Category Archives: Texas

San Antonio’s Mission may reopen, sort of

Posted on by

I’m excited about the news this week. According to the San Antonio (TX) Express-News, the city may start showing movies again at the site of the old Mission Drive-In. The plans are part of a tax increment reinvestment zone that’s already going to include a library with a facade that looks like a drive-in screen. (You can read all about the library here. Click the link to see the artist’s conception. And click that Express-News link for a great photo that matches how I remember the Mission.)

You could say that the Mission is the reason I started Carload.com so many years ago. In those ancient times before Carload came to be, I lived in Houston, which had no drive-ins. To get my occasional drive-in fix, I’d drive out to a nearby town that had one. Before each trip, I looked around with the rudimentary internet and long-distance, pay-per-minute phone calls to find a movie worth seeing. As it turned out, the Mission won my business every time.

The Mission’s atmosphere was like no other drive-in. Within sight of a real 18th-century Spanish mission bell tower, all the cars packed in together in fairly close quarters. The crowd was a mixture of Hispanics and folks like me who don’t know 10 words of Spanish. Everyone was happy to be there in the cool evening, mixing together at the concession stand. Before the movie and during intermission, car doors were flung open and a rich mixture of Tejano music overwhelmed the drive-in’s speakers. Then the movie started, the music stopped, and we all shared a fun movie experience.

Toward the end of my stay in Texas, I began planning a web site to help drive-in patrons like me know what’s available and what’s showing. Then I moved to Colorado and started Carload to celebrate the dozen drive-ins that were still alive in the state. (Five have closed since then, and the digital projection conversion may claim more this off-season.)

If you’re going to keep a drive-in closed, perhaps the best use of the site is for a community library, especially if you keep the old marquee. I know that I said that I wouldn’t include any more stories about movies in the park that are supposed to be like drive-ins, but I hadn’t considered a situation like this. From now on, outdoor movie stories are eligible for mention here only if they take place at old drive-in theater sites. Are there any others like that I don’t know about?

Town & Country holds fundraiser to stay open

Posted on by

Town & Country Drive-In (click to visit)The Town & Country Drive-In (Abilene TX) is hosting a Movies and Mistletoe fundraiser this evening, December 1. The cause is the digital conversion, which KTXS reports will be $165,000 for both screens.

Local vendors will have booths to sell stuff, and Santa will be there, and there will be a bouncy castle. No word on whether Santa will be inside the bouncy castle. If you miss out, you can also donate online here.

Fort Worth’s Coyote won’t open till 2013

Posted on by

According to a story in the Fort Worth Star-Telegram, the Tarrant Regional Water District owns the land and in February granted a 10-year lease for the drive-in. Wood had hoped to open this summer, but decided to hold off till spring when the Coyote will have completed “a pavilion, beer garden(!) and a large playground”.

KXAS, Dallas-Fort Worth’s news leader, added a two-minute video report on the Coyote’s status. It quotes J.D. Granger, the executive director of the Trinity River Vision Project, which KXAS says own the land. (Hmm, they can’t both own that land, can they?) Anyway, Granger said of the Coyote’s owners, “They decided, based on the site, this will be the best drive-in in the entire country. Because of that, they’re truly making this their flagship operation.” Definitely something to look forward to!