XIT Drive-In
Littlefield, Texas1952-1970s
Order XIT Drive-In tees, long sleeve tees and hoodies. The name came from the XIT, a ranch of about three million acres that Texas signed over to a Chicago syndicate in exchange for building the state capitol in Austin. A 1988 photo shows the red and cream sign standing alone in a fenced cow pasture, its arrow still pointing in to nothing. Browse the styles below, and the full XIT history is 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.
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XIT Drive-In History
The XIT Drive-In in Littlefield, Texas, opened in the late summer of 1952. Billboard reported on September 13 that Bill Chester had announced the opening. It stood on the Levelland highway, now US 385, just south of town and a short way from Littlefield's other drive-in, the LFD. It held about 400 cars. The Exhibitor, announcing the opening on September 3, spelled the owner's name Chesher and noted that the XIT name came from a famous cattle brand.
The name came from a cattle brand. The XIT was the huge ranch that Texas signed over to a Chicago syndicate in the 1880s, about three million acres in ten Panhandle counties, in exchange for building the state capitol in Austin. People liked to say the letters stood for Ten in Texas, but ranch historians call that a myth.
Directories list the XIT at Littlefield in 1963 and 1964, an ad survives from 1965, and Cinema Treasures has it still open in 1970. No closing date has turned up. It still appears on a 1981 topographic map, though one researcher thinks it was closed by then. A 1988 photo shows the sign standing alone in a fenced cow pasture, red and cream, with the arrow still pointing in to nothing. Traces of the ramps can still be seen on private land.