Falcon Drive-In
7798 Collinsville Road,
Collinsville,
IL
62234
7798 Collinsville Road,
Collinsville,
IL
62234
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“EAST ST. LOUIS – The Mounds Drive-In between here and Collinsville has been taken over by Mid-American Theatres of St. Louis renamed the Falcon and will be reopened in March with R. L. Wesseman as manager. The concession stand is being enlarged and other improvements being made. Wesseman said no sex-type pictures will be shown, and the policy will be strictly family type.” — BoxOffice, Feb. 29, 1960
The location of the drive-in would have had an East St Louis mailing address. When Cahokia Mounds swallowed up the area, the parks address was Collinsville, which was the address across the highway from the drive-in. It is actually in an unincorporated areas between Fairmont City and State Park Place.
The Edwardsville (IL) Intelligencer reported on May 25, 1962 that Jerry Lindemann had sued the owners of the Falcon. Lindemann said that he “was parked with a loudspeaker on the window when another patron passing his auto hit the wire and knocked the loudspeaker against his head.” He said he suffered head, jaw, and teeth injuries when the speaker was dislodged from his window.
Not a lake in photo. Heavy rains caused flooding when photo was taken.
I may have been wrong on labeling Pimes as a misspelling, because that’s the way it was again in the Sept. 3, 1949 issue of BoxOffice:
“EAST ST. LOUIS: The recently incorporated Jablonow-Komm Theatres, Inc., of St. Louis has closed a ten-year lease on the Mounds, a 1,000-car drive-in opened by the Pimes Co. July 1 on U.S. 40, the Collinsville road.”
The longer article included another reference to the Pimes company. No, I don’t know why it was called “Pimes,” but I presume it was someone’s name. And if you check the very nice Mounds photo under the Photos tab here on CT, you’ll read the story behind the apparent lake.
Opened July 3, 1949 with “Melody Time.”
Is that a lake behind the screen in the above photo?
Closed with “Talk dirty to me part 2”, “Platinum Paradise” and “Getting off”. The state of Illinois brought out the drive-in to expand the Cahokia Mounds State Historic site.
A note in the July 9, 1949 issue of BoxOffice narrows the opening date, “The 1,000-car Mounds Drive-In on the Collinsville road near Monks mound has been opened by the owners, the Pimes (sic) Company, controlled by East St. Louis interests.”
Checking the borders with Google Maps, it seems clear that the former Falcon site is in Collinsville. Also, I get a better result on Google Maps with 7798 Collinsville Road.
Clever use of drive-in speaker posts!!
Operation closed on January 16, 1983.
Remember seeing “Legend of Hell House” here in the late 70s early 80s. Awesome!
Updated Goggle Earth views..Great overview Bryan!
When the drive in opened in 1949 it was operated by the Pines Co. Within months, Jablonow-Komm took a 10-year lease of the facility. In 1960, Mid-America (the renamed Jablonow-Komm) bought the venue and renamed it the Falcon, adding to its car-model drive-in names, others being Thunderbird, Capri and Bel-Air.
I can say that I never saw a movie here because, well, I was underage! But even at a young age, I knew what notoriety this place had. I do remember from the newspaper ads that Andy Warhol’s “Frankenstein” was shown every weekend…in 3-D!