Broadway Drive-In
1729 West Broadway,
Columbia,
MO
65201
1729 West Broadway,
Columbia,
MO
65201
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Opened with “The Return Of October” along with two cartoons and a sportlight.
Closed on September 22, 1974 with “Easy Rider”, “The Last Detail”, and “Bullitt”.
It opened June 11th, 1949, and closed in 1974. Grand opening ad posted.
Columbia Daily Tribune, Aug. 14, 1948 (quoted 50 years later): “Work on a new Columbia drive-in theater, to be called the "Broadway Drive-In,” is expected to get under way next month, Rex P. Barrett, Columbia representative for the Commonwealth Theaters Corp. of Kansas City, announced today. The theater corporation yesterday completed the purchase of 14 acres of land on West Broadway from Dr. Lloyd Simpson for construction of the $75,000 theater. The site which is part of the old Sneed farm, was purchased by Dr. Simpson from the Boone County Fair board. Located about one mile from town, the new theater will be located on a lot 1320 feet deep with a 400 foot frontage on West Broadway. It is situated south of the Boone County Fair grounds."
I recently updated the street level view to where the theater actually was located (the previous location was about 10 blocks off!). In the center of this view, you will see a drive-in bank. Off in the distance behind this bank, you will see the side of a light tan colored building that is slightly to the left of the bank in the image. That is Gerbes Supermarket and that is where what was left of the theater (the parking spaces and speakers on poles-the screen and buildings had been torn down earlier in the decade) was located when I moved to Columbia in 1979. On a related note, slightly to the left in the image and about 200' closer to us, you will see the white border of the strip mall building located in the foreground of this picture, jutting out at a right angle to the rest of the building. That is the side of the Cinema Theater, documented elsewhere on this website. Yes it’s true! Columbia had a drive-in and an indoor cinema located within 200 feet of one another! Talk about competition! Nevertheless, an interesting tidbit.
The corner of Clinkscales Road and West Broadway has houses located there and these were part of the neighborhood that had full view of the drive-in’s screen. During the time the Broadway drive-in was in operation, the easiest access to it was from West Broadway. There is a small road that borders the east side of the Broadway Shopping Center’s parking lot, and it leads to Ash Street, which, in turn, leads to Clinkscales several yards away to the east. But to get to the drive-in’s entrance from this route involved making a sharp u-turn in the shopping center parking lot, as well as maneuvering to get into line. The vast majority of drive-in patrons used the entrance on West Broadway.
Cinematour shows an address of 1729 W. Broadway.