Buckner Blvd. Drive-In
Dallas, Texas1948-1978
Shop Buckner Blvd. Drive-In tees, long sleeve tees and hoodies. It was the first drive-in in Dallas with individual in-car speakers and had room for 664 cars. Its screen tower first carried an animated neon stagecoach and horses, then a giant painted clown face. Choose a style below, and the full Buckner Blvd. history is further down. Down Home Apparel is an American small business remembering the best places and teams of yesteryear, and every shirt is printed to order in the USA.
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Buckner Blvd. Drive-In History
The Buckner Blvd. Drive-In in Dallas, Texas, opened on June 4, 1948, with John Wayne in Tycoon. It stood at 3333 N. Buckner Boulevard, between Samuell Boulevard and East Grand Avenue, with room for 664 cars. W. G. Underwood and Claude Ezell were the original owners, and it was the first drive-in in Dallas with individual in-car speakers.
A Boxoffice report on the opening said it sat about half a mile north of the Buckner Orphans Home, toward White Rock Lake and away from residential streets. It was called the largest drive-in in the area. It had a fully paved arena, a children's playground, bottle warmers for infants and a snack bar, and its ads promised the show would run in rain or cold. Underwood and Ezell already owned 25 outdoor theaters in Texas, which the trade press said cost $150,000 to $175,000 each.
The Buckner was also a showplace for new screen technology. In 1953 it was fitted with a fiber glass screen, 80 by 40 feet, promoted by Ezell's drive-in owners' association. In 1954 delegates to a Variety Club convention watched a CinemaScope demonstration there.
What was on its screen tower changed. At first it had an animated neon stagecoach and horses. A customer guessed that the display broke and cost too much to fix. In its place came a giant painted clown face, like the one on the Chalk Hill, another Ezell theater. A May 1960 Boxoffice item lists a new clown mural in a refurbishing of the theater, which also touched the concession stand and playground.
A 1954 Billboard item has Ezell buying it from the Interstate circuit, and McLendon and then Weisenburg ran it later. Bookings stopped at the end of May after about 30 years, which puts the end around 1978, and Drive-ins.com says the late 1970s. A photo from the early 1980s shows the clown still on the tower, standing alone with signs of fire. A mini-storage now covers the site.