Canada's 1st Drive-In
The Skyway Theater opened for business on July 10th, 1946, as the very first Drive-In Theater in Canada. Drive-In Theaters began opening across America in the 1930's, but didn't come into Canada until after the Second World War.
The Skyway, on Highway 8 at Gray Road, featured a 100 by 50 foot screen, could hold over 700 vehicles. It originally had loudspeakers for sound, but later updated to have individual speakers set up for each vehicle. It's been said that when the houses were built nearby, several of them had posts with speakers put in their yards to compensate for the noise and traffic.
Fun Fact...the first film to be shown here, back in ‘46 was 'Casanova Brown’, starring Gary Cooper. Admission was $0.42 +tax, but kids were allowed in free and an advertisement from the time read "Fill up the back seat and do not go broke".
It was one of half a dozen theaters running in the Hamilton area.. Only the Starlite, on Green Mountain Rd. remains, Which back then was called the Scenic Drive-In...
The Skyway theater remained open until its last performance of a dusk-to-dawn show on the final weekend of October 1975 .. After being torn down, the property was sold for redevelopment & was replaced with Fiesta Mall. (I remember coming here as a kid for $2 movies)... in the early 2000s one third of this mall was demolished sadly losing the movie going experience for this neighborhood, Once again upgrades came in 2014, as the section of the mall that housed one of Hamilton's oldest Fortinos was demolished and replaced with what you see today.
Cache is a magnetic nano..... Please replace as found..
Congratulations to Blueboxirregulars on FTF