Midland Drive-In
1299 Angela Schmidt Foster Road,
Midland,
ON
L4R 1A1
1299 Angela Schmidt Foster Road,
Midland,
ON
L4R 1A1
2 people
favorited this theater
The Midland Drive-In opened around 1953. It was closed at the end of the 2021 season. It was announced in June 2022 that the closure would be permanent.
Contributed by
Charles Smith
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Recent comments (view all 5 comments)
thanks Chuck,Screen sorta looks new.
The Midland appears to have been around for quite a while. Here’s the Motion Picture Almanac data.
1953-54: Theatre Amuse., capacity 300.
1959: Thea. Amuse. Co., 300.
1963: Regional, 300.
1969: 300.
1972-76: 404.
There’s a fresh Google Street View closeup from October 2016. It shows that between December 2003 and now, they added a second message board to the screen tower.
Phew! Here’s the best I could find for the Midland, a July 25, 2008 article in the Midland Mirror, retrieved via The Internet Archive. It verified room for 400 cars.
Babcock brothers Dave and Paul bought Midland’s Odeon Theatre (later to become the Roxy) along with the drive-in in 1982. They already owned the Penetanguishene’s Pen Theatre, purchased in 1972 and expanded to the Pen Twin in 1979.
… In August it will be three years since Paul’s death and two years since Dave died doing what he loved – working at the drive-in. When Paul and Dave passed away the drive-in went to the brothers’ wives Teresa and Heather. They asked Dave’s children Mark and Stacey and their spouses to lend a hand with the operation.
… “We updated the sound this year,” Gord (Cox, Stacey’s husband) said. “The digital sound is now as good as your car stereo quality. We boosted our FM receiver and you can pick up the drive-in at the angels in Penetang.”
For much more, click that link at the top.
DriveInMovie reported that the Midland’s owners “announced on their Facebook page that they would not re-open in 2020 and that they were closing the drive-in permanently.”