Grand Theatre Memories

Projector from Grand Theatre
[Kittson County Museum Collection]

The Grand Theatre was Hallock's (MN) movie palace.  I was recently contacted by a gentleman who once worked for the man who owned it¹, as well as the local drive-in.  He had some interesting stories to share...

Jim Tureson, who worked for Bill Krumholz:

Sitting here thinking about days gone by and remembered an incident at the Grand Theatre. It was 1956.  We were showing a horror movie called The Creeping Unknown where this big glob would catch and kill people. Well, my Dad decided to make it more interesting. He ran some wires from the projection room down to the seating area and attached a buzzer to two seats! The wires were attached to a battery and when he pushed the button the seats would start to vibrate and buzz! Needless to say, at the worst possible time in the movie when people were screaming, we would hit the buzzer and watch someone fly out of their seat! I know, that was bad and we made sure there wasn't an elderly person sitting there. Joe gave us permission to do it and enjoyed the reactions also!

Projector from Grand Theatre.
[Kittson County Museum Collection]

Jim Tureson shared another story:

I'll tell you another Grand Theatre treasure. My older brother Larry was a protectionist in high school also; he graduated in 1960. One of our pet peeves was when one person showed up to watch the second show, we weren't able to go home early. This particular night a gentleman came in just in time for the second show and Larry wasn't happy. So he ran the show. When it ended, he turned on the lights, closed the curtain and was going to lock up when he saw that man still sitting in the front row, thinking he had fallen asleep. He went up and shook his shoulder, only to find out he was dead! Freaked him out to say the least!! So Larry was the only one in our family to run an entire show for a dead man.

Highway 75 Drive-In; go-cart track can be seen between screen and parking area.

July 12th, 1962. Joe Carriere and I were at the drive-in where I was going to paint the big screen. We rigged up a one-man "swing" with ropes over the screen tied off on Joe's big Oldsmobile. It worked like a pulley system - as Joe drove forward I would go higher. It had rained the night before and the grass was wet. I needed to go up higher so Joe started pulling me up, but as he was going, he got hung up on the wet grass around the go-cart track. He goosed the Oldsmobile, tires spinning, and then suddenly he hit the cement track! He took off rather fast and I went from 15 feet off the ground to 35 feet in seconds. When he finally stopped, I had almost wet my pants, the paint can went flying, and I'm screaming at Joe!

The day the Grand burned down in 1975...

Of course, he thought it was funny as hell, while I had thought I was going to die!
















¹ - Joseph and Rebecca Carriere owned and operated the Grand Theatre in Hallock from 1947 to 1975 when it was destroyed by fire. They also opened the Hallock Drive-In Theater in 1954 and operated it until 1985. The 1995 tornado took it down...