Thunderbird Drive-In
4910 Leopard Street,
Corpus Christi,
TX
78408
4910 Leopard Street,
Corpus Christi,
TX
78408
3 people
favorited this theater
Additional Info
Architects: Morris L. Levy
Styles: Streamline Moderne
Previous Names: Corpus Drive-In
Nearby Theaters
The Corpus Drive-In was opened in October 21, 1948 with Randolph Scott in “Coroner’s Creek”. It had a capacity for 300 cars. It was closed around 1958.
On October 1, 1967 it was reopened and renamed Thunderbird Drive-In. The car capacity was doubled to 600 cars. The opening program was Sean Connery in “You Only Live Twice” & Yul Brynner in “Return of the Seven”. True to its name, the Thunderbird Drive-In had a huge depiction of a “thunderbird” on the front side of the screen. It was closed in 1978. It was demolished in May 1997.
Contributed by
Don Lewis
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Recent comments (view all 16 comments)
My bad. Viking Twin was 5333 Ayers and Osage was 4841 S. Staples.
The Boulevard was at SPID (Lexington and Richter)
The Lexington (aka 62nd at Lexington, aka Capri, aka Bel-aire) was at 6210 SPID (Lexington)
Osage was indeed Staples at Everhart,which at the time was 4841 Staples
The Texas and The Corpus (Thunderbird) were on Leopard not Leonard
There was also a Cuddihy Drive-In out near Cuddihy Field.
Texas should be 53xx, instead of 35xx Leopard.
Corrected that for Texas' listing. All the DI’s in Corpus now have entries here, except for Cuddihy â€" Yakima, where did you hear of this one? I can’t find any other mention of it.
The Cuddihy Drive-in Theatre had it’s grand opening August 30, 1947 screening ‘Frontier Gal’ per an ad in the local Corpus Christi Caller Times. It’s ads in the local paper didn’t last too long, stopping by Nov 11, 1947. The ads said that it was at Cuddihy Field. I can’t find evidence that it was actually part of Cuddihy Field, but a drive-in scar can be detected near the Air Field in 1956 Google Earth imagery at 27°43'28.08"N 97°29'41.19"W. The fall of 1947 corresponds to a time when this WWII Navy air-field was turned over to the city and was being transformed for other uses. The very first University of Corpus Christi campus opened there at the same time, but it didn’t last too long at that location either.
Here are some ads and the Google imagery for the Cuddihy.
View link
I have similar links and detailed information for each of the Corpus Christi drive-ins and several more surrounding area drive-ins. I just haven’t had time lately to play with this hobby.
I have updated my Corpus Drive-in aka Thunderbird Drive-in link with an artcile about the re-opening as Thunderbird in 1967. Johnny Blocker purchased and refurbished the old Corpus Drive-in theater and re-christened it Thunderbird Drive-in for it’s Oct 1, 1967 grand opening. The Corpus had stopped advertising in 1958. It could have possibly continued Spanish language films after 1958, but the local papers did not advertise the Spanish language drive-ins until the sometime in the 1960s.
View link
October 21st, 1948 grand opening ad posted.
Closed 1978
higher quality grand opening ad:
Corpus Drive-In opening 21 Oct 1948, Thu Corpus Christi Caller-Times (Corpus Christi, Texas) Newspapers.com