Lorain Drive-in Opening Day, 1946

As I wrap up this series on local (and regional) drive-in theaters, I thought I would do a little more on the Lorain Drive-in.

Last night at the library, I decided to try and find out the exact date when it actually opened. I was pretty sure it opened in 1946, so I popped in a microfilm reel from June, reasoning that it probably opened after school was out.

Lo and behold, I had only scrolled a little bit through the reel when I hit pay-dirt and found this ad on the movie listings page of June 19, 1946:

This kind of thing makes you happy when you don't feel like sitting and staring like a zombie at microfilm for hours! It was only a few days later when this article appeared on Friday, June 28.

The clipping's kind of nice in that it provides a little information as to who was behind Lorain's 'first' (and only) drive-in theater, namely Wilbur F. Ptak.

And so, on Saturday, June 29, this huge ad appeared in the paper, promoting the grand opening of the Lorain Drive-in Theater with a double feature of Guest Wife (with Claudette Colbert and Don Ameche) and A Thousand and One Nights (with Evelyn Keyes and Phil Silvers). Click on the ad so you can read it!

I like the ad a lot, because it does a great job of introducing what was probably a foreign concept to Lorainites back then.