Northeast Ohio Drive-In Theaters
Monday April 14, 2008
During the 1960s, Ohio had 189 drive-in theaters, one of the largest number in any state. In fact, one of the earliest US drive-in theaters was the Starlight Theater in Akron, built in 1937. Today, only about 20 percent of these theaters remain. Although we lost the Memphis Drive-in in 2006, nine drive-ins are still open in Northeast Ohio. Learn more about these timeless drive-in theaters, still a wonderful way to spend a spring or summer evening.
(Photo © istockphoto)
Comments
Hi everyone: thought I would share a couple of memories with anyone willing to take the time to read: just after I had become 16 years old I sold tickets to 3 elvis movies on April 16th 1966 at the Gala theater on the same night that two deputies Dale Spaur and Wilbur Neff chased a flying saucer named floyd just a few miles from Springfield lake area where the Gala was and it became the chase used in “Encounters of the Third Kind” when Spielberg had connected with Dr. J. Hynek who had been apointed to “Project Blue Book” so the other guy who had helped me that same evening to take down the sign had died in a car crash a year or so later and so i am the only one who can tell the story for what it’s worth. Over the years I didn’t follow the story until a dozen or so years later when I seen something on the Roswell story and curious as I was about it I spent a few days at the library on the microfilm looking it up and after I found the front page news with that info I went to the theater page to see if I remembered the movie ..well i did because “kid Galahad” had to come off for Sunday’s movies. and that’s how I discovered that I did work there that same evening. Oh and that is how I came by this e-mail address. Starlight was the theater a mile or so on the other side of Goodyear Aircraft as it was during WWII when Mother worked on Corsair Planes where she was a rosy the riviter where they fastened the wings to the body. I never worked there but seen some good movies and some good times there but it was the Gala I worked at for nearly 6 months leaving in June of 66. “The Ten Commandments” was my last movie I sold tickets to and Charlton Heston who recently passed was the star of the show..he recreated Moses on the big screen.
Dear Sandy: send me an e-mail address that I can send you a couple of photos, one of the Cleveland stadium whem my Dawg made the “Bill-jac contest for the Browns Bill-Jac contest with the old “Marlboro Ciggs Logo” and my dawgs name “Astro” from Nov. 04th, 1990. not sure if that contest is still going on but there’s an article of Chrissie Hyndes of Pretenders fame in the Akron Beacon Journal on the 5th, the following day when someone had written and asked if there was any rock star that had never ate at McDonalds? Browns lost to the Buffalo Bills in that game incidently but Astro had several pups and I kept a couple of the pups from her litter. Pork-chop (Poke) for short and Kinko. Would like to send you some photos of the Gala theater to.