By EARL WATT
Southwest Daily Times

The Japanese had just surrendered to end World War II, and the post-war economy was booming.

The year was 1946, times were good in Southwest Kansas, and Jay Wooten had an idea to bring a drive-in theater to Liberal. He named it the Great Western.

“He didn’t have much money to do it,” Wooten’s son Jerry said. “He had just enough to put in the screen, projector, speakers and concession stand.”

When the Great Western opened, people came from far and wide to watch a movie on the huge 60-foot tall, 124-foot wide screen.

“They used to come from as far away as eastern Colorado,” Jerry recalled.

He worked for his dad and for the management team of KZ and Dorothy Howard who lived in a converted army barracks right on the theater grounds.

“I worked, but I didn’t get paid,” Jerry said. “It took everything to pay the bank.”

By 1949, however, there was enough capital to make some enhancements, including the Great Western marquis sign that used a bright yellow neon arrow to point the way to the cashier’s house where money was collected, even if the occasional guest in the trunk skirted admission.

The sign was a brilliant display, standing more than 10 feet high and 20 feet wide. A yellow crescent moon floated at the top of a field of blue with white stars, and most of the sign was a marquis to announce the newest blockbuster to arrive on the “big” screen.

The Great Western was not the only theater in Liberal. The Tucker Theater downtown was a cutting-edge facility during the era, with red velvet decor and a balcony. The Plaza on Second Street also showed films, usually B-movies, and the Majestic was in its final days of silent films.

But the Great Western held its own for decades, outlasting the Majestic and the Plaza by providing a unique way to watch movies like “Flipper,” “Spencer’s Mountain” and “Savage Guns.”

Sometimes guests paid by the head, other times by the carload.

And Jerry remembered putting 600 cars in for some movies and having to turn customers away.

Over time, however, movie policies changed, and it became more difficult for drive-ins to get movies when they premiered.

Steve Reed was the last manager of the Great Western in the early 1980s, and it was this policy change in booking films that he attributed to the demise of the drive-in industry.

“You couldn’t get new releases,” he said. “It was all second-run stuff. By the time they were at the drive-in, they were on television.”

The experience at the Great Western was a bit different. Popcorn, candy and pop were available at the concession stand, but so were mosquito coils and fly swatters. And the occasional guest would pull away from their spot without replacing the speaker on the pole.

For the most part, the huge screen held up to the brutal winds and hail storms of Southwest Kansas. But in the late ’70s, one of the supporting timbers gave way, and local contractor Lee Roy Beaty was called in to repair the damage.

“When the timber gave way, it put a big crack in the screen about a third of the way over,” Reed said. “Beaty came in and pulled it back together and resurfaced the screen.”

It would be the beginning of a number of movie projects as Beaty also built the Southgate Twin and remodeled the Tucker into Wood’s Clothing Store.

Reed managed both the Great Western and Tucker theaters, which were operated by Commonwealth Theaters, and then he headed the brand new Southgate Twin when it opened in the late 1970s. The Tucker Theater closed following Commonwealth’s new dual theater, and then, in September of 1986, when the Southgate expanded to four auditoriums, Reed said the last movie was played at the Great Western.

The screen eventually came down, the speaker poles were uprooted, and the concession stand was torn down.

The acres of vacant space even had wheat crops grown for a few years.

The remaining remnant that proved the site was once the social gathering spot for the community was the massive marquis sign with the neon lights long since gone, the paint fading, and panels that once held the letters announcing an exciting new film non-existent.

Recently, Paresh Bhakta bought the property to build a Best Western Hotel and Suites, and with the property came the sign.

Long-time Liberal resident Eddie Welch approached Bhakta about acquiring the sign, and Bhakta obliged.

Eddie had his own memories, and since the closing of the Great Western had his sights set on one day owning the sign.

“The last movie I watched there was Ghostbusters,” he recalled. “I’d go there with my friends. Greg (Jacquis) had a van, and we would pull out a couch and a chair. We were the drunks in the back row.”

Eddie preferred the Great Western to the Tucker, and since he graduated in 1984, his was the last teen generation to experience watching a movie in the great wide open.

“I did manage to get a speaker and a pole out of it before they disappeared,” he said.

Eddie has spent several years collecting iconic pieces of history. From Dairy Queen and Sonic signage to an old phone booth and a parking meter, Eddie has had an eye for full-size memorabilia. Even the trash can in his office came from the Tucker Theater. But the Great Western sign has now become the crown jewel of the collection.

When Eddie heard that the property had been sold and a new hotel was coming to town, he made contacts with a family he knew that used to own the Best Western in Liberal. He then learned who the new owner was, and received permission to take the sign.

“I’ve been after that sign since 1990,” he said. “As soon as I knew I owned it, I went to look at it, and the size scared me.”

The massive sign not only served as the beacon to movie-goers, but it was also used as a wall to a garage on the drive-in property. Inside the cinder block building were three massive transformers that kept the sign glowing.

Eddie called in his friends and began disassembling the sign.

He and his crew spent two weekends removing screws and making brackets to safely move the massive structure.

He needed the help of Jeremy Friesen and Chris Rogers, Rick Wyre and Dude Welch plus some equipment from Friesen Salvage and Hog Slat.

Without damaging the sign that had stood up to 58 years of exposure, they disassembled the sign and have it stored in a safe location.

The real work now begins to restore the sign.

“First we’ve got to clean it up and sand it,” Eddie said. “It has 50 years of dirt in it. Then we have to rust-proof it, and then we’ll paint it back to its original colors. The neon is going to take a while. You’re talking about thousands of dollars of neon.”

Once the signs returns to its original splendor, Eddie said it will be put back in public view, although he wasn’t quite sure how, when or where. He had several plans, from mounting it on a portable trailer bed to a permanent display.

Either way, Eddie said although the sign was in his possession, it was something to be shared with the public.

“Mr. Bhakta gave me this sign, but Liberal got it.”