Nothing has shut down this drive in that has been entertaining Winner South Dakota since they hung the first screen in 1950, not TV, daylight savings time, a tornado, vcr’s, cable, dish antennas, and not Netflix.
and it has a playground in front for kids... just like the drive ins I went to when I was in grade school in the late 70s. I suppose those are there for kids that simply get bored waiting for the movie to start, or never get into the movie and the parents aren't going to leave until the movie is over.
There were only 7 drive ins in South Dakota in the year 2013, and the Winner Driver In Theater made the list of the top 13 places that you must visit before your kids grow up
How effing cool is that?! https://www.facebook.com/Winner-Drive-In-Theatre-LLC-167329383328477/
http://cinematreasures.org/theaters/8335
https://www.onlyinyourstate.com/south-dakota/kids-attractions-sd/
That is only one story of how much history is in the South Dakota drive in theater business....
Gregory's Hilltop Drive-in, believed to be South Dakota's oldest remaining drive-in, was formed in 1946, and Tom Gallup, 70, has been working at Redfield's Pheasant City Drive-in nearly each summer since May 1959, and he's owned it since March 1972.
Mike Donlin, has worked 45 of his 59 years at Miller's Midway Drive-In theater built in 1953, running the projector, he is also one of the owners.
Honda, which designs digital projectors, got the idea how to help witht he enormous cost of upgrading drive ins from film projectors to digital (over 70k) and that was to have a month-long contest starting in which five theaters across the country received new projectors.
Each drive-in put together a creative video explaining why it deserved a new projector and the top-five vote-getting videos received new projectors. (2013 info, the link is dead, no idea who won) but in 2014 the Winner Drive in switched to digital
https://www.mitchellrepublic.com/business/1561783-drive-ins-outs
Winner was named for the fact the town had emerged the “winner” as Tripp County’s most successful trading point.
This IS very cool. You go Betty! It's sad to see the drive-ins across the country disappear, but it's good to know that a few of this great Americana is still around. We use to have two in the area where I live, but they are long gone now.
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