PA Man Applies to Revive the Moonlite

Posted on by
The Moonlight Drive-In marquee, overgrown with weeds

The Moonlite marquee as it looked five years ago. Photo by Mike Kerick from the Carload Flickr pool

The drive-in revival continues to build. According to The Citizens’ Voice of Wilkes-Barre PA, a man has applied to the local county zoning hearing board to be allowed to renovate and reopen the Moonlite Drive-In of nearby West Wyoming PA.

Eric Symeon of Exeter said he is negotiating to buy the property from the West Wyoming Borough, which owns the vacant site, contingent on zoning approval. The borough council seems willing to cooperate with the necessary variance to the otherwise residential area.

According to his application, Symeon wants to show movies on Friday, Saturday and Sunday nights between May and September. He wrote that he plans to repair the concession stand, ticket booth and screen. Based on Mike Kerick’s Flickr album of Moonlite photos from five years ago, Symeon has plenty of repair opportunities.

The slow decay of the single-screen Moonlite site has been well documented online. To watch nature reclaim the vacant lot, compare an aerial photo from the Moonlite’s heyday with this 2011 Google Earth photo and the latest from 2016. For ground-level narratives with lots of photos, check out this July 2008 post from Forgotten PA and this May 2013 entry from the Drive-In Theater Adventures blog.

When did the Moonlite open? Exactly when did it close? I could only find a few clues from Carload World Headquarters. It wasn’t listed in the 1955 Theatre Catalog, my most recent edition, so it probably opened after 1955. (It was definitely open by 1967.) I found another TCV article from 2010 that said the Moonlite’s former owners sued the borough, alleging that “sewer installation in the early 1990s caused increased water-retention issues that thwarted potential sales of the property in 2005 and 2006.” A borough solicitor said the site suffered from flooding before the sewers were installed, and that the Moonlight “has not shown a movie since the 1980s.” A PDF from that lawsuit says “the Moonlite Drive-In operated until approximately 1991.” (Hope that Symeon has a good drainage plan!)

Back to Symeon. “This is something I always wanted to do since I was little,” he told The Citizens’ Voice. “Every time I’d drive by, I’d see it just sitting there. Everyone in the valley knows about it.” The projected opening is Summer 2017. I look forward to hearing more about this project.

Jan. 26: Graham Drive-In, Graham TX

Posted on by

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.

Jan. 25: Brazos Drive In, Granbury TX

Posted on by
Brazos Drive-In screen and marquee

photo by Rob Sneed, from the Carload Flickr pool

It’s Day 25 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey, and although the distance from the Coyote in Fort Worth to the Brazos Drive-In of Granbury TX was about the same as the distance I’d driven the day before from the Coyote in Lewisville, it felt very different. I went from vibrant modern multi-screen urban theaters to an old-time classic single-screen.

According to CinemaTreasures, the Brazos opened in 1954, although Preservation Texas puts the date at 1952. For what it’s worth, my 1952 Theatre Catalog doesn’t include the Brazos in its drive-in census, but my 1955 version does. That Preservation Texas listing, which included the theater in its Most Endangered Places list for 2010, said the Brazos was built “with local materials by businessmen to lure people into town.” Some commenters at CinemaTreasurers added that the theater converted to digital projection by 2014, but was up for sale on eBay that November. Still, the Brazos endures.

I had a run of seven straight movie nights snapped by the Brazos, which is still closed for the season. One goal for this Odyssey is to catch at least 200 active movie nights in the 365-day year, about 55%. Picking up seven in a row in January has got to help my chances there; so far I’m at 72%.

Miles Today / Total:  40 / 2978 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 18

Nearby Restaurant: I do love that fried chicken, and Granbury has an excellent example of the farmhouse-style chicken restaurant: Babe’s Chicken Dinner House. Babe’s is a small regional chain, and it reminds me of metro Denver’s White Fence Farm – a comfortable, family-friendly setting, an emphasis on fried chicken, and all the green beans and sides you care to eat.

Where I Virtually Stayed: Not only is Granbury’s Hilton Garden Inn full of the usual HGI amenities, it’s got a superb view of the Brazos River. It’s a real bonus when the view from the hotel room window isn’t just a grassy field, the building next door, or somebody’s back yard.

Only in Granbury: According to KTRK, former Hood County Sheriff Gene Mayo, freshly defeated in a 2009 re-election bid, was criticized for writing “lost election/fired” on his application for unemployment benefits. A spokeswoman for the Texas Association of Counties said, “When you are elected, you are elected for a certain amount of time. That term ended.” A Texas Workforce Commission spokesperson said that serving as an elected official is not considered “employment”.

Next Stop: Graham Drive In Theatre, Graham TX.