Sky Top Drive-In
St. Louis, Michigan1949-1986
Shop Sky Top Drive-In tees, long sleeve tees and hoodies. The Sky Top opened in 1949 on West Monroe Road in St. Louis, Michigan, with Errol Flynn in Silver River, and it was the first of seven Michigan drive-ins that Al Johnson's construction company is known to have built. After the movies ended, its big orange marquee stayed up and the board below advertised farm equipment. Pick a style below, then read the full Sky Top history further down. Every shirt is printed to order in the USA and carries the memories of bygone places and teams.
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Sky Top Drive-In History
The Sky Top Drive-In in St. Louis, Michigan, opened on Tuesday, June 21, 1949, with Errol Flynn in Silver River. Its builder, Al Johnson, photographed the marquee that month announcing the date, and the slides survive. It was the first of seven Michigan drive-ins his Johnson Construction Company is known to have built. It stood on West Monroe Road in Gratiot County, in the middle of the Lower Peninsula, with one screen and room for 400 to 500 cars.
Lawrence Beers was the first owner, followed by T. Epps, Russell Kortes and James Langston. Langston was running it by 1955. That September The Independent Film Journal reported that he was starting a new 500-car drive-in at Edmore, to be called the Edmore, and in October The Exhibitor said it would have modern projection and screen equipment. Local historian Jim Goodspeed, writing in 2019, traced the Sky Top's decline to competition, adult films and complaints from the community.
It closed in 1986 after heavy rain and flooding damaged the foundations. The screen stood until 2002. The marquee outlasted the movies, too: a photograph from the late 1980s or early 1990s shows the big orange SKY TOP sign still up, with the board below it advertising farm equipment and a local auto business.