Cairo Drive-In
Cairo, Georgia1950-1984
Shop Cairo Drive-In tees, long sleeve tees and hoodies. Cairo, said KAY-ro, calls itself the Syrup City, and a commenter remembers buying a Roddenbery pickle at the snack bar. The 60-foot screen tower got wings for CinemaScope that took the picture to 90 feet, and the theater had its own greenhouse. Pick your style below, and the full Cairo history follows further down. Every shirt is printed to order in the USA and carries the memories of bygone places and teams.
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Cairo Drive-In History
The Cairo Drive-In in Cairo, Georgia, a town whose name is said KAY-ro, was built in 1950 by C. Spurgeon Dunn, Ellison Dunn and Jim Camp, on about ten acres at U.S. 84 and 8th Avenue Northeast. It held 450 cars. The screen tower stood 60 feet tall and 60 feet wide, and wings were added for CinemaScope to take the picture to 90 feet. The rest of the land was landscaped, and the theater had its own greenhouse.
Cairo calls itself the Syrup City, for the cane syrup that W. B. Roddenbery's company made there before it turned to pickles, and the high school teams are the Syrupmakers. A commenter remembers buying a Roddenbery pickle at the snack bar.
The tower was never only a screen. An outboard motor and boat dealership worked out of it at one time. A local car dealer bought the theater in 1963 meaning to tear it down for a new dealership, built down the road instead, ran the drive-in for about a year, and rented it back to the Dunns. Larry Bearden rented it in 1978, and until 1984 he kept a television repair shop, an office, storage rooms and a speaker repair shop inside the tower. A fire damaged the tower at some point, and later photos show it repaired.
Drive-ins.com gives its closing as September 1984, the year the land was sold to a developer. The site is now a shopping center with a Walmart, and one pole that held a driveway light remains by the highway.