Starvue Drive-In
Cleveland, Tennessee
Order Starvue Drive-In tees, long sleeve tees and hoodies. Commenters recall Hoyt Fair calling a Saturday bingo game from a stool, with concession food and movie passes for prizes and every car slot filled. After a fire took the screen tower in April 1963, work on a new one began the next day. Pick a style below, then read the full Starvue history 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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Starvue Drive-In History
The Starvue Drive-In in Cleveland, Tennessee, began about 1949 as the Cleveland Drive-In, at 700 Keith Street, and is in the 1949 to 1950 Theatre Catalog with Walter Morris and G.B. Oldum as owners. In May 1955 Motion Picture Daily reported that Cletus Benton and Hoyt Fair had bought it, and it ran as the Star Vue from about then on. It held 400 cars until 1960, when Benton enlarged it to 803.
A short circuit started a fire in April 1963 that took the screen tower in high winds. Construction of a new one began the next day, with reopening promised in two or three weeks. Commenters recall Fair running a Saturday bingo game from a stool, with concession food and movie passes for prizes, and every car slot filled on those nights.
The photographer Jim Dow took a picture of the back of its screen in 1973, now in the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art. Drive-ins.com says the theater closed in 1978, but it also carries a photo labeled as the final show and dated 1979. Later reports put a car lot and a strip mall on the site.