It was only supposed to be a temporary gig. Paul Geissinger, a recent high school graduate, agreed to run the projection booth at Shankweiler’s Drive-in Theatre in Orefield, Pennsylvania, for just a couple weeks in 1971 until the theater’s new owner could find a permanent employee. Decades later, Geissinger is still there—except now, he owns the place.

“I remember, I told [the owner] no, I’m not interested in working at a drive-in,” says Geissinger, who, at the time, was enrolled in electronics school. “But I said, fine, I’ll give you two weekends while you find someone else. But after two weeks, he couldn’t find anyone, so I gave him three weeks. Then another week. And I’m still there.”

Movie-lover Wilson Shankweiler opened the drive-in—the first such theater in the state of Pennsylvania—in April 1934, a year after the first drive-in theater in the country opened in Camden, New Jersey.

For years, people parked their cars on the 4-acre lot, passing their summer evenings in the glow of the movie screen.

But in 1955, Hurricane Diane ravaged the East Coast, all but decimating Shankweiler’s. The projection booth was leveled, as was the shadow box screen.

“Basically everything was destroyed, except for the for the entrance archway,” Geissinger says.

It took some convincing, but Wilson Shankweiler, who, by then, was “getting up there in age,” Geissinger says, agreed to rebuild the drive-in and use the opportunity to modernize it. A new CinemaScope screen was added and a new concession stand, box office, and projection booth were built. Shankweiler’s was, once again, back up and running.

But by the time Geissinger joined the theater’s staff in 1971, the theater had again fallen to disrepair.

“I just about had a heart attack [when I walked into the projection room],” he remembers. “It was a disaster. A lot of things were just hanging on by a thread.”

He spent the next several years fixing the equipment, calling on the skills he picked up working in his high school’s audiovisual department.

Finally, in 1984, he and his wife, Susan, were presented with the opportunity to buy the theater, and they took the plunge.

“It was real rough at first,” he says. “Some nights, there were more employees than patrons.”

The Geissingers were competing with televisions, VCRs, and, eventually, huge multiplex theaters for customers. But throughout the last three decades, they have slowly been making upgrades to the space, installing the latest audiovisual technology and redoing the floors and heating and cooling systems. They recently celebrated the addition of new digital projection and sound equipment.

Thanks to their efforts, Shankweiler’s Drive-in Theatre has once more become a popular hangout for Pennsylvanians of all ages during the summer months.

“This past Saturday, we had cars packed in here from fence to fence,” he says.

The Geissinger’s customers are frequently thanking them for putting the money and effort into keeping the theater running. The couple knows the theater would never have survived without the dedication and determination of its previous owners, and they are set on following suit.

“That’s basically what Susan and I are: preservationists,” he says. “We’re committed to preserving America’s oldest drive-in.”

Many thanks to RetroRoadmap.com for photos.