The Sage Crest Drive-In in Yerington NV has been closed since 1995, but it still attracts attention. The dry desert has preserved so much of the place, including most of the panels from its original screen.
KTVN, Reno’s News Leader, visited the old Sage Crest site a week ago for its Nevada Backroads segment. This YouTube video is a great way to see how well the drive-in is holding up despite 30 years of inactivity. Check it out!
KLAS, Las Vegas’s News Leader, ran a video love letter to the Las Vegas Drive-In Theater, run by West Wind. I wish I could embed that video here, but you’ll have to click a link to see the full story or just the video.
The North Las Vegas opened in 1966, and the video mentions that it’s the oldest around Las Vegas. As far as I know, it’s the only drive-in around Las Vegas; the only other Nevada ozoner is in Sparks near Reno. But for three minutes of great behind-the-scenes video, I’ll forgive KLAS for not making that distinction. Go check it out!
This month, the Reno Gazette Journal ran a nice retrospective of the El Rancho Drive-In in neighboring Sparks NV. It was a clear step above the typical “Hey, did you notice that there’s a drive-in theater in town?” quickie, and it included a nice video to boot.
The El Rancho was founded by Tony Pecetti, “a bigger-than-life accordionist and entertainment entrepreneur in town,” on Aug. 19, 1950. It had a single screen and room for 580 cars. Pecetti would sometimes play his accordion between features. He passed away in 1969, and Syufy Enterprises bought the place in 1973. Syufy added two more screens that year and a fourth in 1974. The Gazette Journal wrote that those four screens have remained intact ever since.
In 1973, a complaint about The Last Tango In Paris led to the El Rancho dropping X-rated movies. In 1993, according to the Gazette Journal, the drive-in “was scheduled to be torn down and turned into a flea market and indoor theater complex.” The article didn’t provide any more details, including how the El Rancho dodged that fate.
The drive-in is currently run by General Manager Diego Maldonado, who lives on-site at with his family. He started 11 years ago working the churro cart as a summer job. “I’d never even seen a drive-in before I walked in here,” he said. “I thought that they were extinct.”
My favorite quote came from one of the patrons: “When I first came here, I thought I was being sneaky staying for the second feature, then I learned that’s part of it!” There’s much more to the article, including some nice photos, so you really should go read it!