drivein2001, I think you’re talking about three different Jefferson/SR 180 (the twin highways) drive-ins; the Jefferson Drive-In is the farthest east, in Oak Cliff. It was located on Jefferson Ave. and was always a single-screen, never a twin.
Moving along Jefferson toward Grand Prairie, you then come to the Twin Highways, originally a single-screen between the highways with entrances from either; eventually this one was twinned, giving its name a dual meaning, by simply building another screen/projection room on the lot immediately to the east. After being twinned, this theatre was advertised simply as the Twin Drive-In. It was never (officially, at least) named the Jefferson Twin, though that might have been a local casual reference, i.e. “the Twin on Jefferson.”
Continuing toward Grand Prairie, you then came to the East Main, originally built as the Chisholm Trail.
Finally, considerably farther into town, you’d come to the Century 4, originally built as the single-screen Downs.
The McLendons did, as you said, eventually acquire the Twin Highways, the Chisholm Trail, and the Downs. They advertised the Twin Highways as the Twin; the Chisholm Trail as the East Main; and the Downs as the Century 4.
This theatre also hosts, in conjunction with Fathom Events and/or Turner Classic Movies, a Classic Films Series that features digitally-restored classic films, projected via a digital nation-wide feed; some auditoriums have had the screens enlarged so that they are almost wall-to-wall, and floor-to-ceiling, yet the Cinemark website does not list this venue as having their Next-Gen or XD auditoriums yet.
At any rate, projection and sound are absolutely first-rate.
Drive-In 1954: I plan to, as soon as I nail down the street address; of course, if you have that info, go ahead and establish a page. It can always be added to as more info comes in.
I plan to add the Fiesta (McAllen), the Buckhorn (Mission), the Pan Am (Edinburg), and another Edinburg Drive-In for which, so far, I can find no name but which was located in an orange grove east of town on SH 107. Drove past all these locations yesterday.
Chuck, funny story about the Valley (1971-2001). We had just moved to McAllen and it was still open; all that first year, I said “we’ve got to take the kids to a drive-in.” Never did.
One Saturday, we have to drive right past it to do some shopping in Mission. In fact, the freeway entrance is right by the drive-in. “Jurassic Park 3” is on the marquee. My wife and I agree “tonight’s the night.”
We tell the kids, and they’re all excited. Shopping in Mission takes all morning and all afternoon. We’re driving back home. We miss the exit – because the drive-in is gone! One morning & afternoon was all it took!
jwmovies: I now believe the address you gave for the Palms (and the drive-in I refer to in my post of 12:19 pm, above) is actually for the Fiesta, for which no page currently exists.
I have it on local (McAllen) authority that the Palms was located at the corner of Nolana and N. 10th St. (SH 336). That would put it in the 78501 zip code given in the address at the top of the page. I don’t know what the exact street address number was.
mr92849: do you have any memory of a small drive-in theatre located in the middle of a small orchard that is clearly visible in the 1961 view of the intersection of E. University Dr. (SH 107) and S. Raul Longoria Rd. on Historic Aerials?
Chuck1231, any mention of this small drive-in in “The Book”?
My wife and I go to the Wes-Mer at least once a summer. Nice place, clean, with a good concession stand, good projection and a good family crowd that enjoys first-run double-features.
There is a flea market there now. From the air, you can see the flea market occupies the exact footprint of the old drive-in, as clearly seen in the google maps view.
Historic Aerials' latest view of the intersection of Henderson and Capitol showing the theatre building is 1958; next view is 1972, and the building is gone.
4826 Lemmon Ave. maps the Delman to have fronted on Lemmon – it was actually about a block off Lemmon at the intersection of King’s Rd. with Raleigh.
Go by the address listed in the ad (Lemmon at Raleigh) to find the building on HistoricAerials; unfortunately, that address will not map properly on GoogleMaps because, although Raleigh still exists as a roadbed, it is now a passageway through the parking lot of an auto dealership.
A new street, which cuts off from King’s Rd. at an angle to the original Raleigh, now carries that name.
The original name of this theatre was the Ronile, the name of the owner’s daughter spelled backwards. Then it was changed to the Knox Street Theatre – it was never just the Knox, so the title of this page needs to be amended to include “Street.”
Hi, Chuck – we are having quite a time on our Movie Theatre Lovers group on Facebook trying to find out how we can get copies of “The Book!” Scroll down to the first Randy Carlisle post in the link below, and please join us!
I just reset the google maps street view to what I believe is the building that once housed the old White Theatre. There is not consensus, however, as notlesu68 has brought up a couple of good points, namely the proximity of the White to the Colonial (1702 Forest Avenue/MLK) as well as to the Forest Theatre (1900 block). His point about the Colonial is in a comment he posted on my flickr site, which I will reproduce below.
My response to the White being close to the Forest is simply that the Forest, being built by Interstate in 1947 with a seating capacity of 1400, replaced both the White (880, though I’m not at all sure the building at 1628 had that capacity) and the Colonial (475) – if the two older Interstate theatres were still in operation when the Forest opened, it’s certain they didn’t last much past that date, certainly not into the 1952-53 era (DMN archives should bear this out) – the whole neighborhood south of the 1800 block was changing fast by the late 1940’s, and even the beautiful Forest would not last long.
Here the link to my flickr page showing another view of 1628 MLK, with notlesu’s comment and my response. From these, you can draw your own conclusions:
This drive-in opened in 1954 as the White Rock Drive-In; name changed to Casa View in 1961. An educated guess would be that, by the late 50’s, the neighborhood & shopping center that grew up around St. Pius X Parish (est. 1954) had taken on an identity quite separate and apart from the general White Rock area.
The last time I remember visiting this drive-in was in 1970, to see a double feature of “Giant” (which had just had a national reissue in badly faded WarnerColor prints) and “Return of the Seven.” Long night.
Well, we can add a seating capacity of 884 at it’s opening in 1969, courtesy of Tinseltoes' Boxoffice article link. Thanks for posting, I had not seen the auditorium since the late 70’s.
Can anyone comment on when the Melba vertical sign came down? It was still up as late as 1942.
drivein2001, I think you’re talking about three different Jefferson/SR 180 (the twin highways) drive-ins; the Jefferson Drive-In is the farthest east, in Oak Cliff. It was located on Jefferson Ave. and was always a single-screen, never a twin.
Moving along Jefferson toward Grand Prairie, you then come to the Twin Highways, originally a single-screen between the highways with entrances from either; eventually this one was twinned, giving its name a dual meaning, by simply building another screen/projection room on the lot immediately to the east. After being twinned, this theatre was advertised simply as the Twin Drive-In. It was never (officially, at least) named the Jefferson Twin, though that might have been a local casual reference, i.e. “the Twin on Jefferson.”
Continuing toward Grand Prairie, you then came to the East Main, originally built as the Chisholm Trail.
Finally, considerably farther into town, you’d come to the Century 4, originally built as the single-screen Downs.
The McLendons did, as you said, eventually acquire the Twin Highways, the Chisholm Trail, and the Downs. They advertised the Twin Highways as the Twin; the Chisholm Trail as the East Main; and the Downs as the Century 4.
glasspolish, you are so right about direction – east is right and west is left!
This theatre also hosts, in conjunction with Fathom Events and/or Turner Classic Movies, a Classic Films Series that features digitally-restored classic films, projected via a digital nation-wide feed; some auditoriums have had the screens enlarged so that they are almost wall-to-wall, and floor-to-ceiling, yet the Cinemark website does not list this venue as having their Next-Gen or XD auditoriums yet.
At any rate, projection and sound are absolutely first-rate.
Drive-In 1954: I plan to, as soon as I nail down the street address; of course, if you have that info, go ahead and establish a page. It can always be added to as more info comes in.
I plan to add the Fiesta (McAllen), the Buckhorn (Mission), the Pan Am (Edinburg), and another Edinburg Drive-In for which, so far, I can find no name but which was located in an orange grove east of town on SH 107. Drove past all these locations yesterday.
Chuck, funny story about the Valley (1971-2001). We had just moved to McAllen and it was still open; all that first year, I said “we’ve got to take the kids to a drive-in.” Never did.
One Saturday, we have to drive right past it to do some shopping in Mission. In fact, the freeway entrance is right by the drive-in. “Jurassic Park 3” is on the marquee. My wife and I agree “tonight’s the night.”
We tell the kids, and they’re all excited. Shopping in Mission takes all morning and all afternoon. We’re driving back home. We miss the exit – because the drive-in is gone! One morning & afternoon was all it took!
jwmovies: I now believe the address you gave for the Palms (and the drive-in I refer to in my post of 12:19 pm, above) is actually for the Fiesta, for which no page currently exists.
I have it on local (McAllen) authority that the Palms was located at the corner of Nolana and N. 10th St. (SH 336). That would put it in the 78501 zip code given in the address at the top of the page. I don’t know what the exact street address number was.
mr92849: do you have any memory of a small drive-in theatre located in the middle of a small orchard that is clearly visible in the 1961 view of the intersection of E. University Dr. (SH 107) and S. Raul Longoria Rd. on Historic Aerials?
Chuck1231, any mention of this small drive-in in “The Book”?
My wife and I go to the Wes-Mer at least once a summer. Nice place, clean, with a good concession stand, good projection and a good family crowd that enjoys first-run double-features.
Looks like the Santa Cruz Daycare Center is in the building next to the old Rio, but does not occupy the Rio itself.
There is a flea market there now. From the air, you can see the flea market occupies the exact footprint of the old drive-in, as clearly seen in the google maps view.
https://maps.google.com/maps?hl=en
Historic Aerials' latest view of the intersection of Henderson and Capitol showing the theatre building is 1958; next view is 1972, and the building is gone.
4826 Lemmon Ave. maps the Delman to have fronted on Lemmon – it was actually about a block off Lemmon at the intersection of King’s Rd. with Raleigh.
Go by the address listed in the ad (Lemmon at Raleigh) to find the building on HistoricAerials; unfortunately, that address will not map properly on GoogleMaps because, although Raleigh still exists as a roadbed, it is now a passageway through the parking lot of an auto dealership.
A new street, which cuts off from King’s Rd. at an angle to the original Raleigh, now carries that name.
Since this theatre closed as the Fine Arts (name changed from Varsity about 1957), it should really be listed as Fine Arts, with Varsity as an aka.
Chuck, I sure don’t. Sorry.
The original name of this theatre was the Ronile, the name of the owner’s daughter spelled backwards. Then it was changed to the Knox Street Theatre – it was never just the Knox, so the title of this page needs to be amended to include “Street.”
Hi, Chuck – we are having quite a time on our Movie Theatre Lovers group on Facebook trying to find out how we can get copies of “The Book!” Scroll down to the first Randy Carlisle post in the link below, and please join us!
https://www.facebook.com/groups/MovieTheatreLovers/
Nice shot, Randy – why don’t you post it to this page under “PHOTOS.”
I just reset the google maps street view to what I believe is the building that once housed the old White Theatre. There is not consensus, however, as notlesu68 has brought up a couple of good points, namely the proximity of the White to the Colonial (1702 Forest Avenue/MLK) as well as to the Forest Theatre (1900 block). His point about the Colonial is in a comment he posted on my flickr site, which I will reproduce below.
My response to the White being close to the Forest is simply that the Forest, being built by Interstate in 1947 with a seating capacity of 1400, replaced both the White (880, though I’m not at all sure the building at 1628 had that capacity) and the Colonial (475) – if the two older Interstate theatres were still in operation when the Forest opened, it’s certain they didn’t last much past that date, certainly not into the 1952-53 era (DMN archives should bear this out) – the whole neighborhood south of the 1800 block was changing fast by the late 1940’s, and even the beautiful Forest would not last long.
Here the link to my flickr page showing another view of 1628 MLK, with notlesu’s comment and my response. From these, you can draw your own conclusions:
http://www.flickr.com/photos/66262530@N08/6027614302/in/photostream
BTW, I truly appreciate such engaging opposing views as notlesu66’s and the thought they provoke.
from GoogleMaps street view (closest view I can get that still maintains a sense for where it sits on the street).
This theatre had a run of 30+ years…not too shabby when you think about it.
This drive-in opened in 1954 as the White Rock Drive-In; name changed to Casa View in 1961. An educated guess would be that, by the late 50’s, the neighborhood & shopping center that grew up around St. Pius X Parish (est. 1954) had taken on an identity quite separate and apart from the general White Rock area.
The last time I remember visiting this drive-in was in 1970, to see a double feature of “Giant” (which had just had a national reissue in badly faded WarnerColor prints) and “Return of the Seven.” Long night.
Well, we can add a seating capacity of 884 at it’s opening in 1969, courtesy of Tinseltoes' Boxoffice article link. Thanks for posting, I had not seen the auditorium since the late 70’s.
What a beautiful theatre!