Starlite Drive In
226 2nd Street,
Belmont,
MS
38827
226 2nd Street,
Belmont,
MS
38827
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Mr. B. B. Russell opened Jala’s Drive-In in Belmont MS on Sept. 1, 1963, per a note in Boxoffice a couple of weeks later. Jala’s advertised in the 1969 Belmont High School yearbook, the Belmontian.
The drive-in was still included in the 1976 Motion Picture Almanac, although misspelled as Sala’s, with a capacity of 190 cars. The rebooted MPA list in 1977 listed the Starlite, capacity 200, owner J. Curtis. Belmont’s Starlite persisted through the end of the MPA drive-in list in 1988.
The Starlite has to be the smallest drive-in theater in all of Mississippi. Like I mean, holy crap, it’s a ridiculously tiny drive-in. I’ll say around 50 cars as the total capacity.
A 1955 aerial view shows nothing, meaning that the theater was built after 1955. However, a couple of aerial views from the 1980s shows the drive-in appearing to be still in operation. The screen was gone by 1996 but the projection booth appears to be standing for another few years.