Free Christian Drive-In
1905 Rea Avenue,
Columbus,
OH
43223
1905 Rea Avenue,
Columbus,
OH
43223
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Drive-in ran 16mm film. In some of the earlier years, daytime or out of season screening ran at the nearby Starling Jr. High.
A closer address is 1905 Rea Ave, Columbus, OH.
This puts it on a house which is just west of what remains of the screen.
Over the years, this was a bare-bones drive-in. There were never any ramps, no indications of a ticket booth or a proper concession stand. Even the small projector booth seemed to disappear by 1985.
https://tinyurl.com/yc3cx6ve
The final mention of the Christian Free Drive-In from the Columbus Dispatch was August 25, 1996.
The original screen was burned down on March 31, 1986.
Jimmy Senior died in 1993, with Junior passing away in 2015. Both were good men.
I think I have tracked down the exact location of the Free Christian Drive-In. It was located at the corner of Rea Ave. and Columbian Ave.
Contemporary ads show an address of 1920 Hunt Ave., but that address no longer exists.
While it is impossible to give an exact address since that is a large vacant area, I would say that “1920 Rea Avenue” would be appropriate.
Jimmy Rea owned that land for many years, and it is now owned by Nature Preserves LLC. Only the damaged screen and one pole with a speaker remain.
The theater closed between by or during the 1990s. The screen itself sat abandoned for many years, and started to fall apart throughout. The pathway was demolished around that time. The earliest clear shot I can take is a 1994 shot.
The address of 540 W Broad St, Columbus, OH 43215 is the address of the building that housed Jimmy Rea Electronics. Mr. Rea was the founder and operator of the Free Christian Drive-In. The actual location of the drive-in was given as “One block south of 1900 W. Broad”.