Tower Drive-In
Tampa, Florida1952-1984
Order Tower Drive-In tees, long sleeve tees and hoodies. The Tower in Tampa, Florida, took its name from the Sulphur Springs water tower on the same ground, and a warning light on top is said to have bothered people watching the movies. A Tampa neon shop made its sign, with script and wavy neon wrapped around a corner of the building. Pick a style below, then read the full Tower 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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Tower Drive-In History
The Tower Drive-In in Tampa, Florida, opened on October 22, 1952, with David Wayne in Wait Till the Sun Shines, Nellie and George Montgomery in Dakota Lil. It sat on the Hillsborough River at North Florida Avenue and Bird Street, with one screen and room for about 600 cars. It took its name from the Sulphur Springs water tower, which stands on the same ground and can be seen for miles. A warning light on top of the tower is said to have bothered people watching the movies.
The Cinchett family's neon shop in Tampa made its sign, which covered both sides of a corner of the building in script and wavy neon, with THEATRE running down the corner and lit arrows reading EXIT ONLY and DRIVE-IN. Floyd Theatres of Lakeland took it over in the Tampa drive-ins' sale. Flood water from the river closed it for a time in April 1960.
One researcher gives the last night as September 3, 1984. The theater was leveled in 1985 for apartments that were never built. The City of Tampa bought the land in 2002 for River Tower Park. The water tower is still there, and the crushed shell that paved the aisles still turns up in the ground.