Cowtown Drive-In
Fort Worth, Texas1950-1984
Shop Cowtown Drive-In tees, long sleeve tees and hoodies. The Fort Worth theater on Jacksboro Highway held 950 cars, and the back of its screen tower carried a huge painted steer staring at the traffic. Cowgirls in Texas outfits worked the ticket office when it opened. Pick a style below, then read the full Cowtown history further down. We are an American small business bringing back the signs and logos of places and teams that are long gone but remembered fondly.
4 products
Cowtown Drive-In History
The Cowtown Drive-In in Fort Worth, Texas, opened on September 2, 1950, at 2245 Jacksboro Highway, with Gregory Peck in The Gunfighter. It had room for 950 cars, in-car heaters and a playground. Southwest Theatres owned it, headed by C. A. Richter, who had opened the first drive-in in Texas in the late 1930s. Harvey A. Jordan designed and built it.
The screen tower faced the highway on its back side, and that side was the advertisement. A huge steer was painted on it, staring straight at the traffic, with the name Cowtown in script overhead and the Fort Worth skyline behind. Boxoffice put the tower on the cover of its Modern Theatre section in February 1951. When the theater first opened, cowgirls in Texas outfits worked the ticket office.
It closed in 1964 and reopened on July 1, 1966. In its last years it showed Spanish-language films and hosted a weekend flea market. It closed for good in 1984.
A newspaper photo from September 1990 shows the place abandoned, with the white screen still up and a sign for a BMX track on the lot. A Walmart Supercenter now stands on the site.