Though drive-ins dwindle, their nostalgic magic remains as strong as ever

The first movie I remember seeing at the drive-in theater was “Coal Miner’s Daughter” in Princeton, Minnesota. The film came out in 1980, which means I would have been 5 years old, watching slack-jawed from the bed of my dad’s root beer-brown Chevy pickup as Sissy Spacek warbled her way through Loretta Lynn’s life story. My parents used to throw a mattress back there so we kids could watch those double features, which started hours past our bedtimes. We’d lie beneath the stars eating popcorn and Jujubes, and if we fell asleep before the movie ended, jostling home while lying flat in the truck bed kept us that way.

It wasn’t unusual to have a drive-in theater in any given small town back then, but by the time we moved to Wisconsin in 1985, many were already closing. Madison used to be home to two — Badger on the eastside and Big Sky on the west, where this 1974 David Sandell photo was taken. Drive-in theaters started before every household had a TV, peaked in the 1950s, then dwindled steadily after the invention of indoor multiplexes and the rapid evolution of home theater technology. Big Sky closed in 1984, Badger in 1989. Over the decades, Wisconsin went from nearly 80 drive-in theaters to nine — one of which, Jefferson’s Highway 18 Outdoor Theatre, went up for sale this spring.

If you’re nostalgic for the drive-in days, it’s worth searching the Historic Madison Facebook group to read dozens of posted memories. Stories of steamy windows and sneaking in by hiding in car trunks; stolen glimpses from the old Beltline or Prange’s parking lot at West Towne Mall; old movie posters, and even a marriage proposal story or two.

But you can also still catch a drive-in movie in Monroe, Richland Center or Wisconsin Dells. I went back as an adult and was astonished by how much smaller the screen looked — how grainy and pixelated — how difficult it was to hear and how terrible Jujubes really taste. I don’t even remember what movie was playing. I still loved every minute.

Maggie Ginsberg is senior editor at Madison Magazine.

This article originally appeared in the July 2024 issue of Madison Magazine with the headline “Driving Nowhere.” Subscribe toda y .

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