Cactus Drive-In
Pharr, Texas1946-1977
Shop Cactus Drive-In tees, long sleeve tees and hoodies. The Pharr, Texas, theater opened in 1946 with Maureen O'Hara in The Spanish Main and held about 450 cars. Its screen tower carried an outlined desert scene with a chaparral cactus, a yucca and a cowboy. Browse the styles below, and the full Cactus history is further down. Every shirt is printed to order in the USA and carries the memories of bygone places and teams.
4 products
Cactus Drive-In History
The Cactus Drive-In in Pharr, Texas, opened on April 12, 1946, with Maureen O'Hara in The Spanish Main. It stood on Business 83 at South Kumquat Street in the Rio Grande Valley and held about 450 cars. Claude Ezell and Associates ran it at first, and it later belonged to the Interstate circuit.
The front of the screen tower carried the name above an outlined desert scene: a chaparral cactus, a yucca, a cowboy, hills and clouds. THEATRE ran down a narrow wing beside it. A period postcard called the place the most beautiful theatre in the world. A Texas Monthly essay recalls newspapers calling the neon the largest and most expensive sign in the world, a claim its own author doubts.
Interstate twinned the Cactus in July 1971, doubling the car capacity and adding an air-conditioned concession stand. It closed in 1977. A commenter gives the last day as August 4 of that year. The tower is gone.