Almost 50 years after closing, The Barrell faithful to hold reunion

When Lillian Eagan ordered newsboy-style caps for the drive-in restaurant she and her husband, Lloyd, had founded, she misspelled an essential word.

That’s why, when Sioux Falls residents of a certain age recall their own “American Graffiti”-like experiences, those memories center on The Barrell Drive In & Restaurant, not The Barrel.

Two Rs, two Ls.

“They came back from the hat company with embroidery on the front that spelled barrell,” said Cheryl Taylor, one of the Eagans’ daughters. “They couldn’t afford to send them back, so it stuck. It was an innocent error, but it made it kind of unique, I guess. With the double R and the double L, it’s kind of fun to write out in longhand.”

From 1939 until 1976, The Barrell drive-in at 31st Street and Minnesota Avenue served families, courting couples and teenagers taking a break from aimless driving on weekend nights. When it opened, it was on the edge of Sioux Falls, but as the city grew up around it, the distinctive sign with the red arrow continued to draw attention.

“It was a cultural mainstay. Most young people worked there at one point or another. Many couples met there,” Linda Beck Halliburton said. “It was a dating place, but it was also a place where people found the love of their life and got married. It was the place to be.”

Halliburton’s father, Dick Beck, worked for Lloyd Eagan for many years before purchasing the drive-in in 1967 with a partner. It closed in 1976 after competition from fast-food chains proved overwhelming.

In the almost half-century since then, The Barrell has retained its legendary status. A reunion of former staff and customers Saturday will be a time when those legends can be shared, shined and embellished, if necessary.

Beck asked his daughter to arrange the first reunion several years ago. After his death two years ago, she considered stopping the gatherings, but his cousin Chuck Barnes, who also had ties to the drive-in, urged her to continue.

Halliburton agreed in part because she knows memories of The Barrell are fading.

“The Barrell has now been closed for 50 years, and people still want to get together and relive their glory days, but there are fewer and fewer of those people,” she said. “It was an important time in the history of Sioux Falls for a lot of people, but it’s one of those bygone eras, the dying of tradition and the dying of the memory if you will.”

Taylor has donated portions of The Barrell’s history such as pieces of a carhop’s uniform, menus and promotional items like pencils and ashtrays to Siouxland Heritage Museums. Memories of The Barrell also have been recorded through an oral history project with the University of South Dakota.

Lloyd and Lillian Eagan opened The Barrell in 1939. They had married during the heart of the Depression. Lloyd, a telegraph operator for Western Union, was looking for other work. Lillian had worked for Lloyd’s uncle, Harry Muzzy, who owned a chain of drive-ins in Montana, North Dakota and Minnesota.

Taylor said her father drove through several communities before settling on Sioux Falls as the place to start his own drive-in.

“In Sioux Falls, they rented a vacant lot from Tom Costello,” Taylor said. “About that time — they knew World War II was coming — the air base was built in the northwest part of town, and the business was an instant success. All those soldiers had cars and money, and they would come to the drive-in at night.”

The Eagans soon purchased the lot on which their drive-in stood. When Lloyd entered the service after the war started, Lillian ran the drive-in on her own. In the early years, it was only open during warm-weather months.

“Dad came back from the war, and he said, ‘Thank you, dear; I’ll take the keys,’” Taylor said. “This is what happened to all the women. She wasn’t real happy; she wanted to keep working. But then, the kids started coming.”

The Eagans eventually constructed three buildings before selling the business.

“Lloyd was his mentor when he was very, very young,” Halliburton said of her father. “Lloyd was actually my godfather. Dad was born in ’35, and he started working for Lloyd in 1947 and all through high school.”

One expansion took place in the early 1960s. That’s when electric wire installed under the parking lot allowed customers to place their orders over a speaker system.

“It was very modern,” Taylor said. “Customers could sit in their car, roll the window down and place the order over the phone. One person worked the switchboard inside.”

“Fountain boys” — generally college students — ran the cash register. One cook made pies while others worked in the fully equipped kitchen.

And don’t forget the carhops.

The teenage girls hired as carhops never wore roller skates, Taylor said. Instead, they walked back and forth to customers’ cars, logging many pre-pedometer miles on busy nights.

Taylor and her sister both worked inside as waitresses and outside as carhops.

“Some nights in the ’50s and ’60s, it was so busy that Mom and Dad had to put on 15 carhops,” Taylor said. “The girls did not have a wage. They worked for tips, and they made good money. The law changed sometime in the early ’60s, and the law required that salaries be paid. It started at like 35 cents an hour.”

The Beck siblings also worked at The Barrell but in entirely different capacities.

“What my dad used to do on Saturday mornings, he’d bring me and my sister and brother in,’ Halliburton said. “My sister and I were like 5, 6 years old, and our brother was younger. We would test the switchboards, with one inside and the other where cars would pull in, making sure the speakers all worked.”

In the era before ketchup packets, Halliburton and her siblings also filled little paper cups with the condiment. Halliburton also recalled another task.

“We got to scrape gum from underside of the tables,” she said. “We all thought it was great fun. At a reunion, someone who worked there said to me: ‘I remember you doing that. We were all sitting back laughing at you, thinking it was fun to scrape gum.”

That’s the kind of memory Halliburton, Taylor and others hope to hear shared at Saturday’s reunion. It will begin at 11:30 a.m. at The Barrel House (two Rs, one L), 4701 E. 57th St. Halliburton recommends ordering a burger and fries for old times’ sake. And The Barrel House has no connection to The Barrell drive-in, other than a similar name.