Thanks for the source. My Motion Picture Almanacs whiffed on Warwick. Hmm…
Could it be the Cranston Auto Drive-In, just north of the Warwick city limits? Historic Aerials has a very clear photo from 1955, and so far that’s the only candidate I’ve found.
Hey there, original contributor Ken Roe! Thanks for filling a gap here, though it would also be helpful to cite your source for this new knowledge.
My reference books pull a blank on Warwick RI in the mid 1950s. Of course, the Warwick Drive-In in Warwick NY opened in 1950 and is still active. Could this be the 500-car Loew’s Drive-In listed for adjacent Providence?
Searching The News of Newport RI for those years turned up nothing for me, even though that paper’s Where To Go column listed other RI drive-ins. A Providence paper would have been more helpful, oh well.
Of course, none of this proves a negative. Could you please give us a hint?
The address that jwmovies is close; today Google Maps lists the address of Skyline Vista Park as 2595 W 72nd Ave, Westminster, just across the street from Denver. Historic Aerials photos verify that as the site of the North.
The site has a grocery store there now; jwmovies' address is accurate. But Nokorola has a point that as of this typing, the Cinema Treasures map is wrong. The drive-in was on the west side of the intersection of Pleasant Valley Road and T-579, sometimes known as Kings Highway.
By the way, the drive-in was never actually named Purple Passion. That matchbook was clearly a novelty gag, though possibly based on the Mt. Vernon’s location. Spot checks on ads in The San Bernardino County Sun from 1954, 1955, 1956, 1958 (clipping uploaded), 1959, 1962, and 1970 all call it the Mt. Vernon Motor-In Theatre.
That Citizens' Voice story said that the Moonlite had been closed for 32 years, which would mean that it closed in 1987.
When did it open? So far, my guess is 1951. The Moonlite’s first Theatre Almanac appearance was in the 1952 edition, exec: James Rizzo.
The first appearance in the Motion Picture Almanac series was in the 1951-52 edition as the Moonlight Drive-In, capacity 100, owner Wm. Kopelo. In 1960, the capacity was updated to 350 and the owner to J. Rizzo. In 1972, the spelling was finally corrected to Moonlite and the capacity upped to 375, then to 400 in 1977. And that’s how it stayed through the final MPA list in 1988.
That great news, that a former Cascade projector will enable the Moonlite to reopen this June, is from an April 9, 2019 article by Denise Allabaugh in The Citizens Voice. There’s a nice image gallery there including close-ups of the unrestored marquee.
The Motion Picture Almanac included Canadian drive-ins in its annual drive-in lists through 1976. The first appearance of a drive-in for Brooks AB was “Drive-In” in the 1960 edition. As with all future editions, its capacity was 250 and its owner was P. Ubertino. It stayed “Drive-In” through 1962, then was listed as “Brooks” (yes, under Brooks AB) through the last Canadian-inclusive list in 1976.
That was probably Peter Ubertino, who owned the “new motion picture theatre” that opened in Brooks in April 1943, per the Calgary Herald. Don’t be confused; that one was a “large stucco and tile building”.
A Facebook post for the company Essential Coil in Brooks wrote: “Before working at Essential Energy Services, Maura started working at the Brooks Drive-In Movie Theatre at age 14. ‘I can remember the line up in town when ET was just released. I’m sure the whole entire town was in line waiting to get in.’” That would mean the Brooks was still active in 1982.
The Yellow Pages for 1985 through 1988 had a tiny ad “For Family Entertainment” for the Sunburst Drive-In under Theatres – Motion Picture. The address was just a box number. The listing remained, without the ad, in the 1991 and 1992 Yellow Pages.
Thanks to some assistance by Flickr user ozoner68, I finally found the Sundown. The outline of its ramps is very faint in the 1964 aerial photo, and I don’t see the screen, but the address was clearly modern day equivalent of 1901 S Broadway, where the Home Depot is now.
The Sunset’s screen “was just blown away” by a windstorm on Aug. 28, 1956, according to a story the next day in the Daily Oklahoman.
It got even worse. The April 19. 1957 Daily Oklahoman wrote that unusually thorough vandalism “precluded any possibility of reopening the outdoor movie center this season, Mrs. E. Mac Wood, local manager, said.” All the speaker stands had been toppled and cable uprooted, and the concession / projection building had been ransacked and damaged. Vandals even hit the trees and shrubbery. Video Independent Theatres, Inc. “had announced earlier that plans for rebuilding a screen torn down late last season by a tornado were being deferred until crop prospects became more certain for the area.”
After some serious digging I found this 1954 USGS aerial shot, from which I posted a detail to the Photo section here. It shows a drive-in screen facing southeast with room to expand. (The wider image also had the Canal Drive-In in its usual spot.)
The County Drive-In was due north of the bend in the canal north of Tucumcari Elementary School and just a little bit west of the current site of Mesalands Community College. The best address I could get out of Google Maps is W Hines Ave & S 11th St.
And now that we know where to look, you can still see that really large projection building and traces of ramps in the 1967 aerial.
The April 2, 2019 issue of The Patriot Ledger included an article titled WHATEVER HAPPENED TO: The Weymouth Drive-In.
It opened on May 28, 1936, the fifth drive-in to be built. (Kerry Segrave’s book Drive-In Theaters says the date was May 6, 1936, per Billboard.) It was one of the few to get a license from the patent holder, Park-In Theater of Camden, NJ. “The builders were Thomas G. DiMaura, a contractor, and James Guarino of Milton.”
At the start, the Weymouth had noise problems, sometimes audible from five miles away. It used pole speakers in the 1940s, then in-car speakers in the 1950s. “In 1964, the original theater was torn down and the site expanded to make room for a two-screen (capacity 800 each) drive-in complete with a playground, a modernized concession stand and in-car heaters so the theater could remain open year-round.” But the Weymouth closed in April 1976.
The County and Canal were listed concurrently by both the Theatre Catalog and the Motion Picture Almanac. The evidence is strong that the County never became the Canal.
The County was in the first Motion Picture Almanac drive-in list in the 1950-51 edition. It was in the 1949-56 Catalogs with a capacity of 378 (later 400), owner L. R. Yessler.
If the Mimbres stayed active till 1984, it probably didn’t make 1985. A note in the July 20, 1986 Albuquerque Journal: “A sign of a different sort has appeared at the drive-in theater in Deming, and it’s not on the marquee. Spread along one wall are the words "Gone With the Wind.” The place has been closed for years."
An Associated Press story datelined Doylestown, Pa., Feb. 26, 1956, said that the Bucks County screen toppled “last night” during a storm. What made it wire-worthy: The (canceled) movie that night was The Rains of Ranchipur. “Theater Manager Edward Holkey estimated damage at $12,000.”
Historic Aerials shows the Trails Drive-In in 1955, screen facing north, in the middle of nowhere off Route 66 just west of Grants in what is now Milan. The ramps can still be seen in the big field behind the Immanuel Baptist Church on Valencia Avenue. The 1981 aerial photo showed the drive-in still looking good, though the screen was gone by the 1997 photo.
The first appearance of the Trail (always singular, always under Grants NM) in the Motion Picture Almanac was the 1955-56 edition, when it was listed with a capacity of 225, owned by J.C. West. In 1977, the capacity became 200 and the owner Grants Inc. In 1980 through the final MPA drive-in list in 1988, the owner was Thea. Opera.
The Trails stayed alive until at least 1983. The June 21, 1983 issue of the Albuquerque Journal had an article about the advent of cable TV in Grants. Its author, Toby Smith, wrote: “The Trails Drive-In, which occasionally shows R-rated movies, is about as close as one can get to dirty movies in Grants.”
On April 1, 2019, the Staunton (VA) News Leader ran a story about local artist Mark Cline placing an April Fools installation at the old Hiway sign. It got a positive reaction from “Junior Campbell, the farmer who owns the property”.
A Prince Albert Now article from July 21, 2011 had a photo of the sturdy Pines screen being torn down. It said the drive-in’s “first owner was Andrew Russel in 1951.” It changed hands many times and had been idle “since the mid 2000s, after the last show played on the big screen many years ago.”
Thanks for the source. My Motion Picture Almanacs whiffed on Warwick. Hmm…
Could it be the Cranston Auto Drive-In, just north of the Warwick city limits? Historic Aerials has a very clear photo from 1955, and so far that’s the only candidate I’ve found.
Hey there, original contributor Ken Roe! Thanks for filling a gap here, though it would also be helpful to cite your source for this new knowledge.
My reference books pull a blank on Warwick RI in the mid 1950s. Of course, the Warwick Drive-In in Warwick NY opened in 1950 and is still active. Could this be the 500-car Loew’s Drive-In listed for adjacent Providence?
Searching The News of Newport RI for those years turned up nothing for me, even though that paper’s Where To Go column listed other RI drive-ins. A Providence paper would have been more helpful, oh well.
Of course, none of this proves a negative. Could you please give us a hint?
The address that jwmovies is close; today Google Maps lists the address of Skyline Vista Park as 2595 W 72nd Ave, Westminster, just across the street from Denver. Historic Aerials photos verify that as the site of the North.
The site has a grocery store there now; jwmovies' address is accurate. But Nokorola has a point that as of this typing, the Cinema Treasures map is wrong. The drive-in was on the west side of the intersection of Pleasant Valley Road and T-579, sometimes known as Kings Highway.
By the way, the drive-in was never actually named Purple Passion. That matchbook was clearly a novelty gag, though possibly based on the Mt. Vernon’s location. Spot checks on ads in The San Bernardino County Sun from 1954, 1955, 1956, 1958 (clipping uploaded), 1959, 1962, and 1970 all call it the Mt. Vernon Motor-In Theatre.
That Citizens' Voice story said that the Moonlite had been closed for 32 years, which would mean that it closed in 1987.
When did it open? So far, my guess is 1951. The Moonlite’s first Theatre Almanac appearance was in the 1952 edition, exec: James Rizzo.
The first appearance in the Motion Picture Almanac series was in the 1951-52 edition as the Moonlight Drive-In, capacity 100, owner Wm. Kopelo. In 1960, the capacity was updated to 350 and the owner to J. Rizzo. In 1972, the spelling was finally corrected to Moonlite and the capacity upped to 375, then to 400 in 1977. And that’s how it stayed through the final MPA list in 1988.
That great news, that a former Cascade projector will enable the Moonlite to reopen this June, is from an April 9, 2019 article by Denise Allabaugh in The Citizens Voice. There’s a nice image gallery there including close-ups of the unrestored marquee.
The Motion Picture Almanac included Canadian drive-ins in its annual drive-in lists through 1976. The first appearance of a drive-in for Brooks AB was “Drive-In” in the 1960 edition. As with all future editions, its capacity was 250 and its owner was P. Ubertino. It stayed “Drive-In” through 1962, then was listed as “Brooks” (yes, under Brooks AB) through the last Canadian-inclusive list in 1976.
That was probably Peter Ubertino, who owned the “new motion picture theatre” that opened in Brooks in April 1943, per the Calgary Herald. Don’t be confused; that one was a “large stucco and tile building”.
A Facebook post for the company Essential Coil in Brooks wrote: “Before working at Essential Energy Services, Maura started working at the Brooks Drive-In Movie Theatre at age 14. ‘I can remember the line up in town when ET was just released. I’m sure the whole entire town was in line waiting to get in.’” That would mean the Brooks was still active in 1982.
The Yellow Pages for 1985 through 1988 had a tiny ad “For Family Entertainment” for the Sunburst Drive-In under Theatres – Motion Picture. The address was just a box number. The listing remained, without the ad, in the 1991 and 1992 Yellow Pages.
And here’s the story of how I found the online proof of the County’s former existence. Feel free to read it and leave me a comment there too.
Thanks to some assistance by Flickr user ozoner68, I finally found the Sundown. The outline of its ramps is very faint in the 1964 aerial photo, and I don’t see the screen, but the address was clearly modern day equivalent of 1901 S Broadway, where the Home Depot is now.
Abandoned Oklahoma has a series of 2011 photos showing what’s left of the place, including “literally thousands of football helmets”.
An Associated Press story said that high winds knocked down the screen on May 30, 1977.
The Sunset’s screen “was just blown away” by a windstorm on Aug. 28, 1956, according to a story the next day in the Daily Oklahoman.
It got even worse. The April 19. 1957 Daily Oklahoman wrote that unusually thorough vandalism “precluded any possibility of reopening the outdoor movie center this season, Mrs. E. Mac Wood, local manager, said.” All the speaker stands had been toppled and cable uprooted, and the concession / projection building had been ransacked and damaged. Vandals even hit the trees and shrubbery. Video Independent Theatres, Inc. “had announced earlier that plans for rebuilding a screen torn down late last season by a tornado were being deferred until crop prospects became more certain for the area.”
After some serious digging I found this 1954 USGS aerial shot, from which I posted a detail to the Photo section here. It shows a drive-in screen facing southeast with room to expand. (The wider image also had the Canal Drive-In in its usual spot.)
The County Drive-In was due north of the bend in the canal north of Tucumcari Elementary School and just a little bit west of the current site of Mesalands Community College. The best address I could get out of Google Maps is W Hines Ave & S 11th St.
And now that we know where to look, you can still see that really large projection building and traces of ramps in the 1967 aerial.
Here’s a fresh link to that great 1968 marquee photo by Fronske Studio in the Northern Arizona University archives.
Hey Drive-In 54, I’m working on a project that could use this photo. Could you please drop me a line at mkil
The April 2, 2019 issue of The Patriot Ledger included an article titled WHATEVER HAPPENED TO: The Weymouth Drive-In.
It opened on May 28, 1936, the fifth drive-in to be built. (Kerry Segrave’s book Drive-In Theaters says the date was May 6, 1936, per Billboard.) It was one of the few to get a license from the patent holder, Park-In Theater of Camden, NJ. “The builders were Thomas G. DiMaura, a contractor, and James Guarino of Milton.”
At the start, the Weymouth had noise problems, sometimes audible from five miles away. It used pole speakers in the 1940s, then in-car speakers in the 1950s. “In 1964, the original theater was torn down and the site expanded to make room for a two-screen (capacity 800 each) drive-in complete with a playground, a modernized concession stand and in-car heaters so the theater could remain open year-round.” But the Weymouth closed in April 1976.
The County and Canal were listed concurrently by both the Theatre Catalog and the Motion Picture Almanac. The evidence is strong that the County never became the Canal.
The County was in the first Motion Picture Almanac drive-in list in the 1950-51 edition. It was in the 1949-56 Catalogs with a capacity of 378 (later 400), owner L. R. Yessler.
All MPA list mentions:
Motion Picture Almanac drive-in list mentions:
If the Mimbres stayed active till 1984, it probably didn’t make 1985. A note in the July 20, 1986 Albuquerque Journal: “A sign of a different sort has appeared at the drive-in theater in Deming, and it’s not on the marquee. Spread along one wall are the words "Gone With the Wind.” The place has been closed for years."
An Associated Press story datelined Doylestown, Pa., Feb. 26, 1956, said that the Bucks County screen toppled “last night” during a storm. What made it wire-worthy: The (canceled) movie that night was The Rains of Ranchipur. “Theater Manager Edward Holkey estimated damage at $12,000.”
Hey Nlister! I’m working on a history project that includes the Trails. Could you please drop me a line at mkil
Historic Aerials shows the Trails Drive-In in 1955, screen facing north, in the middle of nowhere off Route 66 just west of Grants in what is now Milan. The ramps can still be seen in the big field behind the Immanuel Baptist Church on Valencia Avenue. The 1981 aerial photo showed the drive-in still looking good, though the screen was gone by the 1997 photo.
The first appearance of the Trail (always singular, always under Grants NM) in the Motion Picture Almanac was the 1955-56 edition, when it was listed with a capacity of 225, owned by J.C. West. In 1977, the capacity became 200 and the owner Grants Inc. In 1980 through the final MPA drive-in list in 1988, the owner was Thea. Opera.
The Trails stayed alive until at least 1983. The June 21, 1983 issue of the Albuquerque Journal had an article about the advent of cable TV in Grants. Its author, Toby Smith, wrote: “The Trails Drive-In, which occasionally shows R-rated movies, is about as close as one can get to dirty movies in Grants.”
On April 1, 2019, the Staunton (VA) News Leader ran a story about local artist Mark Cline placing an April Fools installation at the old Hiway sign. It got a positive reaction from “Junior Campbell, the farmer who owns the property”.
A Prince Albert Now article from July 21, 2011 had a photo of the sturdy Pines screen being torn down. It said the drive-in’s “first owner was Andrew Russel in 1951.” It changed hands many times and had been idle “since the mid 2000s, after the last show played on the big screen many years ago.”