Tulia Drive-In
Highway 86 and Highway 87,
Tulia,
TX
79088
Highway 86 and Highway 87,
Tulia,
TX
79088
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The Tulia Drive-In was opened in 1952 and was operated by Lee Griffith and the Tulia Theatre Co. It is on two Topo maps one in 1967 and the other in 1982, although the Tulia Drive-In closed in 1981.
Contributed by
daniel
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Recent comments (view all 4 comments)
My grandparents lived in Tulia and we visited them from the 1950s up to the early 70s. I remember seeing Sandra Dee in “Tammy and the Doctor” at that drive-in, which would have been fall of 1963 or early 64; possibly at Christmas break since I was a Freshman in college then. It also had Peter Fonda and Adam West, but I didn’t remember them.
Later I remember driving by and seeing a sign on the theater saying “Closed—Royal Open.” The Royal was and is the last operating indoor theater in downtown Tulia, listed elsewhere on this site. That was probably around 1966.
Here’s a link to one of those topographic maps, this one from 1965:
https://legacy.lib.utexas.edu/maps/topo/texas/txu-pclmaps-topo-tx-tulia-1965.jpg
I knew it was on the North side of Highway 86, but thought it was further West. Turns out it was much closer to town. Wikimapia shows some kind of commercial site, with a large building and a couple of parked tractor-trailers; Here’s the link, but you have to select “Bing Satellite” manually.
http://wikimapia.org/#lang=en&lat=34.529770&lon=-101.783513&z=19&m=bs&search=Tulia
Billboard, Jan. 12, 1952: “Tulia Theater Company reported construction has begun on a 400-car open-airer at Tulia, Tex., and will be completed by early spring.”
Approximate address thanks to backseater is 117 Hillcrest Rd, Tulia, TX 79088. It also seems that the concession building was on the site until 2017-18ish.
This theater closed at the end of the 1981 season at the end of a 30 year lease.