El Patio Drive-In
Cairo, Illinois
Shop El Patio Drive-In tees, long sleeve tees and hoodies. A postcard shows its huge white screen tipped back like a sail, with El Patio in red and two painted palm trees, though palms are not native to the southern tip of Illinois. By March 1952 the Spanish name was gone, and the theater north of Cairo was the 51 Drive-In. Pick your style below, and the full El Patio history follows 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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El Patio Drive-In History
The El Patio Drive-In in Cairo, Illinois, began as the Cairo Drive-In, running nightly from June 17, 1949, with a formal opening on July 9. It stood on U.S. 51 at Patierdale, about a mile north of town. Owner Fred Sullivan put the cost at about $100,000, and Boxoffice gave the capacity as 500 cars.
The screen was the attraction. A postcard from the theater's El Patio days shows a huge white face tipped back like a sail, with El Patio in red across the top, two palm trees painted in the middle, and DRIVE-IN THEATRE near the bottom, over a deep blue band in shadow. Palms are not native to the southern tip of Illinois. There were pony rides for children, a snack bar and a modern marquee.
Sullivan also told Boxoffice in 1949 that he planned a second screen for a segregated section for Black patrons. Nothing found shows whether it was built. In March 1952 Boxoffice called the place the 51 Drive-In, when W. H. Eichhorn of Mounds took over from Harry Young and Sullivan, so the Spanish name was short-lived, and 51, for the highway, was the name from then on.
A 1967 aerial shows the theater intact and apparently operating. A 1982 aerial shows it closed, and a passerby in the mid-1980s remembers a crumbling, overgrown tower with 51 still on it. The screen was gone by 1993. An auto salvage yard used the land until about 2015, and it is now an open field.