Nov. 10: Eden Drive-In, Eden NC

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It’s Day 314 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. On this Friday in November, I found a drive-in that was still showing movies, so I drove 2½ hours from Marion VA to the Eden Drive-In in Eden NC of course.

The history is complicated. In the 18th century, Eden was a region of Virginia and North Carolina. In 1795, the town of Leaksville was established on the North Carolina side. Much later in 1967, Leaksville plus the cities of Spray and Draper were consolidated into the single city of Eden.

Back in 1948, there was one drive-in in Leaksville, and it was called the Eden. Within a few years, a second drive-in popped up in town. The newer drive in was called the Leaksville (or New Leaksville by some accounts). Both of them, and others in the region, were owned by D. E. Gwynn.

By the end of the 1970s, the Leaksville seems to have closed. The Eden, which was now in the recently formed city of Eden, continued into the 1980s before closing.

In 1994, David and Judy Robinson bought one of those dead drive-ins after it had been closed “for 10 or 15 years” and refurbished it. The guy who runs their unofficial web site says that what they bought had been the Leaksville, which matches the number of cars it can hold. (The old Eden was almost 100 cars smaller.) So the Leaksville, which had been in Leaksville but was now in Eden, was reopened as the Eden.

The Robinsons are unusually foresighted. Not only did they save money to buy digital projectors for all of their theaters, they also bought a backup projector for each. I’ve been reading enough stories this year of drive-ins that had a glitch in their projector and had to shut down for a weekend. That should never happen at the Eden. “It’s going to be a constant investment, but that’s just part of the operating costs,” Eden manager Tim Robertson, their son, told the Greensboro News & Record. “It’s just part of staying in business.”

David Robinson passed away this January, but the Eden is having another good year. Tim told Business North Carolina last month that he’s thinking of adding deep-fried Oreos to the concession stand menu.

This night, I got a chance to see the blockbuster Thor movie for a third time. It was definitely worth it to find a drive-in still showing movies in November.

The embedded video of the day is a 2012 report from WRAL, Raleigh’s News Leader. There’s also a nice short commercial for the Eden on YouTube.

Miles Today / Total: 128 / 35399 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: Thor: Ragnarok / 189

Nearby Restaurant: The El Parral Mexican Restaurant is part of a small regional chain, much like the drive-in. Since I got into town in time for lunch, I ordered one of the lunch specials with a chalupa and an enchilada. Add some chips, salsa, and a margarita and it equals the kind of Mexican food experience I enjoy.

Where I Virtually Stayed: There’s a Hampton Inn in Eden. As with so many of them, there were cookies waiting at check-in and coffee all day. Several restaurants, including the El Parral, are within walking distance. My suite was clean and comfortable and had all the modern amenities. The free breakfast in the morning was the usual fine Hampton standard. It’s all good.

Only in Eden: On August 19, 2017, Eden hosted the Touch-a-Truck event. It promised that for three hours, the “whole family will enjoy getting up close and personal with huge trucks and construction equipment in a friendly, safe environment. Fire engines, big rigs, bulldozers and more will all be there for you to touch, climb, play and learn about how they do all the amazing things they do.” If I come back next year, can I really play on the bulldozer?

Next stop: Badin Road Drive-In Theater, Albemarle NC.

Nov. 9: Park Place Drive In, Marion VA

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It’s Day 313 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. It took less than an hour and a half to drive from the Pipestem Drive-In north of Speedway WV across the Allegheny Mountains to the Park Place Drive In in Marion VA.

According to Virginia.org, this was the location of the old Park Drive-In, which the web site says was open 1954-1983. A photo on Historic Aerials verifies that it was there, although the screen was much closer to Park Boulevard back then.

My reference books don’t provide much help. The 1955-56 Theatre Catalog listed the Park owned by William MacKenzie Jr., with a capacity of 200 cars. The International Motion Picture Almanacs for 1955-66 listed the owner as W. Mackenzie, eventually adding the capacity of 200. The Park continued to be listed through 1976, then fell off the IMPA lists and did not return.

I wish I could find more about what prompted Jerry Harmon to rebuild the drive-in as part of an entertainment complex on the site, opening in May 2000. That must have been a great story. Film Snobbery described the place in 2011 as “a complete entertainment complex. There are batting cages featuring fast and slow pitch softball and three speeds of baseball. In 2006, a brand new miniature golf course was built. There is an arcade with an assortment of games, pool tables, and air hockey. Possibly the best addition is the ice cream shop”.

In 2013, Harmon told Virginia Living that the conversion to digital projection was on drive-in owners’ minds. “I think there’s some that will go out of business, and I’m currently trying to save myself,” he said.

The conversion went through at the Park Place, which showed a Jimmy Buffett concert the following summer. On that occasion, Harmon told the Bristol Herald Courier, “The drive-in community is rallying behind this concert – just as it has with the digital conversion efforts of recent years.”

I particularly like the way the viewing field is laid out at the Park Place, as seen in the YouTube video of the day. There are no speaker poles; instead each row has marked parking spaces. And each row is a paved terrace with sloping grass medians in between. Very nice!

Alas, the drive-in closed for the season in mid-October. It’s another dark night for me.

Miles Today / Total: 75 / 35271 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 188

Nearby Restaurant: Since I was already at the hotel (see below), I went to its great restaurant, The Speakeasy, for dinner. It serves a lot of hamburgers and beer, but is also capable of a more substantial meal. I enjoyed the rib eye steak dinner with a baked potato and broccoli with enough beer to wash it down and then some. After all, I wasn’t going to drive anywhere when I left.

Where I Virtually Stayed: After the sameness of chain hotels, it was a nice change to stay at the General Francis Marion Hotel, one of National Geographic’s Top 150 hotels in North America. Like the Park Place, it was an older establishment that was thorough refurbished and reopened recently, in this case 2006. The price was very reasonable for such a historic place. My room was comfortable and the wifi was solid, although I went without a fridge. In the morning, a free continental breakfast had me ready for another day’s drive.

Only in Marion: Harry Chapin’s 1973 single WOLD was only a minor hit, peaking at on the Billboard chart. When I brushed against the radio business a few years later, I was told that the song, about an aging, hard-drinking radio disc jockey on the phone with his ex-wife, hit too close to home to get much airplay. So I was very surprised that WOLD-FM is alive and well in Marion. The station predated the song by five years.

Next stop: Eden Drive-In, Eden NC.

Nov. 8: Pipestem Drive-In, Speedway WV

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It’s Day 312 of my virtual Drive-In-a-Day Odyssey. Winding down WV Highway 20 most of the way, it took me less than an hour to drive from the Meadow Bridge Drive-In, in Meadow Bridge WV of course, to the Pipestem Drive-In north of Speedway WV.

The Pipestem was late to the first wave of drive-in construction, probably opening on October 5, 1972. There was a “Watch for the opening date” ad in the Sept. 21 Beckley Post-Herald, then on Sept. 30 there was an ad for a triple feature that “starts Thursday, Oct. 5”. The movies that night were Le Mans (rated G), Lawman (GP), and Southern Comfort (X).

The Raleigh Register of July 5, 1973, in the middle of an article discussing the legality of X-rated movies, identified Ronald Warden of MacArthur as the owner of the Pineville and Pipestem drive-ins. Warden said then-recent Supreme Court rulings hadn’t changed his plans. “It’s not for the money involved,” he said. “It’s not what we like – it’s what the public pays to see. I don’t want to quit a good thing until I have to. Every time I don’t have an X-rated show, business drops off.” He stressed that he always showed X-rated movies as the third feature.

The drive-in’s first appearance on my shelf of International Motion Picture Almanacs was the 1978 edition. (It wasn’t in 1976, and I don’t have 1977.) The Pipe Stem (sic) was owned by R. Warden and had a capacity of 285. That’s how it stayed through the last IMPA list in 1988.

In 2012, the Bluefield Daily Telegraph wrote that Kenneth Woody owned the Pipestem Drive-In and had been coming to the theater for nearly three decades before purchasing it. “We try to show family-oriented films and try to keep in that line of stuff,” Woody said.

WTRF, Wheeling’s News Leader, wrote in 2015 that Woody bought the Pipestem in 2007 “from the original owner”, which would have been Warden or his family, I guess, “because he did not want to see it shut down.”

The owner and his drive-in keep a low profile, making it harder to find out any of this history and stuff. “Woody, the owner of three other Mercer County businesses, said he depends solely on regular customers and word-of-mouth and does no advertising,” WTRF wrote. Even the Pipestem’s web site is just a semi-official thing on Drive-Ins.org.

One more note: I’m not 100% sure that Woody still owns the Pipestem. Sure, daughter Karen Woody wrote on that Drive-Ins.org page that her family owns the Pipestem. The WV Secretary of State shows that Pipestem Drive-In Theater, Inc., with officers Kenneth and Barbara Woody, was incorporated in 2007 and has filed reports through 2017. However, I’ve seen several business sources online that claim the Pipestem Drive-Inn (sic?) Theatre, same phone number, is owned by Jimmy Warden, and that its president is Patricia Warden. Is that an echo of the ownership before Woody bought it, or something else?

At any rate, the drive-in closed for the season several weeks ago. It’s another dark night for me.

Miles Today / Total: 38 / 35196 (rounded to the nearest mile)

Movie Showing / Total Active Nights: dark / 188

Nearby Restaurant: I stopped for lunch at Moe’s American, Greek & Italian Restaurant in Athens just south of the Pipestem. Of those options, I chose the pizza, which might have been more American than Italian because it came with the kind of New York-style thin crust that I prefer. I also saw a Philly cheesesteak on the menu – is that Greek or Italian?

Where I Virtually Stayed: The kind of hotels I tend to frequent were in a cluster in Princeton WV about 12 miles south. And since one of those was a Hampton Inn, well that’s the kind of hotel I really frequent. A Cracker Barrel was just across the quiet cul de sac, which was great for dinner. This Hampton had cookies and a popcorn machine at check-in in the lobby, which was a pleasant surprise, and its breakfast was the very nice Hampton standard.

Only in Speedway: Since Speedway is just a little unincorporated place, I’ll talk about Athens, a true town just south of Speedway and home to Concord University, which was founded in 1872. The town used to be called Concord too, but somebody noticed in 1896 that there was another Corcord in West Virginia, so it renamed itself after the famous Greek center of learning.

Next stop: Park Place Drive In, Marion VA.