Riverview Drive-In
4770 US-42,
Carrollton,
KY
41008
4770 US-42,
Carrollton,
KY
41008
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The Riverview Drive-In opened on May 18, 1950 with Ralph Morgan in “Blue Grass of Kentucky”. The architectural plans were furnished by Motiograph Ltd. It had a capacity for 600 cars. The lower part of the screen tower contained living quarters and a managers office. In front of the screen was a stage and playground. It was operated by R.L. Gaines.
Contributed by
Ken Roe
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Recent comments (view all 8 comments)
R.L.Gaines owned the Riverview in 1956.
PLEASE ADD TO ADDRESS:
U.S. HIGHWAY 42 & FOURMILE CREEK ROAD
Open ~1955-~1964 approximate? I challenge you to come up with more exact dates!
Need more info, and photos.
The header says this drive-in opened May 18,1950, sounds like a pretty exact date to me.Your opening date is only 5 years off if this date is correct.Maybe you should be more careful Bob.
Open May 18, 1950-~1964 approximate? I challenge you to come up with the exact date it closed
tisloews, I had a devil of a time finding the location of this Drive-In. If you spent all the time I spent Thursday Night and Friday Morning trying to find out the location you would have forgot by then what was in the original comment too. Google Map puts it South of Carrollton and it’s really East of town along the river, that’s why it has the name it has. I never see tisloews used to add theaters some folks for some reason use a different name, do you?
The Drive-In was just up the road a bit at the present sit of the Dow Corning Plant. This is as close of an address as I could get.
Overlooking US 42 just east of the junction of Four-Mile Road (aka Thomas Oscar Harris Lane) is a home built in 1809 by Benjamin Craig Jr. Years later it was the home of Sen. Perry B. Gaines, who remodeled the home and dubbed it “Riverview,” the centerpiece of his Riverview Farms. After his death one or two of his sons developed the Riverview Drive-In on lands east of the house along U.S. 42. There is a site called CinemaTour that has some rough images of the drive-in structures and views. Another site on local history has an old newspaper photo with the Drive-In visible as part of an aerial view of the farm. That photo is here:
[url]http://www.nkyviews.com/carroll/carroll370.jpg[/url]
Comparing that view with Google Earth my best estimate is that the screen was located approximately at lat 38.710373° lon -85.104992° — now a parking area on the Dow Corning grounds. There is currently a driveway off of 42 close by, and I wonder if that driveway is much the same one that was used for the Drive-In. I have a vague memory that someone told me it was pretty much the same driveway, but I’m not sure.
A better address would be 4770 US-42, Carrollton, KY 41008.
This is the address for Dow. The entrance to this complex is where the theater entrance was located.
The parking lot in between buildings to the south of this entrance is where the theater stood.
Please update.
The Riverview Drive-In opened its gates on May 18, 1950 with Ralph Morgan in “Blue Grass Of Kentucky” along with the travelogue “Your Kentucky”, an unnamed cartoon (I’m very sure it could be Mighty Mouse in “My Old Kentucky Home”, but I could definitely be wrong), and a newsreel.
The Riverview Drive-In closed for the final time on November 1, 1964 with Frankie Avalon in “Bikini Beach” and Jimmy Clanton in “Teenage Millionaire”.