Puget Park


SRO, Everett


This theater used to be operated by SRO Theaters, a name that used to stand for Sterling Recreation Organization. In 1986, when Puget Park was their last drive-in, SRO assumed operations of the Valley Drive-in, and in 1987 they transferred all their theaters to Cineplex Odeon, including the two drive-ins. Perhaps SRO held on to Puget's property, because on my visit here in early 1997, I saw property development and rezoning notices posted by a firm called Sterling Realty Organization (cute, eh?). Perhaps this theater's days are numbered, but for now it's the only theater on the west side of Puget Sound besides the Valley 6, and the only single screener, period.

When I finally went there with a car, I found that the refreshment staff still wear SRO shirts, so perhaps it is still being run by the current SRO. They certainly seem to care about the presentation, because the popcorn is fresh popped, and the screen image is sufficiently bright, unlike the image at the Valley, even though this screen is bigger (see list). The image was so bright that a campfire in the movie on the left side of the screen gave the illusion that the trees behind the screen were on fire. Perhaps the swap-meet helps fund these extra luxuries.

This place also has a ground-level projection booth, so I could see the works inside. They don't have a platter projector, so the entire movie was loaded onto a huge single vertical reel. They were still rewinding the second feature as I walked by.

Because they seem to care so much, it made the actual presentation so disapointing. The movie I went to see was Everafter, and because the regulars didn't like such a tame movie playing in their hangout, they took steps to make sure the rest of us wouldn't enjoy it either. Someone kept using a laser pointer all night. Once I got sort-of used to living with that, someone either snuck into the projection booth or used an FM transmitter to overpower the theater's own tranmitter. The miscreant then showed off the limits of his intelligence by saying rude things covering up the movie soundtrack. I don't know why I bothered to stay to the end. I didn't stick around for the second feature and I never came back.

Update, August 2000:
I came back to see a movie I had seen before at an indoor theater, pretty much just to photograph the vertical reel projection system. I found that they have upgraded to platters. This is a good sign that they are sticking around for a while. Still looks like the same projector, though, with cool translucent purple tape in front of the lamp house making a neat glow from the booth. They have put up a fence next to the port windows, so that you can't casually block the image when walking to the snack bar.


The door was already open, but when I snapped the picture the projectionist came out with a look on his face that I was sealing corporate secrets. Sorry.

Ken Layton adds:
The equipment I see in your new Puget Park photo is a Strong platter (older model---white rollers mean its older) and a Strong X-60-C lamphouse (just like the Rodeo has). Strong X-60-B,-C, and -D lamphouses are very popular for driveins because of excellent optical design gets the most light on the screen.

Also I saw more security around the hiking trail, with a gate at the back of the theater and someone sitting by the ticket booth at the front to keep freeloaders from using the trail. Not that it helped much, because the laser pointer came back, this time an hour into the movie. It seemed to be weaker than before, as if it were used from a distance, and it was being used sparingly. I guess it was a good thing I had already seen this movie before. Also, there's a noticible hole right in the middle of the screen.

Update: July 2001:
By now there is even more visible security: a sherrif at the ticket booth, and a city police car parked by the snack bar. Consequently, there were no inturruptions during the first movie, though it was strange watching from inside a canyon between two parked pickup trucks with the tailgate faced towards the screen. As I have said, there are two rows of cars between the horizontal roads, and most of the large vheicles parked in the forward of the two rows, blocking smaller cars from using the row behind.

The police must have cleared out by the end of the first movie, or they were kept busy by the kinds of things I saw. Things like public urination on the paved field, not long before it would be used for the swap meet the next day. And, someone broke out the laser pointer and used it on the second feature. I was wrong when I thought the regulars were bored with Everafter, because the second movie was Scary Movie 2, and yet the laser pointer operator was bored enough with that movie to ply his trade. Dispite what other correspondents have told me about flawless experiences here, I'm still 3-3 in laser pointer encounters at the Puget Park. At least they have recently painted the screen, as I could tell from overspray on the area below the screen, and they fixed the hole in the screen.

Also, they have insituted a policy of no pets allowed at this theater. Last time I was here I brought my mother's dogs, and was thinking of doing so again this weekend. It's a good thing I didn't. When Benji wanted to go to the premere of one of his new movies, he had to go to a drive-in. Now he would not be welcome at this theater, to say nothing of the horses that populated the drive-in premere of Blazing Saddles.


Marquee (such as it is) in the left foreground, along the entrance road.


The ticket booth awaits the opening of the 2000 season, not to mention some touch-up paint. There are two right hand windows but only one driver's side window, as if to discourage single patrons. In the foreground is one of the speaker poles used to control traffic in the swap meet parking lot.


Puget Park snack bar and ground level projection booth. The rows are doubled up so you are always close to your neighbors. The theater has FM radio sound, so these poles have been kept purely as parking control. Last year they did have a few speakers available, but I didn't see any in 2000. They cut the weeds showing here before the season.


This is the view of the lot and screen from the Snohomish County Interurban Trail, a public trail along-side the theater. Legally it is closed at night, but there are few physical barriers here for tightwads or owners of laser pointers.


Now Open.

Now showing at the Puget Park:Yahoo Movies.

See the weather just outside the Puget Park in this webcam, from The WSDOT Traffic Cameras. They may even pan over to show the field now and then.


Microsoft Terraserver Satellite Image of Puget Park Drive-in


USGS Everett, 1953, 1968 and 1973

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