Lakemont Drive-In
4160 Airport Highway,
Louisville,
TN
37777
4160 Airport Highway,
Louisville,
TN
37777
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The Lakemont Drive-In was located on Highway 129 (Alcoa Highway) just a few miles north of McGee Tyson Airport. It was on the right if you were driving from Alcoa towards Knoxville. It was not actually inside the city of Alcoa, but the mailing address was Alcoa. I believe it was actually in a little community known as Lakemont.
It was opened on June 18, 1948 with Tom Drake in “Courage of Lassie”. I went there often in the 1970’s. The most interesting feature of the Lakemont Drive-In was that it was built on a fairly steep hill, with the screen at the bottom of the hill, so that if you were in the back, you were actually looking down at the screen. Above the screen, you had a panoramic view of Fort Loudon Lake across the highway in the distance.
The Lakemont Drive-In in the early-1970’s showed a lot of movies from exploitation distributor Cinemation Industries, and it was there that I saw the famous (then X-rated, though pretty tame by today’s standards) cartoon “Fritz the Cat”. Other exploitation classics I saw there included “I Eat Your Skin, I Drink Your Blood”, and “Hunchback of the Morgue”.
It was closed in the early-1980’s, and I assume the Lakemont Drive-In is now long gone, as the area around it was starting to become suburban in the 1970’s, and probably swallowed it up.
Contributed by
Bob Brown
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Recent comments (view all 9 comments)
Capacity was 250 cars according to the 1967 IMPA.
You can see an aerial view of the remains of the Lakemont Drive In at the link below. Apparently, it closed in the late 80’s
http://www.drive-ins.com/pictures/tntlake001.jpg
I had a friend who lived in a small trailer located just behind the screen (at the bottom of the photo where the car lot is now) in the early 70’s. This photo brings back a lot of memories.
Now Showing Sept.11 1967 was the 007 spoof “CASINO ROYLE” with no second feature,which was rare for Drive-ins located near large cities such as Knoxville.
Sept 24 1967 sees the LAKEMONT showing “FOR A FEW DOLLARS MORE” in keeping with their showings no sceond feature. That coming Wed. and Thursday was one feature “DIVORCE AMERICAN STYLE”. However, over the weekend they did play two features and for Friday and Saturday being “DIVORCE AMERICAN STYLE” and “THE FORTUNE COOKIE”
Looks like it’s right here…… at 4160 block of Alcoa Hwy.
View link
Thanks for the info Mike.
Approx. address for this drive-in was 4116 Airport Highway, Louisville, Tennessee 37777.
Listings started in the Knoxville newspaper from January 1949.
The Lakemont opened on June 18, 1948. It was the first drive-in built in the Metro Knoxville area. I have posted the opening ad in the photo section.