Valley Drive-In

32070 CO-92,
Hotchkiss, CO 81419

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Additional Info

Previous Names: Hotchkiss Drive-In

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Valley Drive-In

Boxoffice Magazine-June 18, 1955:

Quincy Lamar and L.M. Peterson are building a 350-car drive-in at Hotchkiss, Colo., and are aiming for a July 1st opening. It opened on August 19, 1955 with Sterling Hayden in “Timberjack” & Norman Wisdom in “Trouble in Store”

Boxoffice Magazine-September 3rd, 1955:

“F.M.* Peterson and Q. Lamar opened their new 320-car Valley Drive-In, Hotchkiss, Colo., to an overflow crowd. Western Service & Supply furnished the RCA equipment…

*Yes, the two different Boxoffice blurbs quoted above give differing first initials for Mr. Peterson. The 1955 Theatre Catalog list him as F.M. Peterson and the theatre is listed as the Hotchkiss Drive-In.

The Valley Drive-In was still open in 1979.

Contributed by Anthony L. Vazquez-Hernandez

Recent comments (view all 4 comments)

Kenmore
Kenmore on November 2, 2017 at 8:15 am

Found It!

The Valley Drive-In was located west of Hotchkiss at 32070 CO-92 Hotchkiss, CO. The drive-in was located on the south side of CO-92.

Today, the entrance is a private residence while most of the property is an open field. There is no trace of the drive-in remaining apart from what may be remnants of the screen which sat on the SE corner of the property. The private home also sits “catty-corner” in the same general area where the projection booth/concession stand was located in a 1964 aerial photo.

http://tinyurl.com/ycfe5b77

MichaelKilgore
MichaelKilgore on September 5, 2019 at 6:26 pm

Topo maps showed the intact Valley through 1979. The 1985 topo map had the Valley’s outline without the line for the screen.

Aerials showed nothing growing where the screen once stood, and the most recent Google Earth view showed two skinny metallic lines at the old screen tower, but nothing is visible from the road in the 2018 Google Street View.

MichaelKilgore
MichaelKilgore on September 19, 2019 at 9:17 am

The Hotchkiss Drive-In was listed in the 1955-56 Theatre Catalog, capacity 300, owner F. M. Peterson. But it was never included in the Motion Picture Almanacs' drive-in lists.

MichaelKilgore
MichaelKilgore on September 22, 2019 at 8:47 pm

The Grand Opening of the Valley was on Friday, Aug. 19, 1955, based on an ad in the previous day’s issue of The Paonian. The opening program was “Timberjack,” “Trouble in Store,” and a cartoon.

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