Arroyo Drive-In
Cortez, Colorado1950-1988
Shop Arroyo Drive-In tees, long sleeve tees and hoodies. It opened on September 3, 1950, after a cable snapped and splintered the wooden screen tower during construction. In 1988 the owner learned that repainting the screen would cost $7,500 and closed instead. Pick a style below, then read the full Arroyo history further down. Down Home Apparel is an American small business remembering the best places and teams of yesteryear, and every shirt is printed to order in the USA.
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Arroyo Drive-In History
The Arroyo Drive-In in Cortez, Colorado, opened on September 3, 1950, with El Paso, after several false starts. On August 5 of that year a cable snapped while workers were raising the wooden screen tower, and the tower splintered. Early ads spelled the name Arroya. The spelling changed about two weeks after opening, though some later ads went on using the old one.
Terenzio and Anna Gai bought a half interest in 1952 and became sole owners. Their daughter, Margory Gai, took over in the early 1960s, and Allen Theatres of Farmington, New Mexico, bought the theater in 1967. It held about 300 cars. A Cortez resident told KSJD radio that his mother considered it the best babysitter in the country, that people came in hidden in trunks, and that he once sat through an all-night horror show.
According to a 2007 Colorado Heritage article by Mark Wolfe, the owner learned in 1988 that repainting the screen would cost $7,500, and he closed the theater instead. The sign stayed up for years afterward, an arrow pointing at a field.