Midway Drive-In
Maiden Lane,
Forest City,
NC
28043
Maiden Lane,
Forest City,
NC
28043
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The Midway Drive-In in 1956 was owned by I. Dantlig and parked 300 cars. 100 more than the Tri-City Drive-In in that same town of Forest City, N.C.
In the good years the Midway Drive-In played great movies for Forest City. However, by the 1970’s it was playing X-rated most of the time. The only other theatre besides the Midway and Tri-City was the Cinema at the mall. Originally a twin but expanded to a 4-plex.
At this time there is not a theatre open in the Forest City area that we know of unless something has opened since.
The Midway, Tri-City, and now the Cinema closing really leaves a nice town dark. People have to go to Shelby, Hendersonville, or Asheville, N.C. to see a movie now.
Contributed by
Mike Rogers
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Recent comments (view all 14 comments)
YOU are RIGHT IT IS TRI-CITY DRIVE IN. Because to the right there is or was a radio station there called WBBO at the time. I can see the Tower behind the screen.
What about the Midway?
Intresting question,don’t know how it got it’s name certainly the owner could have loved the circus. There are a few Midway Drive-ins on CT. I think could have come up with a jazzier name,but wasn’t there a NORMAL theatre on the other day,they sure did not employee any of the Augusta gang.We were anything but NORMAL. Isent Robin a picture of us dressed up like the MARX BROTHERS [promoting alate show} i had hope she would put it on,but I can’t be too picky she has done ALOT.
Nothing NORMAL with the LOEWS NASHVILLE people also.
Just what attracts certain people to the business? I loved movies,but i don’t think that was it because am sure we played more than we watched. The excitement of opening night on a big picture tht YOUR theatre has and isn’t playing day and date with several others. Is it the easy girls. Geez, we had them here especially at COLUMBIA 1 and 2. I guess being a part of the movie world might be it. I just knew that is all i wanted to do for 7 years. and even though i never managed a theatre being a number guy was just fine with me. Heck, we did most the work anyways and never had to listen to a D.M..
Here in Texas we have a lot of communities named Midway, and usually more often than not is because it’s midway between 2 larger cities. Like Midland, TX is midway between El Paso and Fort Worth.
I see!
4 miles South of town off Hwy 221 is this place. 1993 imagery shows it more defined (screen still looked like it was up, etc…) but this might be the Midway… 300 car size is about right.
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This D-I has an odd outline it is round. Could this have been an auto-scope, one of those D-I’s that had a screen for every car? maybe it was changed to a regular drive in later. Or perhaps it has deteriorated or that just the way it was build. Speaking of auto-scopes I have a modern day digital twist on this Idea either using digital projection or LED TV’s all contained in a small shed with a roll up door one for each car.
If you go to Google Earth, pick the spot of the drive in, go to the Timeline feature, and go all the way back to the earliest, 1993 for this area, and you can see the normal drive-in shape. You’ll see the screen and projection booth in that shot.