The current Kingston Family FunWorld drive-in is unrelated to whatever was the Kingston.
Kingston’s first drive-in was the Gardiners Road Drive-In, as shown in this photo from November 1948. I could easily believe it became known as the Kingston Drive-In. There’s a strip mall on the site now.
A Kingston This Week article said, “Kingston used to be home to two (drive-ins), the Mustang and the Kingston Drive-in, now a shopping mall.”
A 50th anniversary article in The Whig-Standard, they provided a lot of details about the old Mustang. It “was built in 1965 and opened the following year under the name 66 Drive-In.” Opening night was Aug. 26, 1966 (why so late in the season?) with a double bill of A Big Hand for the Little Lady and Never Too Late. “In 1967, the owner, Famous Players, sold it to Premier Theatres, which owned and operated the Mustang Drive-In chain”.
The Kingston Family FunWorld site agrees. “The Drive-In Theatre was founded in 1966 and was originally called the 66, in 1968 the mustang drive-in chain purchased and operated the drive-in under their name until 1993. The year 1995 brought a change to the drive-in Mr. (Dan) Wannemacher purchased the theatre and re-named it Kingston Family FunWorld.”
My Motion Picture Almanacs confirm that the two drive-ins operated in Kingston at the same time, although they overlooked the Mustang for a while.
Paul Peterson bought the Mustang, seemingly on a whim after driving past its For Sale sign, in the summer of 1988. He’s owned and operated it ever since.
In his book A Good Day’s Work: In Pursuit of a Disappearing Canada, John Demont wrote that the Mustang opened in April 1956. But actually, it opened as the Picton Drive-In and later changed its name, probably reflecting an ownership change. The only other clues I have for when that happened come from my incomplete set of Motion Picture Almanacs:
Muskoka is the name of the tourism region there. See http://www.discovermuskoka.ca/
Also, Larry Baxter’s LinkedIn page says that he owned the Muskoka during July 1973-2009, which would make him the guy who sold it to William Alexander. Baxter also owned the Port Bolster (1991-99) and the Lindsay Twin (Jun 2000-“present”, actually May 2015).
Some of these Canadian cities are so confusing to me. The Motion Picture Almanacs list drive-ins for Barrie and Shanty Bay, ending with both the Barrie and Shanty Bay drive-ins listed for the town of Barrie.
1953-54: Barrie – Huronia, H. L. Hagey & A. Winch, 400.
1959: Barrie – Huronia, A. Winch, 400.
1963: Barrie – Huronia, W. Dykeman, 400; Shanty Bay – Drive-In, B. S. Betts, 362.
1969: Barrie – Huronia, 400; Shanty Bay – Drive-In, 362.
1972-76: Barrie – Barrie, 400; Barrie – Shanty Bay, 400.
In 2008, the Barrie was owned by Stinson Theatres, founded by the late Bob Stinson and run by his sons, Henry and Tim.
Premier Operating Corporation bought the place in March 2011 and renamed it Sunset Barrie Drive-In.
William Alexander took it over in 2008, ran a failed online fundraiser in 2014, then bought the digital projector anyway. He was still cited as the owner in a June 2017 article.
Phew! Here’s the best I could find for the Midland, a July 25, 2008 article in the Midland Mirror, retrieved via The Internet Archive. It verified room for 400 cars.
Babcock brothers Dave and Paul bought Midland’s Odeon Theatre (later to become the Roxy) along with the drive-in in 1982. They already owned the Penetanguishene’s Pen Theatre, purchased in 1972 and expanded to the Pen Twin in 1979.
… In August it will be three years since Paul’s death and two years since Dave died doing what he loved – working at the drive-in. When Paul and Dave passed away the drive-in went to the brothers’ wives Teresa and Heather. They asked Dave’s children Mark and Stacey and their spouses to lend a hand with the operation.
… “We updated the sound this year,” Gord (Cox, Stacey’s husband) said. “The digital sound is now as good as your car stereo quality. We boosted our FM receiver and you can pick up the drive-in at the angels in Penetang.”
There’s a fresh Google Street View closeup from October 2016. It shows that between December 2003 and now, they added a second message board to the screen tower.
The Owen Sound Sun Times reported in 2012 that it was sold to a neighbor who mainly wanted the adjoining land, but who was going to lease the drive-in for five years to the previous owner.
The marquee has been improved, as seen in this 2016 YouTube video
In a 2014 article, the Waterloo Region Record cleared up the connection between the Guelph Drive-In and the Jem/Mustang. There wasn’t one.
“(T)he Guelph Drive-In Theatre … operated for more than 10 years on the north side of Speedvale, just east of Stevenson Street. It was cleared by owner A.I. (Al) Rosenberg of Kitchener in about 1958 to make way for a shopping plaza”.
… “(Rosenberg) also invested in several drive-in theatres, including the Parkway Drive-In in south Kitchener and the Sunset Drive-In outside Preston.”
… “The closing of the Guelph Drive-In created a business opportunity elsewhere. In 1959 Charles Jemmett built the JEM Drive-In on land south of Highway 7 to the east of Guelph.”
In its History page in 2006 (via the Wayback Machine at Archive.org), it said the 5 was “Owned and operated by Premier Operating since the early 70’s”.
The 1972-76 IMPA listed “The 5” (cap. 505) and Daylight (500) for Oakville. And isn’t Daylight the worst drive-in name ever? But I digress.
Going backward, the 1969 IMPA listed the Daylight (400) and Oakville (also 400) for Oakville. That Oakville DI listed goes back to 1959.
Dug up an Oakville Drive-In ad (June 27, 1957) that says it was “2 miles east of the Ford plant, between Q.E. and Dundas Hwys.” Dundas is Highway 5, and The 5 is about two miles west of the Ford plant (which opened in 1953 and hasn’t moved), a direct shot on Halton Regional Rd 13 between QE and 5. (Two miles east of the Ford plant is Lake Ontario.)
A theory that fits all this data: The Oakville opened in the mid to late 1950s, then was bought by Premier in the very early 70s. Premier, with a history of name-changing, might have changed it to The 5 shortly after acquiring it.
Two online sources put the opening date around 1964-65, but that would mean it took the IMPA over five years to notice. Got any better data?
Box Office magazine from June 18, 1955 reported the Scenic was alive and in a five-theater dogfight for the Hamilton audience. “The Clappison, Hamilton, and Scenic” offered $1 carload pricing M-Th “while the two FPC units, the Skyway and Mohawk,” did it M-W.
A short article in The Hamilton Spectator adds just a little help. “Only one (Hamilton area drive-in) remains: the Starlite, on Green Mountain Road in Stoney Creek. It opened in 1955 and was originally named the Scenic Drive-In.”
Thanks for the Happy Baby note. The video’s available on YouTube.
The 1959 IMPA shows the Scenic in Hamilton, owned by A. Rosenberg (who also owned a few others), capacity 500.
The 1963 IMPA shows it owned by Joe Dydzak (his family appears to have owned a few others), capacity 400.
I find the 1969 IMPA very confusing. The Scenic (cap. 400) is still in Hamilton, but so is the Starlite (748). Meanwhile, Stoney Creek had added a Starlite (642) of its own.
In the 1972 IMPA, the Scenic is gone, but the Starlite (capacity 642) remains in Stoney Creek.
Several Niagara This Week stories list Steve Forrest as the current (as of 2016) manager / projectionist of the Can-View. Forrest or his company bought it from Cineplex Odeon in 2001 or 2002, depending on the story.
Also, one of the Can-View’s screens was hit by a tornado on the afternoon of May 20, 1996, while the movie Twister was on the marquee. This birthed a Snopes-refuted urban legend that the tornado hit while that movie was playing, even during its climactic drive-in scene.
From Niagara This Week: The Can-View, a four-screen complex located off Highway 406 at Regional Road 20, was built in 1983 not long after the Dain City drive-in was shuttered. Its four screens and space for up to 2,000 cars make it one of the biggest outdoor theatres in the country.
Its Facebook page says “The Mustang drive-in was built in 1953 purchased by Premier operating in 1973 and twined in 1976. … Screen #1 the "Twilight” has capacity of 525 cars and Screen #2 “Skyview” has a capacity of 305 cars."
CinemaTour says the Mustang “AKA: Sunset Drive-In” was built in 1950.
My 1959-63 Motion Picture Almanacs don’t show the Sunset in London, but in Belmont about 4 miles away, capacity 500, owner or booker W. C. Manning. It wasn’t listed in the 1953-54 MPA, which doesn’t prove anything. The MPAs listed as the Sunset in Belmont through at least 1976.
The International Motion Picture Almanacs referred to it as the Grand Bend Drive-In through at least 1963. The 1969-76 editions listed it as the Starlite, capacity 300, before the Canadian drive-ins were dropped from the “I"MPA books.
BTW, the Ford can’t hold 3000 cars any more. From the current aerial view on Google Maps, you can see the separate, four-field area (with a chemical plant(?) in between) is now becoming overgrown. The Henry Ford wrote that the Ford-Wyoming could handle 3000 at its peak with all nine screens, prompting those “largest drive-in in the world” claims.
The current Kingston Family FunWorld drive-in is unrelated to whatever was the Kingston.
Kingston’s first drive-in was the Gardiners Road Drive-In, as shown in this photo from November 1948. I could easily believe it became known as the Kingston Drive-In. There’s a strip mall on the site now.
A Kingston This Week article said, “Kingston used to be home to two (drive-ins), the Mustang and the Kingston Drive-in, now a shopping mall.”
A 50th anniversary article in The Whig-Standard, they provided a lot of details about the old Mustang. It “was built in 1965 and opened the following year under the name 66 Drive-In.” Opening night was Aug. 26, 1966 (why so late in the season?) with a double bill of A Big Hand for the Little Lady and Never Too Late. “In 1967, the owner, Famous Players, sold it to Premier Theatres, which owned and operated the Mustang Drive-In chain”.
The Kingston Family FunWorld site agrees. “The Drive-In Theatre was founded in 1966 and was originally called the 66, in 1968 the mustang drive-in chain purchased and operated the drive-in under their name until 1993. The year 1995 brought a change to the drive-in Mr. (Dan) Wannemacher purchased the theatre and re-named it Kingston Family FunWorld.”
My Motion Picture Almanacs confirm that the two drive-ins operated in Kingston at the same time, although they overlooked the Mustang for a while.
1953-55: Drive-In, 500, H. J. Ochs.
1959-63: Kingston Drive-In, 500, Regional Theatres Circuit.
1969: Kingston, 500.
1972-76: Kingston, 770.
1972-76: Mustang, 690.
Now I want to learn more about the actual Kingston Drive-In. Where was it? Was it the Gardiners Road? When did it close?
Paul Peterson bought the Mustang, seemingly on a whim after driving past its For Sale sign, in the summer of 1988. He’s owned and operated it ever since.
In his book A Good Day’s Work: In Pursuit of a Disappearing Canada, John Demont wrote that the Mustang opened in April 1956. But actually, it opened as the Picton Drive-In and later changed its name, probably reflecting an ownership change. The only other clues I have for when that happened come from my incomplete set of Motion Picture Almanacs:
1955: not listed.
1959: Drive-In, capacity …, owner A. Wincix.
1963: Drive-In, 350, F. G. Brown.
1969: Drive-In, 350.
1972-76: Mustang, 350.
Muskoka is the name of the tourism region there. See http://www.discovermuskoka.ca/
Also, Larry Baxter’s LinkedIn page says that he owned the Muskoka during July 1973-2009, which would make him the guy who sold it to William Alexander. Baxter also owned the Port Bolster (1991-99) and the Lindsay Twin (Jun 2000-“present”, actually May 2015).
Nibbles of info from my Motion Picture Almanacs:
1953-59: capacity 350, owner H. J. Ochs.
1963: 350, National Bkg. Co.
1969-76: 350.
Also, Larry Baxter owned the Lindsay from 2000 (according to his LinkedIn page) until Danny Zita bought it in 2015.
The drive-in was bought by Premier Theatres in 2013 and reopened with the new name Stardust Drive-In Newmarket. Here’s the new web site.
Newmarket notes from the Motion Picture Almanac:
1959: Newmarket Drive-In, …, C. E. Murrell.
1963: No. York Drive-In, 400, Assoc. Bkg. Service.
1969-76: No. York, 400.
Some of these Canadian cities are so confusing to me. The Motion Picture Almanacs list drive-ins for Barrie and Shanty Bay, ending with both the Barrie and Shanty Bay drive-ins listed for the town of Barrie.
1953-54: Barrie – Huronia, H. L. Hagey & A. Winch, 400.
1959: Barrie – Huronia, A. Winch, 400.
1963: Barrie – Huronia, W. Dykeman, 400; Shanty Bay – Drive-In, B. S. Betts, 362.
1969: Barrie – Huronia, 400; Shanty Bay – Drive-In, 362.
1972-76: Barrie – Barrie, 400; Barrie – Shanty Bay, 400.
In 2008, the Barrie was owned by Stinson Theatres, founded by the late Bob Stinson and run by his sons, Henry and Tim.
Premier Operating Corporation bought the place in March 2011 and renamed it Sunset Barrie Drive-In.
Here’s what my Motion Picture Almanacs tell me:
1953-54: Mushola (sic) Drive-In, owner Mushola Drive-In, no capacity number.
1959-63: Muskoka, owner Muskoka D-I Theas. Ltd., 300.
1969: Muskoka, 300.
1972-76: not listed.
William Alexander took it over in 2008, ran a failed online fundraiser in 2014, then bought the digital projector anyway. He was still cited as the owner in a June 2017 article.
Phew! Here’s the best I could find for the Midland, a July 25, 2008 article in the Midland Mirror, retrieved via The Internet Archive. It verified room for 400 cars.
Babcock brothers Dave and Paul bought Midland’s Odeon Theatre (later to become the Roxy) along with the drive-in in 1982. They already owned the Penetanguishene’s Pen Theatre, purchased in 1972 and expanded to the Pen Twin in 1979.
… In August it will be three years since Paul’s death and two years since Dave died doing what he loved – working at the drive-in. When Paul and Dave passed away the drive-in went to the brothers’ wives Teresa and Heather. They asked Dave’s children Mark and Stacey and their spouses to lend a hand with the operation.
… “We updated the sound this year,” Gord (Cox, Stacey’s husband) said. “The digital sound is now as good as your car stereo quality. We boosted our FM receiver and you can pick up the drive-in at the angels in Penetang.”
For much more, click that link at the top.
There’s a fresh Google Street View closeup from October 2016. It shows that between December 2003 and now, they added a second message board to the screen tower.
The Midland appears to have been around for quite a while. Here’s the Motion Picture Almanac data.
1953-54: Theatre Amuse., capacity 300.
1959: Thea. Amuse. Co., 300.
1963: Regional, 300.
1969: 300.
1972-76: 404.
After going dark for the entire 2016 season, it’s back with digital projection.
http://www.pressherald.com/2017/08/23/prides-corner-aglow-again-as-drive-ins-back-in-business/
A TripAdvisor photo shows “Since 1950” written on the wall there.
A very brief data dump from the Motion Picture Almanacs:
1953-63: owner Waite & Warwick Ltd., capacity 300.
1969-76: 300.
The Owen Sound Sun Times reported in 2012 that it was sold to a neighbor who mainly wanted the adjoining land, but who was going to lease the drive-in for five years to the previous owner.
The marquee has been improved, as seen in this 2016 YouTube video
In a 2014 article, the Waterloo Region Record cleared up the connection between the Guelph Drive-In and the Jem/Mustang. There wasn’t one.
“(T)he Guelph Drive-In Theatre … operated for more than 10 years on the north side of Speedvale, just east of Stevenson Street. It was cleared by owner A.I. (Al) Rosenberg of Kitchener in about 1958 to make way for a shopping plaza”.
… “(Rosenberg) also invested in several drive-in theatres, including the Parkway Drive-In in south Kitchener and the Sunset Drive-In outside Preston.”
… “The closing of the Guelph Drive-In created a business opportunity elsewhere. In 1959 Charles Jemmett built the JEM Drive-In on land south of Highway 7 to the east of Guelph.”
The Motion Picture Almanac data dump for Guelph drive-ins:
1953-54: Guelph, capacity 400, owner J. A. Campbell.
1959-63: Guelph, 400, A. Rosenberg.
1969: Jem, 400.
1972-76: Mustang, 400.
When The Docks opened in 2001, owned by Jerry Sprackman, it showed movies seven days a week. Now it’s just weekends.
For an update on its complicated, muddy ownership timeline, read this January 30, 2017 article in the Toronto Star.
In its History page in 2006 (via the Wayback Machine at Archive.org), it said the 5 was “Owned and operated by Premier Operating since the early 70’s”.
The 1972-76 IMPA listed “The 5” (cap. 505) and Daylight (500) for Oakville. And isn’t Daylight the worst drive-in name ever? But I digress.
Going backward, the 1969 IMPA listed the Daylight (400) and Oakville (also 400) for Oakville. That Oakville DI listed goes back to 1959.
Dug up an Oakville Drive-In ad (June 27, 1957) that says it was “2 miles east of the Ford plant, between Q.E. and Dundas Hwys.” Dundas is Highway 5, and The 5 is about two miles west of the Ford plant (which opened in 1953 and hasn’t moved), a direct shot on Halton Regional Rd 13 between QE and 5. (Two miles east of the Ford plant is Lake Ontario.)
A theory that fits all this data: The Oakville opened in the mid to late 1950s, then was bought by Premier in the very early 70s. Premier, with a history of name-changing, might have changed it to The 5 shortly after acquiring it.
Two online sources put the opening date around 1964-65, but that would mean it took the IMPA over five years to notice. Got any better data?
Box Office magazine from June 18, 1955 reported the Scenic was alive and in a five-theater dogfight for the Hamilton audience. “The Clappison, Hamilton, and Scenic” offered $1 carload pricing M-Th “while the two FPC units, the Skyway and Mohawk,” did it M-W.
A short article in The Hamilton Spectator adds just a little help. “Only one (Hamilton area drive-in) remains: the Starlite, on Green Mountain Road in Stoney Creek. It opened in 1955 and was originally named the Scenic Drive-In.”
Thanks for the Happy Baby note. The video’s available on YouTube.
The 1959 IMPA shows the Scenic in Hamilton, owned by A. Rosenberg (who also owned a few others), capacity 500.
The 1963 IMPA shows it owned by Joe Dydzak (his family appears to have owned a few others), capacity 400.
I find the 1969 IMPA very confusing. The Scenic (cap. 400) is still in Hamilton, but so is the Starlite (748). Meanwhile, Stoney Creek had added a Starlite (642) of its own.
In the 1972 IMPA, the Scenic is gone, but the Starlite (capacity 642) remains in Stoney Creek.
Several Niagara This Week stories list Steve Forrest as the current (as of 2016) manager / projectionist of the Can-View. Forrest or his company bought it from Cineplex Odeon in 2001 or 2002, depending on the story.
Also, one of the Can-View’s screens was hit by a tornado on the afternoon of May 20, 1996, while the movie Twister was on the marquee. This birthed a Snopes-refuted urban legend that the tornado hit while that movie was playing, even during its climactic drive-in scene.
From Niagara This Week: The Can-View, a four-screen complex located off Highway 406 at Regional Road 20, was built in 1983 not long after the Dain City drive-in was shuttered. Its four screens and space for up to 2,000 cars make it one of the biggest outdoor theatres in the country.
Its Facebook page says “The Mustang drive-in was built in 1953 purchased by Premier operating in 1973 and twined in 1976. … Screen #1 the "Twilight” has capacity of 525 cars and Screen #2 “Skyview” has a capacity of 305 cars."
CinemaTour says the Mustang “AKA: Sunset Drive-In” was built in 1950.
My 1959-63 Motion Picture Almanacs don’t show the Sunset in London, but in Belmont about 4 miles away, capacity 500, owner or booker W. C. Manning. It wasn’t listed in the 1953-54 MPA, which doesn’t prove anything. The MPAs listed as the Sunset in Belmont through at least 1976.
The International Motion Picture Almanacs referred to it as the Grand Bend Drive-In through at least 1963. The 1969-76 editions listed it as the Starlite, capacity 300, before the Canadian drive-ins were dropped from the “I"MPA books.
BTW, the Ford can’t hold 3000 cars any more. From the current aerial view on Google Maps, you can see the separate, four-field area (with a chemical plant(?) in between) is now becoming overgrown. The Henry Ford wrote that the Ford-Wyoming could handle 3000 at its peak with all nine screens, prompting those “largest drive-in in the world” claims.
Screen evolution clues from the Detroit Free Press back issues:
July 1982: apparently still one screen
1983-85: “Ford Wyoming 1-2-3” three screens
July 11, 1986: “The Ford Wyoming started with one screen, now has four, and (manager Ed) Szurek says he wished he had room for five more.”
July 1987: “Ford Wyoming 4” four screens
July 1988-90: 5 screens
July 1991-94: 8 screens; 6-8 listed as “2 blocks N of Ford Road”
July 1995: 9 screens; 6-9 listed as “2 blocks N of Ford Road”