1950: The World Premiere of a Drive-In Theater in Michigan

May 19, 1950

A drive-in theater in Dearborn, Michigan, officially opened for business on a rainy Friday night. This theater, known as Ford-Wyoming Drive-In, was initially able to accommodate up to 750 automobiles. Despite the rain on its inaugural night, the theater’s lot was filled to capacity. The double feature that night was The Man from Colorado, a 1948 western starring Glenn Ford and William Holden; and Road to Rio, a 1947 musical comedy starring Bing Crosby, Bob Hope, and Dorothy Lamour.  

Ford-Wyoming Drive-In was created and originally managed by the brothers James, Clyde, and Harold Clark. Harold, the youngest of the three, was an amateur dancer and singer who had an especially strong blend of business savvy and unabashed showmanship in promoting the theater.   On one occasion for example, he was somehow able to acquire a U.S. Army type of transportation — one of the Sherman tanks used several years earlier in World War II — and had it parked next to the theater’s concession stand. Harold Clark has also been credited with being sharply attuned to public tastes in movies and which double features would most likely bring heavy vehicular traffic to the theater.

This facility very much reflected a key nationwide trend in drive-in theaters. These theaters had existed in the United States in one form or another as far back as 1915. One notable milestone took place in 1933, when the first open air drive-theater was introduced in Camden, New Jersey. It was not until the first few years following the end of World War II, however, that the number of drive-in theaters grew dramatically. This was fueled by the steep increase in automobile ownership and usage during that time. At least 1,000 drive-theaters had been opened by 1949. This number grew fourfold over the next couple of years.

In 1981, Wayne Amusements purchased Ford-Wyoming Drive-In. The theater was subsequently expanded to accommodate a total of nine screens and a capacity of more than 3,000 automobiles, making it the world’s largest drive-in theater. It remains in operation today. (The accompanying photo of the entrance to Ford-Wyoming Drive-In was taken in 2023.)

Photo Credit: LittleT889 (licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution-Share Alike 4.0 International license at https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/deed.en)

For more information on Ford-Wyoming Drive-In, please check out https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ford-Wyoming_Drive-In