It’s summer again, and one of my favorite things to do in the summer is watch movies on the big screen at the drive-in theater. It has just always seemed more relaxing watching movies under the stars. So, if you have never been to a drive-in theater or it has just been a long time, you should take an evening and go try it out.
Drive-in theaters have been around a long time. According to Wikipedia, the first partial drive-in theater was started in New Mexico in 1915. Although the best years for the drive-in movie theaters was definitely the 1950’s. I found estimates that their were approximately 4,000 drive-in theaters in operation in the United States at that time. Their was a big decline in the 1970-1990’s before they had a small comeback in the late 2000’s. It is estimated that there is currently around 330 drive-in theaters still operating in the United States today. But hopefully a few new ones will open in the future to help keep the drive-in theater experience alive.
All the pictures you see in this post are from the 34 Drive-in in Earlville, IL. Out of all the drive-in’s that I have been to, it still happens to be my favorite and hasn’t changed since I went there as a kid. It still mostly looks like it did when it was opened in 1954 (At least from the pictures I have seen and what people have told me. I wasn’t born yet). So if you get a chance you should stop in and check it out. 34Drivein.com
But for everyone else looking for a closer drive-in, you can check out the website DriveInMovie.com. The have a list of all the drive-in theaters that are still open by state. It even list the ones that have closed in case you wanted to know what theaters use to be in that area.