Holiday Drive-In
2829 Kearney Street,
Springfield,
MO
65803
2829 Kearney Street,
Springfield,
MO
65803
1 person
favorited this theater
The Holiday Drive-In opened in 1970. It was a rather large drive-in for Springfield with a car capacity of 529. It was a single screen ozoner. The Holiday Drive-In operated well into the late-1990’s. Originally sound was by traditional pole speakers but later by FM radio. The Holiday Drive-In was demolished in March of 2005.
Contributed by
Chuck Van Bibber
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Recent comments (view all 13 comments)
The theatre closed with a double feature of She’s The One and Stealing Beauty according to the picture and sat vacant for many years with the sign intact.
This is a recent photo.
Here is another photo of the Holiday sign.
Photo of the Holiday showing the screen and the concession/projection building.
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SO does anyone know who owes the land now. I am interested in purchasing it to maybe re open it.
The Holiday Drive-In never got mentioned in Boxoffice Magazine prior to 1969, though three other drive-ins operated in that town by Commonwealth were. I don’t think the Holiday dated from the 1950s.
The May 26, 1969, issue of Boxoffice ran an item about the proposed two-screen Holiday Drive-Ins in Springfield. The item said that the Holiday would be Commonwealth’s fourth location in Springfield. The circuit already had the Springfield Drive-In, the High-M Drive-In, and the Sunset Drive-In. A 20-acre parcel had been purchased for the Holiday Drive-Ins, one mile east of Kearny and Glenstone Junction. There was no mention of an earlier Holiday Drive-In.
The item also mentioned that Commonwealth was planning the Queen City Twin Drive-In at the same time. Both projects were designed by Milton Costlow & Associates.
However, after the Holiday Drive-In opened (on August 13, 1970) an item about it in the August 31 issue of Boxoffice made no mention of two screens. The opening feature was “Paint Your Wagon.” The item again mentioned the other three drive-ins that Commonwealth operated in Springfield.
An interesting sidelight to the Holiday Saga is revealed in an item in Boxoffice of August 26, 1968. It said that Commonwealth had begun the construction of a screen tower and other work for a fourth drive-in at Springfield, an 800-car situation to be located on the south side of Sunshine (misspelled Shushine in the item) between Ingram Mill and Blackman roads. This project was apparently not completed.
Joe I think to clarify the 1950’s build date, the new Holiday was built on the site for the former Holiday that was built in the 1950’s.
The problem is that there’s no convincing evidence that there was a Holiday Drive-In at Springfield in the 1950s. Nobody claims to have seen it, or even to have seen ads for it. Everybody is repeating second-hand reports of its existence.
The reports in Boxoffice all point to new construction on a virgin site in 1969 for the Holiday, and the complete absence of any mention of the Holiday in earlier issues of the magazine, when three other drive-ins in town were all mentioned more than once, also makes me skeptical of its existence. Somebody will have to dig up an ad or a directory listing from before 1969, or an eyewitness who actually saw the place before 1969, to convince me that there was an earlier Holiday Drive-In in Springfield.
Wow, I didn’t mean to rub a sore spot.
2009 photo of the roadside sign for the Holiday Drive-In.
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