North Drive-In

There are 2 drive-in/s for the city of Kokomo. There’s the the South Drive-In, and the North Drive-In. The North Drive-In did open earlier than the South Deive-In.

The North Drive-In was originally scheduled for May 1954 according to a written article for The Kokomo Tribune by Kay C. Kuhns on April 2, 1954. I can’t find the actual opening date to this. Kay might be wrong though, because the North Drive-In opened in very late-April 1954. The North Drive-In was in operation in May 1954, especially on the 1st without anything special going on to the North’s opening like normal.

Flash-Forward 11 and a ½ months later but unfortunately, the North Drive-In in 1955 had a very weird moment but at the time because it celebrated its 8th Anniversary Week. I don’t recalling it an ‘anniversary’ but its just the 8th week of the North Drive-In’s operation in the 1955 season. Speaking of 1955, the 2nd season of the North’s opening in late-March 1955 was delayed when a Blizzard Warning was issued and blanketed most of the State of Indiana, and was reopened on April 1st of that year.

Now time for the many years. As of 1961, it was operated by the Alliance Theatre Company. At the time, it was sponsored for many local Kokomo events like Kokomo Dodgers Baseball. Like the North Drive-In and the South Drive-In, they are both popular drive-in’s and continued operations for more than 2 decades. Well prior to the South Drive-In’s opening, the capacity for the North Drive-In was less than the South Drive-In which had 600 car spaces, but the North Drive-In automated reduced to the same amount as the South Drive-In for the popularity of it. Later it was taken over by the manager of Ivan Baker, in which both theaters were part of the Cinecom Corporation chain.

On around 7:45 AM of July 24th, 1970, Harrison Township Fire Department and 2 other departments including the Kokomo Fire Department responded to a blaze in its sister location, the South Drive-In. The blaze completely only destroyed both the concession stand and projection booth forcing the South Drive-In to close but this impacts the North Drive-In to close as well. The 3 departments fought the fire until 10:30 AM of that day. Both locations were reopened 5 or 6 weeks later.

Now the final part is the closing. During the few last seasons of operation, both North Drive-In and the South Drive-In were listed as Kokomo North Drive-In and the Kokomo South Drive-In, in which the South Drive-In closed at the end of the 1978 season and was demolished in January of 1979. For the North Drive-In though lasted only a bit longer than the South Drive-In. The North Drive-In continued showing first-run films at the time until the end of the 1979 season and was closed. However in 1981, the property was used as a Flea Market.

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