The Drive-In Theater

I across across an article in the New York Times about drive-in theaters, and how many were still prospering.

Springfield Missouri used to have five drive-ins

• Sunset - Chestnut Expressway
• Holiday - Kearney
• Hi-M - Republic Road
• Springfield - Sunshine/Glenstone
• Queen City - Sunshine/Ingram Mill Rd

Now it has none. The last surviving drive-in was the Holiday, which closed in 1996. The Springfield drive-in was the first to go in 1977.

The demise of drive-in theater has nothing to do with the Internet, cable TV, or even home video. Drive-ins were killed by two forces. First, the rapid increase in property values in the 1970s undercut the drive-in's economic feasibility. Since drive-ins needed to be close to large population centers, they took up large tracts of land that were simply too valuable for a drive-in to support. Second, by the 1970s Hollywood was producing fewer and fewer family-friendly films. There were movies for kids and movies for adults, but not very many that appealed to both, as was common when I was growing up in the early-mid 1960s. The drive-in is first and foremost a form of family entertainment. Some of my fondest memories of time spent with my parents as a kid were Saturday evenings at the drive-in, usually the Hi-M or Springfield.

Another strange thing has happened to theaters in Springfield. In 1996 Wehrenberg opened the Campbell 16 theater. When it opened, Springfield had 9 other theaters, some single screen and other multiplexes. The downtown theaters that I visited in my youth--the Fox, the Gillioz, and the Landers had all closed by the early 1980s.

• The Petite 3
• Fremont 3 Theaters
• The Tower
• Battlefield Mall Cinema 6
• Century 21 (also at Battlefield Mall)
• North Town 4 Cinemas
• Town and Country 6
• Palace Theater
• Springfield 8

Today, only the Springfield 8 and the Palace Theater (second run) survive. Recently, another multiplex was added downtown, the College Station Stadium 14. I was pleased when the Campbell 16 opened, but I had no idea that it would result in 24 other screens closing, including the best theater in town (Century 21) and the most historic (The Tower). The demise of the downtown theaters was a foreseeable result of the shift in Springfield's retail center from the Downtown Square to the Battlefield Mall, but these other closing were all over town.

The result was predictable. Popular films at the Campbell 16 were often sold-out. With the addition of College Station Stadium 14 and Springfield 8 adding three screens, the situation has considerably improved, but for many years Springfield was under served by too few screens.