Airport Drive-In
8815 Cairo Road,
West Paducah,
KY
42086
8815 Cairo Road,
West Paducah,
KY
42086
1 person
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Located near Barkley Regional Airport to the west of Paducah. The Airport Drive-In was opened on June 5, 1953 with Kirk Douglas in “The Big Trees”. It was operated by Doby B. Stout’s Stout Theater Circuit out of Cairo, IL. It was closed on September 29, 1956 with Guy Madison in “5 Against the House” & Paul Langdon in “Murder Is My Beat”. It was demolished in the early-1960’s.
Contributed by
Ken Roe
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Recent comments (view all 3 comments)
Found It!
The drive-in was located at 8815 Cairo Rd, West Paducah, KY. It first appears in a 1957 aerial photo. At some point, the construction of HWY 60 wiped out the north side of the property where the screen sat.
Today, J.C. Cates Construction sits on the property along with a few private homes with no trace of the drive-in remaining.
https://tinyurl.com/yb7ochln
The Airport probably opened in 1953. It looks like the theater is short-lived, closed in the late 1950s. It was immediately demolished in the early 1960s it looks like.
The Airport Drive-In opened on June 5, 1953 with “Big Trees.” Land speculation was big around the West Paducah Airport at that time and the drive-in was likely a placeholder for a potentially larger land deal later. Doby B. Stout of Stout Theatres in Cairo, Illinois, ran it for three unsuccessful seasons offering it for sale for $10,000 prior to the 1956 season.
For its fourth and final season, it was independently operated on a subleasing agreement. The Airport Drive-In closed permanently with “Five Against the House” and “Danger is My Beat” on September 29, 1956. The property was again listed with the price plummeting to just $6,000 or best offer from a realty agent.