Falcon Drive-In
7400 Collinsville Road,
East St. Louis,
IL
62201
7400 Collinsville Road,
East St. Louis,
IL
62201
2 people
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The Falcon Drive-In opened in 1949, originally called, appropriately enough, the Mounds Drive-In, near the Cahokia Mounds with room for around 700 cars. At the time, in a less culturally and historically sensitive era, a few smaller mounds, created by the ancient people of Illinois over a millenium earlier, were bulldozed to make way for the drive-in.
By the late 70s, when the Falcon closed, it was showing porn films. Views of the X-rated movies were sneaked at the tops of nearby mounds.
After the drive-in closed, it was cleared and incoporated into the Cahokia Mounds State Historic Site. The name of the former outdoor theater was retained for a picnic area that sits on part of the Falcon’s site, and some of the old speaker posts have been reused as trail markers.
Contributed by
Bryan
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Recent comments (view all 4 comments)
The Falcon Drive In acturally opened in 1949 as the Mounds Drive In. Appropriatly named after the Cahokia Mounds.
I can say that I never saw a movie here because, well, I was underage! But even at a young age, I knew what notoriety this place had. I do remember from the newspaper ads that Andy Warhol’s “Frankenstein” was shown every weekend…in 3-D!
Car capacity in 1975 was 620.
When the drive in opened in 1949 it was operated by the Pines Co. Within months, Jablonow-Komm took a 10-year lease of the facility. In 1960, Mid-America (the renamed Jablonow-Komm) bought the venue and renamed it the Falcon, adding to its car-model drive-in names, others being Thunderbird, Capri and Bel-Air.