It’s Day 330 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. Finishing my tour of South Carolina, I drove less than an hour from the Monetta Drive In Theatre in Monetta of course to the Auto 25 Drive In in Greenwood.

Cinema Treasures, which provides most of the history for the Auto 25, says it opened as the Auto in the 1940s. A current concession stand banner says it’s been showing movies since 1945, and some reference showed it open on April 21, 1946. The owners back then were A.T. Livingston and Olin Turner, and it had a capacity of 250 cars.

Pete Zouras leased the drive-in from the Turner family in 1954 and bought the theatre equipment a few years later from Livingston’s widow when her husband passed away. Zouras once said, “really our best years were the 1960’s and 1970’s. Those were the best years we had.”

In the late 1950’s and early 1960’s, Zouras and fellow drive-in owner Mario Ackerman lobbied to change the interpretation of the South Carolina blue laws about screening movies on Sundays. After operating the Auto Theatre for 32 years, Zouras retired when the drive-in lease was up in October 1986, and the drive-in closed. Martin and Marsha Murray reopened it for about six weeks in mid-1999 then it was closed again.

South Carolina Living tells the story that “Greenwood residents Tommy and Carolyn McCutcheon were on their way to church one Sunday morning a few years ago when they noticed a huge, unsightly pile of trash in front of the shuttered drive-in movie theater they used to frequent when they were kids.” Tommy was so annoyed that he contacted the drive-in’s owner, Virginia Turner, then in her 90s, and said he would haul away the trash for her.

One thing led to another, and the McCutcheons bought the place from the Turner family and renamed it the 25 Drive-In Auto Theatre. It reopened in April 2009. The new owners added a second screen in 2011 and a third in 2016.

For most of the McCutcheon’s tenure, the drive-in has been open year-round, but they closed it for almost two months in early 2017. Winter storms and bad roads played a role in the decision, and Carolyn told the Greenwood Index-Journal, “since 2010, we’ve been open 52 weeks out of the year and it’s hard to visit people when you only have two days off.”

I’m sure glad it was open on this night, the Sunday after Thanksgiving. I’ve now got over a month to find some special Christmas show at a northern drive-in to reach my goal of 200 movies in this drive-in odyssey.

Miles Today / Total: 42 / 37946 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Coco / 199

Nearby Restaurant: Locals recommended The Mill House, and I can see why. It’s a brewpub with several of its own beers on draft, and it cooks up brick-oven pizzas. I took advantage of their Sunday brunch to try some fried grits and a breakfast pizza with sausage, bacon and eggs. And a hefeweizen, of course.

Where I Virtually Stayed: Greenwood is a fairly sizeable county seat, large enough for several hotels including a Hampton Inn, and that’s almost always my first choice. It was all so pleasantly familiar – cookies and coffee waiting at check-in, a comfortable room containing all the modern amenities, and a very good breakfast with hot and cold choices. It’s not quirky, but I never go wrong with Hampton.

Only in Greenwood: Every year, Greenwood holds the South Carolina Festival of Flowers. It was first held in the summer of 1968 to coincide with the 100th anniversary celebration of George W. Park Seed Company. Since then it has grown to include a wide array of activities including tours, art displays, sporting events, concerts, and a kidfest.

Next stop: Central Drive-In Theatre, Norton VA.

It’s Day 329 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. In the middle day of my three-day trip through the drive-ins of South Carolina, I drove 2½ hours from the Highway 21 Drive In in Beaufort to the Monetta Drive In Theatre in Monetta of course.

The Monetta, now often called the Big Mo, was opened in 1951 by Sam Bogo. Another source said that it was owned by Twin City Amusement Co. into the 1960s. That could have been Bogo’s company for all I know.

By 1978, the Monetta was owned by J. Warren, probably the same J. Warren who owned the Highway 21 in Beaufort SC. By all accounts, the drive-in closed in 1986 and sat idle for 12 years.

Then Richard and Lisa Boaz entered the picture. They bought the Monetta, sort of renamed it the Big Mo, and generally did a lot of clean-up before they could open in 1999.  The marquee’s letters had blown away, and sunlight had burned “Closed For
Vacation” into the concrete. “There were weeds all over the marquee,” Richard told the Wall Street Journal (subscription) in 2000. “The roof had fallen in on the ticket booth. The screen was half blown out. It was a disaster. But I had one of those Kevin Costner revelations: ‘Build it and they will come.'”

Problems didn’t stop there. When the Boazes went to the banks, loan officers all but laughed when they heard what their small business loan would be for. They also had to overcome the stigma of the last decade or two of the Monetta’s previous life when X-rated films outnumbered general releases. They persevered, and the Big Mo was (slightly) profitable in its first year.

Once all that work was done, the pair added other projects. They added a second screen in 2005 and a third in 2011. The Big Mo caught a break in 2013 when Project Honda expanded its winners list from five to nine drive-ins and gave the Boazes a free digital projector in that extra set.

The Big Mo was struck by lightning during the shows of Sunday, June 18 this year. “All of a sudden, a little after 10, I hear ‘crack!’,” Richard told WITX, Columbia’s News Leader. It knocked out all three screens, but the drive-in was up and running by that Thursday.

The embedded YouTube video of the day is a slice of life from 2013 at the Big Mo. It was shot by South Carolina Educational Television.

Miles Today / Total: 124 / 37904 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Coco / 198

Nearby Restaurant: I visited Peaches n’ Such in town for its dessert, but the rest of lunch was pretty good too. The pulled pork sandwich with fresh fruit was enough to keep me going until dinner, and the wonderful peach ice cream left me wondering when I’d be hungry again.

Where I Virtually Stayed: Apparently there aren’t any hotels in Monetta, so I travelled east to the outskirts of Columbia, where I found a nearby Hampton Inn. Of course you never have to twist my arm to stay at a Hampton. There were cookies, flavored water, and coffee to greet me at check-in. My room had all the modern amenities. Breakfast was the very nice Hampton standard. If only it had been a little closer to the Big Mo, it would be perfect.

Only in Monetta: Roadside America calls out the Big Mo because its projection booth is shaped and colored like a giant peach. “The peach is a symbol of South Carolina pride over upstart neighbor Georgia,” it wrote. That’s also where the lightning hit in June; maybe they need to rethink that shape?

Next stop: Auto 25 Drive In, Greenwood SC.

It’s Day 328 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. After a few days of much longer drives, the two hours it took for me to go from the Jesup Twin Drive-In Theatre in Jesup GA of course to the Highway 21 Drive In in Beaufort SC seemed like a trip across the street.

This is another one of those drive-ins with a history that’s kind of fuzzy. Reports say that it opened in 1978, very late for a first-generation drive-in, and the 1980-82 International Motion Picture Almanacs listed it the as Plaza 21 Drive-in, owned by P. Trask. (There’s a Yelp page that still calls it the Plaza 21. And Google Maps calls the highway in front of the drive-in the Trask Parkway. Hmm.)

For its 1984-88 editions, the IMPAs changed the name to the Hiway 21, owned by J. Warren. From those clues, and those are the only ones I could find, I’d guess that this Warren bought the place not that long after it opened and changed its name.

The Island News wrote that the Highway 21 closed in 2002. The known history of the drive-in begins in 2003 when Bonnie and Joe Barth bought it and reopened it. “I said, ‘But we don’t know anything about it,’ and Joe said, ‘It’ll be fun,’ ” Bonnie told The Post and Courier of Charleston. They both work flooring jobs by day and run the drive-in at night.

The Beaufort Gazette wrote in 2012 about the Barths’ scramble to save enough money to convert to digital projection. “Come hell or high water, we’re staying,” Joe said. They were looking community support to sponsor their military appreciation nights, where the film rental fees for each free admission were coming out of the Highway 21’s annual profit.

An article last year in The Post and Courier began with the process of changing the letters on the old-style marquee. The article said that the 2012 dilemma had been solved when Bonnie put her retirement savings toward the $150,000 digital upgrade. “When the Barths reopened the theater, they screened old movies and second-run flicks — nothing new,” it said. “Now the newest movies arrive on memory sticks and are downloaded onto a computer before being projected onto two screens.” One of those screens had been damaged by Hurricane Matthew in October 2015 and since repaired.

“You know what, it probably hasn’t been a great investment,” Joe said. “We’ve put more money into it than I thought we’d have to. … but for the community it’s been a great thing. We bring families together.”

I had a choice of two unusual YouTube videos to embed this day. The one I chose is an amazing Goofus and Gallant-style short about drive-in etiquette, uploaded by the Highway 21 itself. The one you should also watch is an all-too-brief aerial view of the drive-in done the pre-drone way, from an aircraft.

Miles Today / Total: 102 / 37780 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Coco / 197

Nearby Restaurant: For some great food at a decent price, I headed over to Sgt. White’s Diner. It’s dished up cafeteria style, which means there was less wait for me to start eating juicy fried pork chops, cornbread, green beans, and pecan pie. What a great way to spend lunch!

Where I Virtually Stayed: There are nice hotels in Beaufort and inexpensive hotels in Beaufort. The best combination of those two might be the Sleep Inn. My clean, comfortable room had all the modern amenities, and the free breakfast included waffles and all those continental supplies to start me on another day’s drive.

Only in Beaufort: When you think about it, you know they had to make them somewhere, Beaufort is home to the Kazoobie Kazoo Factory and Museum. For just $5, you get the full factory tour plus the opportunity to assemble your own kazoo. The museum displays kazoos throughout history from Thaddeus Von Clegg’s 1840 workshop to contemporary electric kazoos.

Next stop: Monetta Drive In Theatre, Monetta SC.