Shankweiler’s Is For Sale

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The oldest active drive-in theater, probably the second commercial drive-in ever, is for sale. Owners Paul and Susan Geissinger say the asking price for Shankweiler’s Drive-In Theatre is $1.2 million. The Orefield PA landmark is in great shape by all accounts, but the Geissingers want to retire.

I was virtually there less than a month ago during the final week of my 2017 Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey, so its history is fresh on my mind. You can read more in that post, but the most relevant part is that the Geissingers bought the place around 1984 and have been running it ever since.

The Morning Call of Allentown wrote that the couple “actually put the property up for sale in 2015, but it was relisted last week after their real estate agent joined a new company, Paul Geissinger said Wednesday.” They want to clear enough to retire comfortably, and although they’d prefer that the drive-in would stay open, they’ll sell to the highest bidder. The current plan is for a normal operating season in 2018. I’ve embedded a YouTube video of an interview with Paul Geissinger posted just a few months ago.

The Morning Call wrote, “The Geissingers have received a few offers, Paul said, but not at the price he was looking for.” Whenever I read about any real estate that has taken longer to move than the sellers wanted, I hear the voice of the old radio financial advisor Bruce Williams in my head. Assuming that you have sufficiently publicized your listing, he would say, the market is telling you that your price is too high. You may think that you need to get X dollars from the sale, or insist that you’ve invested Y dollars into the property, but none of that matters to the buyer. Regardless of other factors, anything is worth only what a customer is willing and able to pay for it. I hope that all drive-in owners with current listings and future sales take that to heart so these great institutions can stay in operation.

A Late Discovery: The El-Co Drive-In, Shattuck OK

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A crane lifts a drive-in screen into place during construction

Photo from the El-Co Drive-In’s Facebook page

When I built my database of active drive-ins in the summer of 2016, I relied on Google for about 90% of my finds. There was also a magazine list and a few odds and ends. I thought I had it pretty well covered, but I was proven wrong twice. Once was when a colleague passed along several Canadian drive-ins I’d missed. The other was when I happened to see a mention in passing of the El-Co Drive-In Theatre in Shattuck OK.

I dug into it a little, and on Google Maps I could see a typical drive-in viewing arc north of town. Next I found the El-Co’s web site and notified Google of this place it had overlooked. A few days later, I used the Google-verified info to add the El-Co to my database.

Trouble was, this correction didn’t happen until the middle of 2017, and my Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey had already finished virtually driving through Oklahoma. So let me correct that omission with the type of profile you might have read for any of my virtual stops.

This is the second El-Co to have shown movies in Shattuck, in Ellis County. The first was south of town, owned by Garland Wilson. From the info in my reference books, it looks like that tiny, 140-car El-Co opened around 1954 and stayed active only until the mid-1970s. Cinema Treasures wrote that the original wooden screen burned down around 1963. “A new theatre was built of concrete blocks, which operated until at least 1975. It was toppled in a wind storm.” Historic Aerials still showed the viewing field in a 1995 photo, but it had been replaced by buildings by 2003.

What I know about the second El-Co comes almost exclusively from a 2011 article in the Woodward News. It said that after it had “been in the works for around a year”, the new drive-in opened on Thanksgiving weekend that year. “Owners of the drive-in, Jason Swanson and Lance Schultz, both of whom grew up in Shattuck, built the theatre to provide the community with entertainment.” Swanson and Schultz had formed J&L Oilfield Services there in 2002 and had been board members of the Shattuck National Bank. You can see what they look like in their YouTube video.

One of the buildings on the site of the old El-Co is marked as J&L Services on Google Maps; I don’t know if that had anything to do with the new drive-in. Despite a November Grand Opening in 2011, its 2017 season was quite short – just May 26 to August 5. And that’s about all I know, except that this little place did a great job of staying under Google’s radar for several years.

My choice of Restaurant in Shattuck would be Gustos Italian Grill & Pizza, which serves a ribeye steak that looks like it would fit well on my plate.

According to Google, Shattuck is in the middle of a Hotel desert, with the closest decent accommodations about 28 miles northeast in Woodward. There’s a Hampton Inn there, but the Comfort Inn is less expensive and has a higher ranking on TripAdvisor.

And for my Only In, I’d point to the Shattuck Windmill Museum, which has over 50 vintage windmills on display outside, plus an example of a dugout sod house.

Australia’s Lunar Adds A Faux-Neon Sign

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Neon-style rocket sign at night

Photo from the Lunar Drive-In Instagram page

Last week the Greater Dandenong Leader of suburban Melbourne, Australia ran a nice article about a new sign at the Lunar Drive-In there. The “retro-style” sign stands in front of the box office, lighting one letter at a time then finishing with a burst of faux rocket flame. You can watch it here.

Co-owner David Kilderry told the newspaper his brother Matthew wanted a sign reminiscent of movie theatres in the ‘50s and ‘60s to replace “the boring old sign that we used to have.”

The article frequently mentions “neon”, but this stuff sounds like the LEDs that San Antonio used to restore the lit mural at the former Mission Drive-In there. Rick Ruitenbach of Icon Creations said, This is new-age neon. Traditional neon is blown glass filled with gas but our signs are LED lookalikes which are more environmentally responsible and economical to run.”

The Lunar, already Australia’s largest drive-in at four screens, is planning to expand later this year after a record-setting season. Glad they could afford such a nifty sign.