This story’s a bit of an edge case, a little weird. The town of Queen Creek AZ, a bit southeast of Phoenix, is holding a drive-in theater on Dec. 20, as reported by the Queen Creek Independent. The venue is the town’s Frontier Family Park, which is so new that it’s a vacant lot on Google Maps.
The free movie is “Elf,” so that’s not the weird part. The event is sponsored by the mayor’s Teen Advisory Committee, and it’s open only to teenagers – folks 13-19 years of age. There’s lawn seating, but there are also a few sports to park and view the movie, so at least it qualifies as a pop-up drive-in. With a strict age limit.
I’m not sure why two local stations decided to run stories about their year-round drive-in theater less than a week apart. But it’s always nice to celebrate any open drive-in, especially the only one that’s left in the entire state of Arizona.
Anyway, that means you get to see plenty of Travis Brown, the general manager of the Glendale 9 Drive-In along with plenty of lovely twilight shots from ABC15, Phoenix’s News Leader. And if you want a parallel dose of Brown after dark, check out the video published five days later by Fox10, Phoenix’s News Leader.
I was especially drawn to this story because the Glendale 9 was the starting point of a too-short drive-in road trip that I took 12 years ago. Back then, I described it as Drive-In Heaven, and that title probably still applies. The folks there were so nice to me, and the facility is so perfect for watching movies from your car. Then again, I haven’t tried watching a movie there during the amazing (not in a good way) central Arizona summers, which might make the experience feel a bit less like heaven.
So check out the videos for a glimpse of what I saw. If you ever get to try a July or August night at the Glendale 9, please let me know how it went.
In little Prescott AZ, about halfway between Phoenix and Flagstaff, some folks there really love their old drive-in sign. It’s for the Senator (named for the Senator Highway it fronts), which opened in 1950 and lasted until at least the 1980s.
Since this is dry Arizona, structures tend to remain in place until something or someone intervenes. As shown in the embedded YouTube video, some locals decided in 2008 to put the old sign out of its misery. But try not to get too upset; within a year, other locals had restored the sign.
The reason I’m mentioning any of this is an article posted today by the local newspaper, The Daily Courier. It documents the work of Class of 1963 alum Stephen Rogers and classmate Jane Orr, who together spearheaded a restoration and fundraising effort with former alums that enabled the sign to be re-erected. Since then, the group has posted messages with the sign’s moveable letters to commemorate holidays, anniversaries, and at least one marriage proposal.
“This past week, Orr and Rogers posted a Valentine’s Day missive: ‘Senator Drive-In — We Still Love and Miss You.’ A big red heart is on the far side.” Today’s article has much more, including a photo of how the sign looks today, so you know you really ought to go read it!
