Crystal Drive-In

1238 National Highway,
La Vale, MD 21502

Closed
1 screen
350 cars

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Showing 8 comments

DavidZornig
DavidZornig on April 7, 2021 at 12:14 pm

davidocoppock, it opened August 9, 1952. The ad reads “Grand Opening Tomorrow”, which would have been the 9th in a newspaper dated the 8th.

davidcoppock
davidcoppock on April 7, 2021 at 11:55 am

Opened on 8/8/1952 with a Disney short film(“Beaver Valley”), a sport short reel(“Ski in the sky”), a Tweetie Pie cartoon(“Room and bird”) a Donald Duck cartoon(“All in a nutshell”) and “The African Queen”.

DavidZornig
DavidZornig on April 7, 2021 at 10:58 am

Nice! Thanks!

rivest266
rivest266 on April 7, 2021 at 10:55 am

Thanks for the update. Found the matching ad from the day before at

Crystal Drive-In openingCrystal Drive-In opening 08 Aug 1952, Fri Cumberland Evening Times (Cumberland, Maryland) Newspapers.com

DavidZornig
DavidZornig on April 7, 2021 at 10:42 am

That October 5th 1952 print ad does not mention it as a Grand Opening. Particularly with what amounts to a second run film. The history link I posted above is specific that it opened August 9, 1952 with “The African Queen”.

DavidZornig
DavidZornig on December 29, 2018 at 6:34 pm

Ownership history in below link.

http://www.driveins.org/md-lavale-crystal.htm

jwmovies
jwmovies on November 10, 2016 at 4:37 am

The address provided by Ozoner is correct.

Please update.

NYozoner
NYozoner on January 23, 2011 at 5:39 am

1238 National Hwy, La Vale, MD 21502

The above address will map accurately to the location of the drive-in, which is also the address for a Ruby Tuesdays resaurant which occupies a portion of the site in 2011.

The address in the heading was off by approximately 2 miles to the east.

Here is a 1966 aerial photo of the drive-in, courtesy of Earth Explorer and USGS.