Midway Drive-In 1 & 2
8808 Beach Boulevard,
Jacksonville,
FL
32216
8808 Beach Boulevard,
Jacksonville,
FL
32216
2 people
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Previously operated by: Eastern Federal Corporation, H.B. Meiselman Theaters, National Amusements
Nearby Theaters
A Walmart has replaced this drive-in. It was opened by H.B. Meiselman Theatres on May 10. 1961 with Fred MacMurray in “The Absent-Minded Professor” & Michael Rennie in “The Lost World”. It was later owned by Eastern Federal Corporation. Had a capacity for 808 cars. It was twinned by 1979 and was still a drive-in in 1983 when it was used as a location for the horror movie “Blood Red” aka “Slasher”, aka “Nightmare at Shadow Woods”.
Contributed by
Dave Bonan
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Recent comments (view all 12 comments)
I’m assuming you guys where there when they shot NIGHTMARE AT SHADOW WOODS aka BLOOD RAGE?
Hi Vaughn,
My family has very deep roots with a lot of Jacksonville’s drive ins in the 60s and 70s. My favorite is the Midway. I loved that place. I have no pictures of her and would love to see if you located any of the films you took. I would like to e-mail you some how so we could talk more.
Newspaper ads for films that played at the Fox and Midway Drive-Ins and theater times
here.
8808 Beach Blvd, Jacksonville, FL 32216
The above address will map accurately to the location of the drive-in, which is now another Wamart monstrosity.
Here is a 1970 aerial photo of the drive-in, courtesy of HistoricAerials.com.
I grew up in the Windy Hill area of Southside Jacksonville and remember the Midway drive-in very well. It was the place to go on a week night especially if you had a date, for less than 5 dollars you could get in buy a drink and popcorn and you were all set.Sure miss that experience.
Midway Drive In was my first job. I was 14 and that was about 1970.
Uploaded aerial’s from 1970 and 1980.
Super 8 footage of the closed drive-in, days before demolition: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=gOQp7QUPiRg
same footage also posted here: https://vimeo.com/80376622
When Eastern Federal twinned both the Fox and the Midway Drive-In, they installed AM Carrier Curent Sound and removed the speakers from all but the last few rows, you know the ones, the rows that the trunk slashers let their cargo out, and the rows with the rocking cars. They remained first run through the early 80’s. Then switched to the “B” movie, Zombie, Slasher soft core format. By 1984 they were Dollar Theatre running second run movies. They did out live the Midway Drive-In, which closed in mid 1984. The Fox closed not long into 1985, thus ending Eastern Federal’s Drive-In operations in Jacksonville, FL.
Opened by H. B. Meiselman on May 10th, 1961. Grand opening ad posted.