A humble drive-in theatre in a small coastal town, but with a mystery! The Terrace Drive-In was located in Brookings, Oregon (a coastal town in southern Oregon, roughly a 20-minute drive north of the California border). The drive-in opened September 26, 1956 just north of the South Coast Mill. Owners Dave Irwin and Raymond Pope had to delay the grand opening after their sound equipment didn’t arrive on time, and allegedly the theatre was only open for around three months before it was flooded and destroyed after a storm.
According to cinematreasures.org the Terrace Drive-In became the Ace Drive-In after its reopening in 1957, and then Reds Drive-In before closing for good. There was one screen and a space large enough for 300 cars. The address for this theatre according to the website is what’s now 17493 Carpenterville Road, Brookings OR, which is legitimately JUST north of what’s currently the South Coast Log Pond.
Westerns seemed to be the most popular genre at the Terrace Drive-In theatre, however war dramas, noirs, comedies and mysteries were also shown in regularity. On the theatre’s grand opening night, a double-feature of Hangman's Knot (Huggins, 1952) and The Big Heat (Lang, 1953) was shown. In fact, every night of the week, there were double-features, sometimes accompanied by “selected short subjects”. The films were shown commonly on Technicolor and Cinemascope.
The closing of Terrace Drive-In is still being researched, as is the reasoning behind the flooding and reopenings. The clippings below are from the Brookings-Harbor Pilot, sourced from the Historic Oregon Newspapers website.
