At a time when few had televisions, Elkton was looking forward to decades of grand entertainment after a drive-in theatre opened at White Hall Road and Route 40 on Friday evening, May 12, 1950. Bringing this new outdoor show to Cecil County, Nathan Rosen had carefully located the new enterprise by finding a suitable tract, one large enough for 700 cars, on the new dual highway. The 15 acres were leased from the Society of the Divine Savior, a Catholic order popularly known as Salvatorians. Once the contract was signed, crews started grading the field, putting up the big screen, building the box office, concession stand, and projection room, and wiring the sound system.
The Elkton Drive-In Theatre, Route 40, opens Friday night, May 12. Source: Cecil Whig, May 9, 1950
Heavy floodlights brightened the area on the gala opening night while the high school band presented a concert, and balloons and carnations were given away. Once dusk arrived, people settled down in their cars, enjoying “nature’s own healthy air conditioning,” while “Relentless,” starring Robert Young, played in Technicolor on the big outdoor screen. Admission was 50 cents.
The popularity of the Elkton Drive-In grew quickly. For decades to come, it served as a social hub and a place for entertainment, where families and teenagers gathered to watch movies under a starry sky.
The lease was transferred to Reba and Muriel Schwartz in March 1960. The new owners were experienced motion picture operators, owning the Smyrna Theater in Smyrna, DE; the Everett Theater in Middletown, DE; and the Del-Mar Drive-in Theatre in Del-Mar, DE. Local papers reported they were putting the Elk in first-class condition for the spring opening.
The drive-in closed about 1984 when the property was sold to Wal-Mart.
A photo from March 1992 shows the drive-in a few years after it closed (Source: Maryland Historical Trust Inventory of Historic Properties0.
The Society’s curatorial staff is working on an exhibit that will be rolled out in the fall about the 1960s in Cecil County. It was a decade that brought many transformations to this corner of Maryland and our talented group of volunteers are working on capturing those years in intriguing displays. Right now they are selecting materials and planning the panels. While the team, headed by Curator Lisa Dolor, mulls over concepts Lisa asked if we could leverage the power of our social media outlets to get some help. She would like to know what sorts of images come to mind when you think about Cecil County in the 1960s. We will keep you updated as things move along and also share a few photos from that time.
A snowy night in Elkton in Dec. 1961. Source: Cecil Whig.
After making it through another day in this July heat wave, the old Main Street in Elkton was looking good this evening. The thermometer soared to the mid-90s in the late afternoon, but one towering, puffy cumulus cloud hanging near the Elkton United Methodist Church as businesses closed in the county seat made things look cooler. But once you stepped out of an air-conditioned space you realized we were in for an uncomfortable evening, as the oppressive conditions continued to hang around. With dusk approaching the mercury retreated to an uncomfortable 87-degrees, which the Weather Bureau said feels like 104-degrees.
The county decided it needed a bomb shelter during the Cuban Missile Crisis. Cecil Democrat, Oct. 24, 1962
The end of October is normally a scary time in Cecil County as Halloween rolls around. But an actual nightmare on the eve of the trick-or-treat season in 1962 caused people to shy away from ghosts and goblins. Facing a dreadful reality, the world standing on the edge of a nuclear war, people decided they had enough frightening antics and scary tales, although the situation eased by the time the last two days of the month arrived.
George Prettyman, a columnist for the Cecil Democrat, wrote about those jittery days. “Almost everything has become of scant importance since the president spoke on October 22 on the Cuban Missile Crisis. Several times during the past few years it has seemed that we have been on the brink of war. But all other crises pale in the light of the present one, for we are indeed dangerously – very dangerously – close to hostilities. Every moment we remain disengaged from open warfare gives us a little more hope that the matter can be settled short of all-out, worldwide war.” With a chill of that type in the papers, on television, and in the air, nervous people weren’t in the mood for the mysterious and spooky season or any other dark jolts.
It was the quietest in years, “virtually free from malicious mischief and vandalism,” Elkton Chief Thomas N. McIntire, Jr. reported. Looking to bolster his patrols, given the normal antics, the county seat’s top cop called out the Civil Defense Auxiliary Police. Already on high alert because of international tensions, it was easy for the chief of the CD force, Norton Singman, to mobilize his resources. He detailed 27 men to take up positions throughout town for two days, and between the regular officers and the CD auxiliary the entire community was “under surveillance.”
Elkton’s Annual Halloween Parade
Elkton’s annual Halloween parade, a popular event, was headed by Harry Cleaves in 1962. It was a “huge success,” papers reported, although the floats and paraders seemed to be far fewer in number.
Sheriff Edgar Startt also reported that mischief night passed quietly in rural Cecil. He put all four full-time deputies on patrol and had six extra men supplement the regular force.
Rising Sun Managed to Pull Off Its Traditional Trick
Despite the heightened presence of lawmen and the frightening specter of mass destruction, pranksters in Rising Sun managed to pull off their traditional trick. After a group prowled around the countryside and found a convenient outhouse, they promptly dragged it to the center of the town square. There it stood under cover of a chilled October darkness. Police were looking for the owner of the privy.
Jittery residents weren’t looking for the creepy and kooky in 1962.
County Commissioners meet with state and federal officials to go over procedures for federal assistance in construction a bomb proof building to house Civil Defense and county records. Commissioners Howard Tome & Davie Racine attended the meeting. Source: Cecil Democrat, Nov. 1, 1962
Duck & Cover Civil Defense Training Film. Source: Internet Archive
Fifty-one years ago, people across the nation stayed glued to television sets and radios, listening to a stream of alarming broadcasts about heightening tensions as the Soviet Union and the United States faced off over the placement of missiles in Cuba. President John F. Kennedy alerted the American people to the danger on Oct. 22, 1962, by going on the air during prime time to tell viewers that the nuclear weapons were in striking distance of Washington, D.C. He demanded the removal of the missiles and ordered a naval blockade of Cuba.
With the world on the verge of mass destruction, this stand-off resulted in some frightening days. Here in Cecil County, the confrontation had a direct impact. Less than an hour after the quarantine speech, John J. Ward, Jr., Cecil County Civil Defense, swung into action, notifying local officials and emergency units. His force contained 23 radiological monitoring teams, 95 auxiliary policemen, and 125 engineering personnel, along with the fire companies and police agencies.
From the Elkton “nerve center,” Cecil County Civil Defense maintained direct contact with the National Air Warning Alert System in Colorado. If the enemy launched an attack, the U.S. Air Force directly signaled the county seat so dispatchers could flash the urgent message to points in northeastern Maryland.
The morning after the startling speech, jittery residents and the County Commissioners acted quickly to increase survival chances. President John R. Dickerson called a special meeting to discuss the “current crisis,” survival requirements, and the necessity “for a safe place to keep county records.”
Ward advised that local government facilities weren’t well-positioned to escape radiation or a blast from a thermonuclear weapon. Although a local 24-hour radio network provided communications with first responders, it would cost a significant amount to protect the control center. And there was no room for county government or its files. David C. Racine and Howard B. Tome, the other board members, joined the president, instructing the emergency manager to immediately develop plans for a “bomb-proof building to house the CD control center and county records.”
Within a week, Ward reported back. The plan called for constructing a below-ground fallout shelter to house 40 people for two weeks in the event weapons of mass destruction rained down on the nation. The concrete building was to be buried completely below ground.
Months before the international incident, the Army Corps of Engineers completed an initial survey of 108 local structures, determining that 52 qualified as fallout shelters. The urgency of the emergency expedited things so a faster plan was put in place to hang fallout shelter signs on the approved building, with stocking to get underway. As the elected leaders considered the option of “dig, or not dig,” they decided that schools were ideal for Civil Defense purposes so they instructed the Board of Education to build shelters in all new facilities.
A fading old Civil Defense sign
Civil Defense preparations to survive the atomic bomb preoccupied the public too. In homes, many nervous citizens lay in supplies of canned foods, candles or lanterns, a supply of water, and medical supplies. And they stayed close to radio and television sets. Ward reported numerous calls from the public, wanting to know what they could do, where the shelters were located, and how they could obtain radiological instruments for the home.
Before the calendar turned to November many residents mulled over their options for putting concrete and dirt between their families and radiation. Considering the nightmare, some found the idea of huddling in private underground facilities appealing so the building inspector’s office got busy. Robert R. Reed issued 17 permits, authorizing residents to start digging into the ground to construct those backyard shelters.
George Reynolds, a Navy veteran who arrived in Hiroshima on an expeditionary survey soon after the bombing recalled those troubling October days. “It looked like we were going to war and I was anxious, he said. I had seen the devastation caused by an atomic bomb and they had missiles 90 miles from our shores. Regardless I got ready to do my part, and if the worst came, I had enough food, water, and supplies stocked in our cellar that we could survive.”
Gene Meekins, a young Elkton soldier stationed in Germany, served as the driver for the watch commander. In the middle of the night, he recalls getting an urgent call to rush a senior officer to headquarters. The base was abuzz with military activity and he soon learned that the military alert had been raised to the level just below an attack.
After a couple of agonizing weeks, a time when Armageddon was near, the immediate crisis eased when the Soviets agreed to remove the missiles. And as autumn gave way to winter and the page turned on a new year, the intense preoccupation with survival passed. But throughout the sixties, the Cold War and the threat of mass destruction remained a part of life and Cecil County Civil Defense kept a steady, though less frantic, focus on protecting the homeland should weapons of mass destruction strike the nation.
Four years after the intense crisis passed, Cecil County Civil Defense opened an Emergency Operations Center. In the event of a nuclear attack, it was designed to support continuity of government operations deep in the ground in a sub-basement under the new courthouse addition.
This generation would remember crouching under our school desks during civil defense drills and concerns about converting basement space in homes into temporary survival areas. People who lived during those troubled days usually remember them.
With the investigation into the crash of Asiana Flight 214 in San Francisco continuing, Fox 45 News reporter Melinda Roeder stopped by the Historical Society yesterday for help with a Maryland connection to the story. It was Dec., 8, 1963, nearly fifty-years ago, when the worst crash in Maryland history occurred. On that stormy December night a half-century ago, Pan Am Flight 214 circled high above Elkton waiting for a thunderstorm to pass. Suddenly, moments before air traffic controllers prepared to clear the flight for final approach into Philadelphia, an enormous fireball illuminated the night sky as 81 people perished when lightning struck the doomed craft.
As Cecil County’s history and genealogy library our staff routinely handles media inquiries and so they swung into quickly action on this one. On short notice we pulled together a large archive of materials, including news video of the 1963 tragedy, audio of the emergency communication network, dozens of photos, old newspapers, oral history interviews, personal correspondence, and much more. We also briefed Melinda on the history of this tragedy and helped her with additional contacts. She was able to talk to Lt. Don Hash, MSP (retired), who was the first emergency responder to arrive on the scene.
For the volunteer caretakers of Cecil’s heritage it is just another routine week. Sometimes they deal with said memories such as this one, but there is a full range of inquiries from broadcast and print journalist. As an example, over the past thirty days, we have helped a British newspaper doing a piece on the 250th anniversary of the Mason and Dixon Line. The Washington Post magazine featured an article on Bobby Kennedy’s Funeral Train and we helped with research materials and contacts. A perspective of EMS in the United States was featured in the EMResidents Journal and we had a number of photos to help them with that story. And we have had trade journals writing about Cecil County as a destination spot for tourists. All of this is beyond what we do every week for our local newspapers.
Our volunteers always work to preserve the local story and welcome opportunities to share this narrative with a broader audience. This is just one more way we carry out our mission as Cecil’s heritage keepers.
Fox 45 broadcast journalist, Melinda Roeder, records a part of her story at the Society.
Lt. Don Hash, MSP (retired) talks to Melinda about the crash.
July 7, 2013 — We have exceeded our quota of strong evening thunderstorms, dangerous lightning, and heavy downpours lately as it seems we have been in Mother Nature’s Bull-Eye. One of our volunteers, Kyle Dixon, snapped this photo as dark storm clouds gathered over Rev. Duke’s Log House at the Historical Society just before dusk.
When Rev. Duke built his home over 214 years ago on Bow Street in the center of Elkton, he built it to last. So after centuries of hurricanes, windstorms, nor’easters, windstorms, and howling blizzards, this blast and those rather threatening dark clouds were nothing.
Marie Cooling, a fire dispatcher, takes a call. Source: Cecil Democrat, Aug. 30, 1967/
The Cecil Democrat, a weekly newspaper, published a series of interviews with public officials about local agencies in 1967. That August, the paper put the “spotlight” on Civil Defense and the nearly six-year-old central fire dispatch system as a reporter talked to Marie Cooling.
“Fire headquarters” had gone on air in October 1961, working out a concrete-block one-story building in the back of the jail. The “operators,” as they were known, dispatched fire and ambulance calls and relayed messages to the Elkton Police Department, Sheriff’s Office, and the Maryland State Police. Before the launch of the 24-hour operation, companies had radio-equipped vehicles and bases in the fire stations, but the system-wide network didn’t exist. Earlier, Marie noted that people called the companies directly, dialed the operator, or telephoned the canal dispatcher in Chesapeake City.
Four county employees staffed the 24/7 operation, as one dispatcher, working alone, juggled the telephone calls and radio traffic at fire headquarters. In addition to Marie, the “operators” included: James Penhollow, Rosemary Culley, and Roland Reynolds.
The reporter asked if there was a time when there had been a general alarm in the county requiring all apparatus. “Oh yes. Once we had a big fire at Marysville and we had everything in the county, plus equipment from Havre de Grace and Newark.”
The “control center” was preparing to move deep below the ground of the new courthouse that was under construction into a specially constructed fallout shelter that was designed to allow the local government to continue functioning during a nuclear attack. “It is intended to be bombproof,” she remarked.
Rosemary Culley, another original dispatcher, handles the fire board in 1966. Source: Cecil Whig, Dec. 14, 1966
All across the area people have been out and about enjoying the extended Independence Day Holiday. But right on schedule, Historical Society volunteers reported for duty, opening the Cecil County History and Genealogy Library for those digging back through layers of time. Hard at work, fielding whatever came their way on this hot, sweltering first Saturday in July, were three regular staffers, Darlene McCall, Beth Boulden-Moore, and Stephen Podolak. They poured over old newspapers seeking to resolve some historical questions, digitized 1930s copies of Elkton High School newspapers, and generally took care of operations.
Meanwhile Milford Sprecher took time out from part of his extended Fourth of July holiday to work on a talk he is preparing for the upcoming speakers series. He will discuss 1960s Elkton as he remembers it and was organizing materials for the presentation. As we move through the second decade of the 21st century, those recollections of the county seat a half-a-century ago, a period that saw many significant changes, will take us on tracks through time back to a special place as we hear about enduring memories that were acquired so long ago. Look for details on the winter speakers’ series shortly.
Thank you Darlene, Beth, Stephen and Milford for going on the clock to help those seeking to understand Cecil heritage.
—Milford Sprecher will share stories about 1960s Elkton. This will be a popular talk as we journey back about a-half-a-century to hear enduring memories about a special place and time.
