photo by robert e weston jr, from the Carload Flickr pool
It’s Day 26 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey, and it only took about an hour and a half to drive from Granbury to the Graham Drive In Theatre in Graham TX. For the second straight day, I experienced an old-time classic single-screen drive-in that happened to still be closed for the season. The Graham’s web site says it will reopen “TBA in February.”
The Graham was one of the first five winners of Honda’s Project Drive-In in 2013, scoring a digital projector to help future-proof the place. Back in 1955, it was part of a Life Magazine feature on Blondie, a local pet lion, and her adventures in Graham. Graham’s CinemaTreasures profile says it was opened in 1947 with a capacity of 180 cars, but the Graham first appears in my Theatre Catalogs in the 1949 edition, in a listing noting that it can hold 300 cars. It also ran 12 months a year, so there’s another change.
Miles Today / Total: 86 / 3064 (rounded to the nearest mile)
Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 18
Nearby Restaurant: The closest restaurant is the Dinner Bell Cafe, right across from the cemetery. It doesn’t look like much from the outside, but I always love great biscuits and chicken fried steak.
Where I Virtually Stayed: The Wildcutter Ranch is supposed to be the best hotel around Graham, but it seemed a little far away. So I settled for a more convenient location and a better rate at the Best Western Plus Graham Inn. A good bed, a mini fridge, and a microwave make almost any room the best room in town.
Only in Graham: South of Graham, near the entrance to Possum Kingdom State Park, is a large, homemade steel wheelbarrow in a field. Next to the wheelbarrow is a sign proclaiming it to be the “World’s Largest Wheelbarrow“. But it isn’t. Consider these larger examples from Australia and New Zealand. Sorry, Possum Kingdom.
Next Stop: Town and Country Drive-In Theatre, Abilene TX.