Yucca Drive-In
3714 Cerrillos Road,
Santa Fe,
NM
87507
3714 Cerrillos Road,
Santa Fe,
NM
87507
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The Yucca’s last show was on Oct. 30, 1994, featuring something old and something new. Later notes in the Santa Fe New Mexican indicated that longtime owner Richard Wiles had given the land to Concordia College of Moorhead, Minnesota in the mid 1980s, and Concordia netted over $3 million when it decided to close the drive-in and sell the property. Trans-Lux was holding the Yucca sign in storage for possible reuse.
Boxoffice, April 26, 1952: “The Yucca Drive-In has been purchased by Richard Wiles jr. and Brooks Noah.”
Motion Picture Herald, May 3, 1952: Charles Brent has sold the Yucca drive-in, Santa Fe, N. M., to Wiles & Noah, who operate a drive-in at Excelsior Springs, Mo.
Boxoffice, Aug. 12, 1950: “While on a visit to Denver, Charles Brent, owner of the Yucca Drive-In, Santa Fe N. M., told of putting on stage shows twice a week, using the top of the concession stand as a stage. The first of these was put on by the Cal Schrum troupe. Go great was the enthusiasm of the crowd that the actors found it difficult to quit. The initial show was put on in the rain.”
Opened with “Sitting pretty” and “Fighting man of the plains”.
1960 image added via Donacio Inez Chavez‎.
This opened on July 4th, 1950. Its grand opening ad can be found in the photo section.
The Yucca on Flickr<>Vanishing Movie Theaters.
My fondest memory is when the Yucca was showing Sam Raimi’s The Quick and the Dead and Gene Hackman showed up in a silver Rolls Royce to watch the movie. We (the theater crew) were pretty excited.
My other duty there other then snack bar cook was to walk around and tell folks not to drink beer,which happened a lot.
Also I found out the last season there ,that the drive in was throwing away the preview loops so I started taking them home. I have a shoe box worth of them packed away.
I used to be the snack bar cook for the Yucca and worked there it’s last two seasons. It was only opened during the summer months due to the fact winters here were to cold. Now a hotel takes up the space.
Great!!! I was looking at the same paper also.
OCRon..so the correct address is 3714 Cerrillos Road Santa Fe, NM 87507 for the Yucca.
The Pueblo Drive-In was at 3251 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe, NM 87507 ?
In looking at topo maps of the area there was two drive-ins pretty close to each other.
You could add the Pueblo Drive-In to CT, OCRon…
Approx. address for this drive-in was 3251 Cerrillos Road, Santa Fe, NM 87507. As usual, this is now Walmart!
Here is a 1994 photo by Kent Bowser:
http://tinyurl.com/yewd95x
A cold, snowy view of Santa Fe’s Yucca Drive In Theater here and here.