The drive-ins, I: the 1939 experiment and the Fort Wayne Drive-In

1939 — 1985

Fort Wayne's first drive-in, 1939: The drive-in came to Fort Wayne before the war. The trade press announced it in June 1939 — "A new drive-in theatre has been opened in Fort Wayne, Ind., by Roy Gordon, managing director of Allen Theatres, Inc.," reported the Motion Picture Herald of June 24, 1939 — and the advertisement-based record assembled at Cinema Treasures dates the opening to May 30, 1939. That first house, at 4740 Lima Road by the same research, had a brief first life: it closed in 1940 and reopened on March 28, 1941, as the Wayne Auto Theatre. Under its last name, the Sunset Auto Theatre, it was still part of the county's drive-in set in the 1950s — the Journal Gazette's 2020 retrospective counts the Sunset, at 4740 Lima Road, among the five Allen County drive-ins standing by 1954. Its closing date was not established in the sources reached, and the site is remembered in local discussion at more than one location; the Lima Road address is the one the advertisement record and the Gazette's retrospective agree on.

The Fort Wayne Drive-In: The county's flagship outdoor house was the Fort Wayne Drive-In on Bluffton Road — the listings give its address as both 5800 and about 6224 Bluffton Road. Its opening is carried three ways: one copied listing says 1940, the Journal Gazette's retrospective and a 1970 trade report say it was built and opened in 1947, and its grand-opening advertisement, posted to the Cinema Treasures record, dates the opening to August 28, 1948; the advertisement governs here. It was a single screen holding 712 cars, opened by Brailey-Browning Inc. and the United Film Booking Service, and it passed through the same hands as the downtown houses — Alliance Theatres, then Cinecom. The drive-in even made trade-press law: in 1970 Boxoffice reported Cinecom's suit against the city over an ordinance, adopted at the request of neighbors along Bluffton Road, requiring drive-ins to build fences high enough to block the view of their screens from outside the lot. The Fort Wayne Drive-In closed in 1985 and was later demolished; the ground is commercial now, and its entrance drive still serves the businesses on the lot.

Sources:

1. Cinema Treasures, Fort Wayne Drive-In and its comments — the August 28, 1948 grand opening (advertisement posted 2024), the 712-car capacity, Brailey-Browning and United Film Booking as original operators, the Alliance and Cinecom succession, the 1985 closing and demolition, and the 6224 Bluffton Road address against the overview's 5800; the comments assembling the Lima Road record — the May 30, 1939 opening, the 1940 closing, the March 28, 1941 reopening as the Wayne Auto Theatre, and the Sunset Auto name — quoting the Motion Picture Herald of June 24, 1939.
2. Blake Sebring, "Drive-in theaters are facing tough season," The Journal Gazette, April 23, 2020, copied at ACGSI, Allen INGenWeb, D named places — the Bluffton Road house opened 1947, the Sunset at 4740 Lima Road among the five county drive-ins by 1954, and the closings ledger used in both drive-in entries.
3. Boxoffice, September 7, 1970 — Cinecom Theatres Midwest States' injunction suit over the city's drive-in fence ordinance, naming the Fort Wayne Drive-In, "built in 1947," among its houses.