The New Forest Road Drive-In Theatre launched just north of its predecessor on August 1, 1963 with Sandra Dee and Peter Fonda in “Tammy and the Doctor” and Jeff Morrow in “Harbor Lights” supported by two cartoon shorts. The original Forest Drive-In Theatre closed on June 4, 1963 with Elvis in “It Happened at the World’s Fair” and “Up Front” as construction on the bypass ate into the property. The 950-car lot was almost double the size of the previous location.
The New Forest Drive-In Theatre was opened by Consolidated Thetres on a 20-acre tract of land and had a spectacular 122' by 72' steel widescreen reportedly three times brighter than the old Forest screen and largest in the Carolinas. Prizes on opening night included a color television and an air conditioner. The pre-show featured WRAL’s Jimmy Simpson and Tom Tucker as emcees and Miss Wake County, herself, Carolyn Byrd. The double-line cafeteria style concession area claimed that 2,000 customers could be handled briskly. Architect Robert Hall of Leif Valand & Associates firm was responsible for the striking o-zoner.
The family friendly spot was renamed, simply, the Forest Drive-In Theatre. In its final years, it turned to R-Rated and adult films in 1982 until 1984. It returned to more family-friendly fare in 1985 – its final season. The Forest Drive-In closed on 29, 1985 with a double feature of “Brewster’s Millions” and “All of Me.” However, until 1986, it remained home of the Forest Drive-In Flea Market. The theatre was demolished in August of 1987 for a proposed Bradlee’s Department store as part of the Tarrymore Square Shopping Center. The flea market found a new home and Tarrymore Square opened in 1988 without the Bradlees store.
On May 17, 1956, it was time for the grand opening of the Bruton Road Drive-In with first film, “Marty.” It became a Cinemark Theatre in 1979. The Bruton Rd. D-I closed for the season on September 9, 1984:with “Oxford Blues” and “Class.” At 9:52 a.m. on December 13, 1984, a tornado touched down in a field adjacent to the drive-in carrying away the screen and doing too much damage to continue operations in the Spring.
The Sky Cinema was closed following the order of Hays County on March 17, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The operator could not come to an agreement during the closure period on renegotiated rent payments and the lease was terminated. Sky Cinemas left the venue after an announcement on May 18, 2020 – one of many theaters which was closed permanently due to leasing issues occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Cinemark closed it virtually all of the then-open Cinemark theatres beginning on March 17, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The circuit opted to permanently shutter the cinema in May with a clean-out in June. It was one of many theatres which were not re-opened by theater circuits during the COVID-19 pandemic making its final day of operation March 17, 2020.
The Kukui Grove Cinema was designed in 1983 by Grove Farm Land Corporation. In addition to Hollywood fare, it would book Filipino films and Japanese titles. It opened as a twin cinema in August of 1985 in the Kukui Grove with a module for two more theaters if the venue proved successful. The Kukui Grove did expand to four theaters three auditoriums seating 266 seats and one had 280 for 1,078 total seats. The theatre closed permanently during the COVID-19 pandemic and its last day was to sell off the concessions on March 31, 2020. It closed with “Sonic, The Hedgehog,” “The Call of the Wild,” “The Invisible Man” and “Onward.”
The Mountain Cinema 4 located in the Mountain Mall closed on March 16, 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Polson Theatre Circuit announced that it would shutter the location permanently. Its final showings were “Onward,” “The Invisible Man,” “I Still Believe” and “The Call of the Wild.”
Indeed. Closed March 16, 2020 due to the COVID-19 and STL Cinemas decided to carry on with just the Chase Park Plaza and the Central West End locations.
Cinemark launched the Cinemark Woodland 14 on November 18, 2005. Within just two years, Jack Loeks Inc. Circuit bought two Cinemark locations in 2007: the River Town Crossings and the Woodland 14. The theaters became Celebration! Cinema locations. Celebration Cinemas closed its Woodland location beginning on March 17, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Operated as a discount $5 ticketed location, the circuit opted out of its lease as it was reaching it 15-year point. It was one of many theatres whose leasing contract reached a benchmark during COVID-19 and led to permanent closure by its operator making its final day of operation March 16, 2020. Celebration said that the theatre lost money each year it operated it.
Technically, Cinemark’s name for this theatre was the Cinemark Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills and IMAX. Cinemark closed it virtually all of the then-open Cinemark theatres beginning on March 17, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The circuit opted out of its lease at its half-way mark scheduled for June 30, 2020. It was one of many theatres whose leasing contract reached a benchmark during COVID-19 and led to permanent closure by its operator making its final day of operation March 16, 2020.
Technically, the MAC Star Southfield closed with virtually all of the then-open AMC Theatres beginning on March 17, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The venue’s lease then expired March 30, 2020 with AMC announcing that it was leaving the property. It was one of many theatres whose lease expiration during COVID-19 led to permanent closure by its operator making its final day of operation March 16, 2020.
This theatre was announced in the summer of 1989 as A.O. “Tony” Rand was briskly trying to move to completion of Rand Theatres Circuit’s multiplexes in Tennessee, Texas, Illinois, Florida, and New Mexico. De La Torre-Reinhart was the architectural firm used. It was one of three Rand Theatres scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 1989 in Albuquerque. Originally schedule to open December 15, 1989, the 1,833 seat facility was suspiciously devoid of concession stand(s) and projection equipment with one month to go to opening. And the news was not encouraging to moviegoers or the Rand Circuit.
Bad reports were circulating beginning with a lock-out of a cinema in Tennessee and that news spread to Texas with all locations locked for non-payment of everything ranging from lease payments, to utilities, to newspaper ads, to Hollywood studios for bookings, to sales tax revenue. This news traveled to the three New Mexico multiplexes just five days ahead of the Tramway’s grand opening on November 17, 1989 and a month before the Plaza del Norte and this location’s launch dates.
In about two weeks, the house of cards that was Rand Theatres Circuit tumbled as Rand’s Little Rock headquarters were locked along with the bedrock of the circuit’s theater locations in Arkansas. Finally, the Chicago and Florida locations appear to be the last of the Rand projects shut down with three ready to break ground and two in construction within Chicago-land and a completed facility in Palm Harbor, Florida which – like the High Ridge and its two cousins in Albuquerque – had no projection equipment or concession stands.
United Artists took on the theatre opening it as The United Artists 8 at High Ridge with a 94 FM Z-Rock pre-opening party on April 12, 1990. The Grand Opening was on April 13, 1990 with the films, “Crazy People,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “Born on the 4th of July,” “My Left Foot,” “I Love You to Death,” and “Steel Magnolias.”
That gave the trivial distinction to High Ridge as the first of the three failed Rand theaters to launch. It was followed by Cinemark opening Movies West on December 14, 1990 and Hollywood Cinemas opening of Plaza at Paseo del Norte in May of 1991. Regal / UA carried its High Ridge into the decade of the 2020s.
And if you wondered what happened to the Rand family who ran the Rand Theatre Circuit, they went to jail for their theater scheme and learned their lesson by hatching a much more ambitious plan to bilk investors… but not in the film industry. This time they scammed oil and gas investors out of over $100 million landing them back in the pokey.
The Poly was given its name for the neighborhood where Texas Wesleyan University was founded as Polytechnic College in 1890 and opening in 1891. The pre-Civil War neighborhood in Southeast Fort Worth became known as Polytechnic Heights and nicknamed by locals as “The Poly.” In the post-War theatre-building boom spurred by the Paramount decree separating Hollywood studios from exhibition and population moves away from downtown areas, D.O. “Boyd” and Imogene Milligan built The Poly. It opened on May 24, 1951 with “Ma and Pa Kettle on the Farm” supported by a a cartoon and newsreel on a thirty-year lease.
Milligan had worked at the Majestic Theatre in downtown Fort Worth from 1926 to 1930 before establishing the Pix Theatre during the World War II on a subleasing agreement with a church who was using the venue. After the War, the Milligans designed and were building the 7th Street Theatre in Fort Worth. But Interstate Theaters took that one over in the development stages so the couple moved on to creating The Poly. It was an independent neighborhood operation and positioned as a sub-run discount double-feature house.
The Milligans successfully ran the Poly switching it to widescreen presentations with good acoustics. And the theatre went out of business the way a Texas movie theater should be required by state law to go out of business – proudly showing a double-feature of Chuck Norris fims. The theatre ceased operations on April 26, 1981 with “A Force of One” and “The Octagon.” Boyd Milligan – now at age 77 – would then reclaim the 7th Street Theatre in 1992 operating it until 1999. He retired from the movie exhibition business at Age 94. As for the Poly, it would become a home of the New Unity Missionary Baptist Church before it found new quarters. The building then went into a prolonged period of vacancy.
In 1977, the Fort Warren Drive-In got new ownership changing its name to the Rutland-Ft. Warren Drive-In. The Rutland Drive-In ceased operations October 22, 1975 so the merger of names was consolation to the diehard fans of the old Rutland.
On July 27, 1980, the facility added a second screen renaming as the Rutland Twin Drive-in Theatre. The Rutland Twin ended operations at the end of the 1988 season. It closed August 28, 1988 with “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” and “Three Men and a Baby” on Screen One and “Big” with “License to Drive” on Screen Two.
Architect Robert B. Pringle sketches the latest prposed United General Theatre at The Village. But the theater had its grand opening and the fading United General logo was nowhere in sight as the cinema launched for the Presidio circuit.
Seth G – you are correct in that the Palace Theatre has a transposed address – totally my error. The local paper said that the Palace Theatre was demolished for the most part to create a parking lot that didn’t happen. When that didn’t materialize, they made it Smith Park – the sad looking park / amphitheater at 303 S. Main Street.
The Dixie Theatre was launched Dixie Amusement Circuit. It opened after an address by Yahoo City Mayor D.M. Love and a celebration simulcast on WJDX in Jackson. The theatre opened with 900 seats – 700 on the lower floor and 200 in the balcony for persons of color. The opening on July 18, 1938 featured the Ritz Brothers in “Kentucky Moonshine.” The theatre was built within the original Kennington Building in a plan announced in 1938. The theatre completed a 20 year leasing period going out of business with “The Ten Commandments” on February 15, 1958.
The theatre was rebuilt as the New Yazoo Theatre launching April 27, 1925 with Gloria Swanson in “Madame Sans Gene.” By the time it transitioned to sound, it was the Yazoo Theatre. Gulf States closed the Yazoo on May 3, 1979 with “The Evictors”. It was demolished in December of 1979.
The New Rose Theatre launched with Gloria Swanson in “The Humming Bird" on March 14, 1924. Wall & Phillips had purchased the former Rose / American/ Regent Theatre relaunching with this new-build theater here. The Regent was equipped with sound on October 23, 1929. In 1944, it closed to tear out the old balcony and increase seating capacity by 125. In 1955, it converted to widescreen to play CinemaScope features.
The New Forest Road Drive-In Theatre launched just north of its predecessor on August 1, 1963 with Sandra Dee and Peter Fonda in “Tammy and the Doctor” and Jeff Morrow in “Harbor Lights” supported by two cartoon shorts. The original Forest Drive-In Theatre closed on June 4, 1963 with Elvis in “It Happened at the World’s Fair” and “Up Front” as construction on the bypass ate into the property. The 950-car lot was almost double the size of the previous location.
The New Forest Drive-In Theatre was opened by Consolidated Thetres on a 20-acre tract of land and had a spectacular 122' by 72' steel widescreen reportedly three times brighter than the old Forest screen and largest in the Carolinas. Prizes on opening night included a color television and an air conditioner. The pre-show featured WRAL’s Jimmy Simpson and Tom Tucker as emcees and Miss Wake County, herself, Carolyn Byrd. The double-line cafeteria style concession area claimed that 2,000 customers could be handled briskly. Architect Robert Hall of Leif Valand & Associates firm was responsible for the striking o-zoner.
The family friendly spot was renamed, simply, the Forest Drive-In Theatre. In its final years, it turned to R-Rated and adult films in 1982 until 1984. It returned to more family-friendly fare in 1985 – its final season. The Forest Drive-In closed on 29, 1985 with a double feature of “Brewster’s Millions” and “All of Me.” However, until 1986, it remained home of the Forest Drive-In Flea Market. The theatre was demolished in August of 1987 for a proposed Bradlee’s Department store as part of the Tarrymore Square Shopping Center. The flea market found a new home and Tarrymore Square opened in 1988 without the Bradlees store.
On May 17, 1956, it was time for the grand opening of the Bruton Road Drive-In with first film, “Marty.” It became a Cinemark Theatre in 1979. The Bruton Rd. D-I closed for the season on September 9, 1984:with “Oxford Blues” and “Class.” At 9:52 a.m. on December 13, 1984, a tornado touched down in a field adjacent to the drive-in carrying away the screen and doing too much damage to continue operations in the Spring.
The Sky Cinema was closed following the order of Hays County on March 17, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The operator could not come to an agreement during the closure period on renegotiated rent payments and the lease was terminated. Sky Cinemas left the venue after an announcement on May 18, 2020 – one of many theaters which was closed permanently due to leasing issues occurring during the COVID-19 pandemic.
Operated for a short period by Cinemark Theatres
Also operated by Cinemark Theatres
Cinemark closed it virtually all of the then-open Cinemark theatres beginning on March 17, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The circuit opted to permanently shutter the cinema in May with a clean-out in June. It was one of many theatres which were not re-opened by theater circuits during the COVID-19 pandemic making its final day of operation March 17, 2020.
The Kukui Grove Cinema was designed in 1983 by Grove Farm Land Corporation. In addition to Hollywood fare, it would book Filipino films and Japanese titles. It opened as a twin cinema in August of 1985 in the Kukui Grove with a module for two more theaters if the venue proved successful. The Kukui Grove did expand to four theaters three auditoriums seating 266 seats and one had 280 for 1,078 total seats. The theatre closed permanently during the COVID-19 pandemic and its last day was to sell off the concessions on March 31, 2020. It closed with “Sonic, The Hedgehog,” “The Call of the Wild,” “The Invisible Man” and “Onward.”
The Mountain Cinema 4 located in the Mountain Mall closed on March 16, 2020 as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic. Polson Theatre Circuit announced that it would shutter the location permanently. Its final showings were “Onward,” “The Invisible Man,” “I Still Believe” and “The Call of the Wild.”
Indeed. Closed March 16, 2020 due to the COVID-19 and STL Cinemas decided to carry on with just the Chase Park Plaza and the Central West End locations.
Cinemark launched the Cinemark Woodland 14 on November 18, 2005. Within just two years, Jack Loeks Inc. Circuit bought two Cinemark locations in 2007: the River Town Crossings and the Woodland 14. The theaters became Celebration! Cinema locations. Celebration Cinemas closed its Woodland location beginning on March 17, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. Operated as a discount $5 ticketed location, the circuit opted out of its lease as it was reaching it 15-year point. It was one of many theatres whose leasing contract reached a benchmark during COVID-19 and led to permanent closure by its operator making its final day of operation March 16, 2020. Celebration said that the theatre lost money each year it operated it.
Technically, Cinemark’s name for this theatre was the Cinemark Galleria at Pittsburgh Mills and IMAX. Cinemark closed it virtually all of the then-open Cinemark theatres beginning on March 17, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The circuit opted out of its lease at its half-way mark scheduled for June 30, 2020. It was one of many theatres whose leasing contract reached a benchmark during COVID-19 and led to permanent closure by its operator making its final day of operation March 16, 2020.
Technically, the MAC Star Southfield closed with virtually all of the then-open AMC Theatres beginning on March 17, 2020 due to the COVID-19 pandemic. The venue’s lease then expired March 30, 2020 with AMC announcing that it was leaving the property. It was one of many theatres whose lease expiration during COVID-19 led to permanent closure by its operator making its final day of operation March 16, 2020.
Actor Steve Martin helps launch Commonwealth’s Del Norte 4 with an in person visit on December 11, 1986 in “The Three Amigos!”
This theatre was announced in the summer of 1989 as A.O. “Tony” Rand was briskly trying to move to completion of Rand Theatres Circuit’s multiplexes in Tennessee, Texas, Illinois, Florida, and New Mexico. De La Torre-Reinhart was the architectural firm used. It was one of three Rand Theatres scheduled to open in the fourth quarter of 1989 in Albuquerque. Originally schedule to open December 15, 1989, the 1,833 seat facility was suspiciously devoid of concession stand(s) and projection equipment with one month to go to opening. And the news was not encouraging to moviegoers or the Rand Circuit.
Bad reports were circulating beginning with a lock-out of a cinema in Tennessee and that news spread to Texas with all locations locked for non-payment of everything ranging from lease payments, to utilities, to newspaper ads, to Hollywood studios for bookings, to sales tax revenue. This news traveled to the three New Mexico multiplexes just five days ahead of the Tramway’s grand opening on November 17, 1989 and a month before the Plaza del Norte and this location’s launch dates.
In about two weeks, the house of cards that was Rand Theatres Circuit tumbled as Rand’s Little Rock headquarters were locked along with the bedrock of the circuit’s theater locations in Arkansas. Finally, the Chicago and Florida locations appear to be the last of the Rand projects shut down with three ready to break ground and two in construction within Chicago-land and a completed facility in Palm Harbor, Florida which – like the High Ridge and its two cousins in Albuquerque – had no projection equipment or concession stands.
United Artists took on the theatre opening it as The United Artists 8 at High Ridge with a 94 FM Z-Rock pre-opening party on April 12, 1990. The Grand Opening was on April 13, 1990 with the films, “Crazy People,” “Driving Miss Daisy,” “Born on the 4th of July,” “My Left Foot,” “I Love You to Death,” and “Steel Magnolias.”
That gave the trivial distinction to High Ridge as the first of the three failed Rand theaters to launch. It was followed by Cinemark opening Movies West on December 14, 1990 and Hollywood Cinemas opening of Plaza at Paseo del Norte in May of 1991. Regal / UA carried its High Ridge into the decade of the 2020s.
And if you wondered what happened to the Rand family who ran the Rand Theatre Circuit, they went to jail for their theater scheme and learned their lesson by hatching a much more ambitious plan to bilk investors… but not in the film industry. This time they scammed oil and gas investors out of over $100 million landing them back in the pokey.
The Poly was given its name for the neighborhood where Texas Wesleyan University was founded as Polytechnic College in 1890 and opening in 1891. The pre-Civil War neighborhood in Southeast Fort Worth became known as Polytechnic Heights and nicknamed by locals as “The Poly.” In the post-War theatre-building boom spurred by the Paramount decree separating Hollywood studios from exhibition and population moves away from downtown areas, D.O. “Boyd” and Imogene Milligan built The Poly. It opened on May 24, 1951 with “Ma and Pa Kettle on the Farm” supported by a a cartoon and newsreel on a thirty-year lease.
Milligan had worked at the Majestic Theatre in downtown Fort Worth from 1926 to 1930 before establishing the Pix Theatre during the World War II on a subleasing agreement with a church who was using the venue. After the War, the Milligans designed and were building the 7th Street Theatre in Fort Worth. But Interstate Theaters took that one over in the development stages so the couple moved on to creating The Poly. It was an independent neighborhood operation and positioned as a sub-run discount double-feature house.
The Milligans successfully ran the Poly switching it to widescreen presentations with good acoustics. And the theatre went out of business the way a Texas movie theater should be required by state law to go out of business – proudly showing a double-feature of Chuck Norris fims. The theatre ceased operations on April 26, 1981 with “A Force of One” and “The Octagon.” Boyd Milligan – now at age 77 – would then reclaim the 7th Street Theatre in 1992 operating it until 1999. He retired from the movie exhibition business at Age 94. As for the Poly, it would become a home of the New Unity Missionary Baptist Church before it found new quarters. The building then went into a prolonged period of vacancy.
In 1977, the Fort Warren Drive-In got new ownership changing its name to the Rutland-Ft. Warren Drive-In. The Rutland Drive-In ceased operations October 22, 1975 so the merger of names was consolation to the diehard fans of the old Rutland.
On July 27, 1980, the facility added a second screen renaming as the Rutland Twin Drive-in Theatre. The Rutland Twin ended operations at the end of the 1988 season. It closed August 28, 1988 with “Who Framed Roger Rabbit?” and “Three Men and a Baby” on Screen One and “Big” with “License to Drive” on Screen Two.
One addition – On July 11, 1956, the Town Theatre installed a new ultra-wide screen for playing wide format films including CinemaScope.
Architect Robert B. Pringle sketches the latest prposed United General Theatre at The Village. But the theater had its grand opening and the fading United General logo was nowhere in sight as the cinema launched for the Presidio circuit.
Thanks much!
Thanks much!
Seth G – you are correct in that the Palace Theatre has a transposed address – totally my error. The local paper said that the Palace Theatre was demolished for the most part to create a parking lot that didn’t happen. When that didn’t materialize, they made it Smith Park – the sad looking park / amphitheater at 303 S. Main Street.
The Dixie Theatre was launched Dixie Amusement Circuit. It opened after an address by Yahoo City Mayor D.M. Love and a celebration simulcast on WJDX in Jackson. The theatre opened with 900 seats – 700 on the lower floor and 200 in the balcony for persons of color. The opening on July 18, 1938 featured the Ritz Brothers in “Kentucky Moonshine.” The theatre was built within the original Kennington Building in a plan announced in 1938. The theatre completed a 20 year leasing period going out of business with “The Ten Commandments” on February 15, 1958.
The theatre was rebuilt as the New Yazoo Theatre launching April 27, 1925 with Gloria Swanson in “Madame Sans Gene.” By the time it transitioned to sound, it was the Yazoo Theatre. Gulf States closed the Yazoo on May 3, 1979 with “The Evictors”. It was demolished in December of 1979.
This theatre launched February 4, 1980 with “Star Trek” and “Apocalypse Now.”
The New Rose Theatre launched with Gloria Swanson in “The Humming Bird" on March 14, 1924. Wall & Phillips had purchased the former Rose / American/ Regent Theatre relaunching with this new-build theater here. The Regent was equipped with sound on October 23, 1929. In 1944, it closed to tear out the old balcony and increase seating capacity by 125. In 1955, it converted to widescreen to play CinemaScope features.