishing trip on the Grand Mesa. You can take your dinner in or get a hamburger and fries or pizza there. Illene Roggensack tells me that Miller's Deitch House in Delta is run by a Mennonite family and that she even got to eat sauerkraut for lunch. Maybe that's where you go to eat before the movie.
The Rocket Theatre was the last drive-in to operate in Grand Junction. It was taken down in 1988 to make way for Walmart. Now there's a great trade-off, we lost the Rocket AND Rich Roubideax's Double R Bar. The Chief was across the street just west of the present day Texas Roadhouse and was the second drive-in movie theater to go up in Big J.
I had a call the other day from Paul Miller, grandson of Loyd Files and son of Janis Files Miller. He told me his mother wanted me to come by to see her so I could talk drive-in movie theaters with her. So off to Larchwood I went for a visit and to learn a thing or two about what it was like for her back then.
Janis and her younger sister, Joanne, grew up at their father's drive-in movie theater, the Starlite. Located where Teller Arms is now, Loyd and his brother, Clarence Files, took a big muddy alkali field in 1947 and turned it into Colorado's second drive-in movie venue.
At 24th Street and North home of Teller Arms, they uprooted sage brush and brought in tons of gravel to build the ramps and ward off the mud. They kept a wrecker handy in case a car got stuck. The canal ran down North Avenue at one time so a bridge had to be built to get to the ticket booth. Janis was 11 when she started working in the concession stand; then as she got older she worked in the ticket booth. Little sister Joanne was just 9 and had to stand on a box to pop the corn. The concession stand was originally built underground but when it was remodeled it had a big picture window and benches out front to watch the movies if you didn't have a car. Janis even learned to drive at the drive-in; it didn't work too well, trying to navigate the speaker posts and all. A playground was added later. Working in the ticket booth was Janis' next step up in the business. Tuesday was $1 night meaning that was the price for as many people as you could fit in a car. When the ticket booth closed, her dad would have her walk around and ask to see people's tickets; if they'd snuck in and didn't have one, she'd sell them a ticket. Her dad let her keep the money. Her mother, Cordelia, was the bookkeeper. Janis loved to sit on her mother's bed on Sundays and count the money the family had made that weekend.
The Starlite was torn down in 1962 so Loyd Files could build Teller Arms Shopping Center. Brother Clarence moved the whole kit and caboodle west on the Fruita Highway. It lasted a few years at that location and even had car heaters available so they could be open year-round. Janis tells me “the mosquitoes were awful bad out there.”
Oh, but for my days at the drive-in movies. I don't remember going as a kid in Grand Junction. I went with my mother and aunts and cousins in Wichita. It was cheaper by the carload and sometimes it took two cars. The playgrounds were so much fun until insurance costs caused them to take them out. Later, when my girlfriends or boyfriends came of driving age, we'd go to the Rocket or Chief. Sneaking in was the funnest part. Even funner than the making out part or the being sneaky smoking and drinking beer part. Bypassing the ticket booth into either venue entailed either lying down on the floor boards which we saved for the extra petite girls, or Tom Steffens or Barry Bishop, or hiding in the trunk which seemed too obvious for me. I would rather pay a couple of bucks than suffer that humiliation. But at the Chief we could have our friends' drop us off at Bunting Avenue then just hop over the fence and we were in. The second and sometimes even third features were always B movies. Lots of Vincent Price and teenage rebellion.
Sister Becky still giggles at the time she and Steve Williams were at the drive-in in his restored 1940 Ford. They had the car running and somehow…and I just can't figure this one out…her foot accidentally hit the gas pedal and his perfect car lurched forward and the speaker broke his window out. She must have been showing him her new pointy flats. When they were young, I'd take my girls, Alice and Grace and niece Amy and nephew Braden and an occasional date, just to impress. I'm glad they got to experience the local drive-in-movie theaters.
So, go ahead, make-out, take-out, chill-out or thrill out. Meet your friends there, take your grandkids or sneak in. Just go to the drive-in. Live like its 1964. Make today the good old days.
Reminisce with Priscilla at pmangnall@gjfreepress.com or call her at 243-2200, ext. 18101.
Sometimes for me and the hubinator, it's the last stop after a day down south or a fishing trip on the Grand Mesa. You can take your dinner in or get a hamburger and fries or pizza there. Illene Roggensack tells me that Miller's Deitch House in Delta is run by a Mennonite family and that she even got to eat sauerkraut for lunch. Maybe that's where you go to eat before the movie.
The Rocket Theatre was the last drive-in to operate in Grand Junction. It was taken down in 1988 to make way for Walmart. Now there's a great trade-off, we lost the Rocket AND Rich Roubideax's Double R Bar. The Chief was across the street just west of the present day Texas Roadhouse and was the second drive-in movie theater to go up in Big J.
I had a call the other day from Paul Miller, grandson of Loyd Files and son of Janis Files Miller. He told me his mother wanted me to come by to see her so I could talk drive-in movie theaters with her. So off to Larchwood I went for a visit and to learn a thing or two about what it was like for her back then.
Janis and her younger sister, Joanne, grew up at their father's drive-in movie theater, the Starlite. Located where Teller Arms is now, Loyd and his brother, Clarence Files, took a big muddy alkali field in 1947 and turned it into Colorado's second drive-in movie venue.
At 24th Street and North home of Teller Arms, they uprooted sage brush and brought in tons of gravel to build the ramps and ward off the mud. They kept a wrecker handy in case a car got stuck. The canal ran down North Avenue at one time so a bridge had to be built to get to the ticket booth. Janis was 11 when she started working in the concession stand; then as she got older she worked in the ticket booth. Little sister Joanne was just 9 and had to stand on a box to pop the corn. The concession stand was originally built underground but when it was remodeled it had a big picture window and benches out front to watch the movies if you didn't have a car. Janis even learned to drive at the drive-in; it didn't work too well, trying to navigate the speaker posts and all. A playground was added later. Working in the ticket booth was Janis' next step up in the business. Tuesday was $1 night meaning that was the price for as many people as you could fit in a car. When the ticket booth closed, her dad would have her walk around and ask to see people's tickets; if they'd snuck in and didn't have one, she'd sell them a ticket. Her dad let her keep the money. Her mother, Cordelia, was the bookkeeper. Janis loved to sit on her mother's bed on Sundays and count the money the family had made that weekend.
The Starlite was torn down in 1962 so Loyd Files could build Teller Arms Shopping Center. Brother Clarence moved the whole kit and caboodle west on the Fruita Highway. It lasted a few years at that location and even had car heaters available so they could be open year-round. Janis tells me “the mosquitoes were awful bad out there.”
Oh, but for my days at the drive-in movies. I don't remember going as a kid in Grand Junction. I went with my mother and aunts and cousins in Wichita. It was cheaper by the carload and sometimes it took two cars. The playgrounds were so much fun until insurance costs caused them to take them out. Later, when my girlfriends or boyfriends came of driving age, we'd go to the Rocket or Chief. Sneaking in was the funnest part. Even funner than the making out part or the being sneaky smoking and drinking beer part. Bypassing the ticket booth into either venue entailed either lying down on the floor boards which we saved for the extra petite girls, or Tom Steffens or Barry Bishop, or hiding in the trunk which seemed too obvious for me. I would rather pay a couple of bucks than suffer that humiliation. But at the Chief we could have our friends' drop us off at Bunting Avenue then just hop over the fence and we were in. The second and sometimes even third features were always B movies. Lots of Vincent Price and teenage rebellion.
Sister Becky still giggles at the time she and Steve Williams were at the drive-in in his restored 1940 Ford. They had the car running and somehow…and I just can't figure this one out…her foot accidentally hit the gas pedal and his perfect car lurched forward and the speaker broke his window out. She must have been showing him her new pointy flats. When they were young, I'd take my girls, Alice and Grace and niece Amy and nephew Braden and an occasional date, just to impress. I'm glad they got to experience the local drive-in-movie theaters.
So, go ahead, make-out, take-out, chill-out or thrill out. Meet your friends there, take your grandkids or sneak in. Just go to the drive-in. Live like its 1964. Make today the good old days.
Reminisce with Priscilla at pmangnall@gjfreepress.com or call her at 243-2200, ext. 18101.
