Telephone Road Twin Drive-In

The Telephone Road Twin Drive-In in Houston, Texas, opened on June 29, 1967, at 11020 Telephone Road, with a benefit for Boys Harbor of Houston and triple features on both screens, including John Wayne in The War Wagon. It was Stanley Warner's 174th theater and cost $500,000, with room for 1,450 cars in a trade report and 1,500 in other listings. The road got its name from the first telephone line between Houston and Galveston: the crews setting the poles left wagon tracks, and the tracks became a road.

A trade magazine covered the place in detail. The whole lot was paved in hot-mix asphalt, on ground treated for the purpose, with help from the American Asphalt Institute, so there was no dust. The food building was round, walled in aluminum and glass, with a projection booth on the roof that the magazine called a penthouse. A second booth sat on a utility building, each of the screens measured 105 by 45 feet, and an automatic vending center had a talking drink machine that thanked customers and announced coming attractions.

The sign stood at an angle on tall legs, with Telephone Road Twin on a tilted panel over Drive-In Theatre, and a smaller board marked the entrance. Tercar Theatres is listed as a later operator.

Cinema Treasures says it closed at the end of the 1981 season and was demolished around 1989. The land sat empty for years with the curved ramps still showing in aerial photos, some speaker poles still up, and the roof of the concession building falling in.