Starlite Drive-In
Midway Avenue and Speedway Avenue,
Chico,
CA
95928
Midway Avenue and Speedway Avenue,
Chico,
CA
95928
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The Starlite Drive-In was opened on July 1, 1949 with Sabu in “The Drum” & Ralph Richardson in “The Four Feathers”. This was a typical small town drive-in theatre. It closed in 1985 and it’s screen was relocated to the centerfield fence of Butte College’s baseball field.
Contributed by
David Maxwell
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Recent comments (view all 8 comments)
Approx. address for this drive-in was 101 Speedway Avenue.
Midway Ave at Speedway Ave Chico, CA 95928
639 cars. Site is now a factory(Smuckers) or the empty grass field next door?
Same drive-in? The Oct. 29, 1949 issue of BoxOffice reported, “T&D Jr. Enterprises, which recently opened a drive-in theatre on Route 99E south of Chico, faces a misdemeanor charge brought by the state division of highways of failure to obtain a permit before building the structure.”
It is the empty grass field that sits on the NE corner of Midway Avenue and Speedway Avenue. Traces of the outline and ramps remained until 2005, but by 2009 the field had been plowed over, so no trace of the drive-in remains.
The Starlite launched July 1, 1949 with Sabu in “Drums” and Ralph Richardson in “The Four Feathers.”
no the ramps still remain at least they show in the current aerial.
We are going to have to disagree, Dansdriveintheater.
The current Google overhead view shows no evidence of ramps, only some vestige crop marks that do not line up with the ramps seen in previous aerial photos. What does appear falls considerably short and somewhat out of alignment.
So, it’s clearly been plowed up and resurfaced, much like the site of the Hillcrest Drive-In in OKC.