1986-97: 'Smash' ending for local movie venues
Oct. 15—It's been a big year — and a bittersweet one — for Pulaski County's most memorable places to watch a movie.
For the first time since 1967, fans of Highway 27 Twin Drive-In in southern Pulaski County didn't get a chance to pull their ride up in front of the giant screen and enjoy cinematic magic underneath the stars. Before the season was set to begin, it was announced that the Drive-In wouldn't open this year or ever again, at least under the loving hand of the Roaden family who kept it as a local summertime favorite, long after the era of the drive-in theater had passed nationwide.
But after years of efforts, downtown Somerset's Virginia Cinema was reborn this past summer as the Virginia Theater, no longer a movie house but rather a live performance venue. The theater existed in its previous life from 1922 to 1994, one of downtown Somerset's hottest spots for an afternoon watching a matinee or a night out on the town. Now, it's helping revitalize the heart of the community by bringing people back to Somerset's streets in the evening, with a fancy new marquee and regular shows on the line-up.
How well do we remember their key competitors? The Kentucky Theater stood right alongside the Virginia — for many Pulaskians, it was their favorite place to go see a film. Unlike the Virginia, that building is long gone. So too is the Lakeview Drive-In, just down the road from 27 Twin Drive-In — drive by that spot along South U.S. 27 today, and you'd never know it was there.
Let's take a look at the articles that signaled the end of the reel for these special places where so many people made so many memories ...
August 18, 1986
LAKEVIEW DRIVE-IN TURNS OFF
PROJECTOR
They found John Wayne buried underneath the Lakeview Drive-In screen. He wore a familiar cowboy outfit. His hat was still cocked to the side.
They found Elvis Presley wrapped in a blue Hawaiian shirt, his sneer forever frozen in time — and on celluloid.
They found a Rock Hudson film titled "Strange Bedfellows" hidden in the darkness of the marquee letter closet.
These are only some of the films and memories being cleared out by workers preparing to tear down Lakeview's 90-foot screen. And, underneath the screen is a shed that until recently brimmed with a flea marketeer's dream: cannibalized projectors and ancient equipment, old films, Model A truck parts, film teasers, popcorn machines, signs and other memorabilia some might just term junk.
Today, weather permitting, a front-end loader will edge the snout of its bucket against the screen and topple it to the ground.
The theater recently turned off its projectors and the 20-odd acres of parking spaces are being divided into 26 commercial plots to be sold at auction. Only one drive-in will remain in Somerset.
Lakeview's owner once made a profitable business out of tearing down outdoors theaters himself. Now he is doing the same for his own drive-in.
"I'm selling out and getting out," said Ben Johnson Jr., who feels no remorse about giving up the business after a quarter century.
... "We've been here (at Lakeview) for 20 years and we've never had a vacation during the summer. We've had to work seven days and seven nights a week," said his wife Mary Ann Johnson. "Ben can retire and I can take a day off."
(Columnist's note: For those who don't recall, the Lakeview Drive-In sat across from what was once known as the Lakeview Restaurant — the space where Guthrie's Grill does business in Burnside today. Looking through the old newspapers, it's always fascinating to see what played at the drive-ins back in the '70s and early '80s — a lot of low-budget films teasing raunchiness and exposed skin.
It feels somewhat appropriate then that, from what I can tell by looking back at the movie listings the weeks before the above article was written, the last film to show at Lakeview was something called "Vamp" with the tagline "Spend an evening with Grace Jones and her friends" written over a pair of open lips adorned with vampire fangs. Well then.)
September 14, 1997
KENTUCKY THEATER HAS GLITTERING PAST
A piece of history will fall before the wrecking ball when the former Kentucky Theater building is razed to make way for a major banking and office center.
Confirmation was not possible, but reportedly contractors for Cumberland Security Bank will begin tearing down the old theater within the next few days. The $2.5 million project will relocate the bank's headquarters from 210 South U.S. 27 to downtown Somerset.
The area to be redeveloped is all properties on the west side of South Main Street between Somerset Pharmacy and the Beecher House. The former American Federal Building is being transformed into headquarters for Cumberland Security Bank.
The Kentucky Theater building was build sometime before the turn of the century, according to John G. Prather Sr., a longtime Somerset attorney. During the early years it was known as the Gem Opera House and attracted traveling minstrels and vaudeville shows from New York.
O'Leary Meece, local historian, said 'talkies' were first shown in the Gem Opera House. Charlie Owens often was the live pianist providing accompaniment to movies before voices were added, Meece said.
Meece recalled as a grade-school student, he would go to a nickelodeon on Saturday at the Kentucky Theater.
"They called it nickelodeon because you could get in for a nickel, but I think they charged me a dime," he laughed.
"It was a pretty central spot during those days," commented Prather. He recalled traveling shows that rode into town on trains and performed at the Gem Opera House.
"That's why the Newtonian Hotel was built," said Prather. The old hotel, razed in the 1960s, was on Fountain Square in the spot where Citizens National Bank is now located.
... The Kentucky Theater building may or may not be worth saving. Nineteen years ago this month, a 30-foot section of a brick wall at the top of the structure fell onto Market Street. Then city building inspector Larry Girdler was quoted as saying that the supports had rotted and interior and exterior walls were cracked.
Later, however, a structural engineer from Louisville pronounced the building "in sound condition."
The theater closed several years ago and was reactivated with gospel singing. Doc Burgin and the Harvesters Quartet performed there on Friday and Saturday nights until Burgin's illness halted the shows.
(Columnist's note: Though I couldn't recall when the Kentucky Theater stopped showing movies, one far wiser than I, Gib Gosser, recalled that it was about the time Showplace Cinema opened in the Somerset Mall in the early '80s — another great theater that's no longer with us.
While we're in September of 1997, since Somerset's current downtown fall event, the Moonlight Festival, is this weekend, why not recall Somerfest? Starting back in the mid-'80s and eventually ending around the end of the 20th century, giving way to Somernites Cruise, Somerfest was this community's fall festival of record for those who were young as Gen X'ers and the elder millennials. Somerfest '97 was one of the last to be held, so let's look at how the Commonwealth Journal reported on it at the time ...)
September 21, 1997
RAIN DAMPENS SUCCESSFUL SOMERFEST
The 12th annual Somerfest, already declared a success after Friday's throngs, struggled through a persistent rain Saturday afternoon.
The crowd slowly grew Friday until a shoulder-to-shoulder mob clogged the downtown area by dark. Festivalgoers rushed into town again Saturday, but then, like last year, the rains came. Rumbling thunder and flashing lightning pushed revelers beneath tents and awnings and eventually dampened their fun.
The hardy stayed, beneath umbrellas, but several vendors, viewing the thinning crowd, packed up and went home.
A disappointed Lynda Evans, director of the annual event, vowed to salvage as much of the show as possible.
"If it would only quit raining," she grimaced, glancing at threatening skies early Saturday afternoon. The petting zoo at "Kidz Valley" in Rocky Hollow Park decided that wet animals were not cuddly enough to stay around.
The rains slackened shortly after 3 p.m., activities seemed to take on new life and many who sought shelter from the elements returned.
Gib Gosser, executive director of Downtown Somerset Development Corporation, said despite the rain on Saturdays the past two years, Somerfest has been a financial success.
"We struggled the first 10 years trying to break even and we have last year and this year," Gosser said. He said plans are already under way for a 1950s theme at Somerfest next year and a grand celebration of the county's bicentennial in 1999.
... Somerfest apparently is a legitimate attraction. Gosser estimated that as many as 10,000 people may have been milling around downtown early Friday night.
(Columnist's note: I don't remember the rain, but maybe I just wasn't there for that. Let's just hope it doesn't spoil Moonlight Festival this weekend.)
