Keene Drive-In
26 Optical Avenue,
Keene,
NH
03431
26 Optical Avenue,
Keene,
NH
03431
1 person
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The Keene Drive-In was located on the corner of Optical Avenue and Route 101 in Keene, NH. It was opened on March 18, 1954 with Esther Williams in “Million Dollar Mermaid” & Gilbert Roland in “Apache War Smoke”. It was operated by Joseph Mathieu and Affiliated Theatres Corp.
The theater closed and the land was sold in 1985. To this day it is still an empty lot. The screen was demolished shortly after it closed as well as the snack bar/projection building.
Contributed by
Charles Dean
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Recent comments (view all 5 comments)
Here’s a short video discussing the history of the Keene Drive-In. Also shows a picture of the box office of the Pine Island Drive-In in Manchester, NH. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bIRfXM8Otos
The Shakour family still owns and operates the Northfield (MA) Drive-In according to their website.
Approx. address for this drive-in was 26 Optical Avenue. Though overgrown, you can still make out the ramps.
This drive-in had the grandest neon “stars” I’d ever seen (haven’t been to Vegas yet.) I remember my last time there as a teenager, climbing up over the rear chain-link fence on boards we place there once the first feature started… Later the drive-in sold to become the site of the Keene Sentinel printing plant, which unlike the Union Leader and Concord Monitor’s, was never built ( I remember this as a Sentinel employee as I took the plans out to the dumpster for disposal.) Now home to pine trees and ground nesting birds…
The Keene Drive-In opened its gates on March 18, 1954 with Esther Williams in “Million Dollar Mermaid” and Gilbert Roland in “The Apache War Smoke” (unknown if extras added).