The announcement was made for the small little drive-in near Mt. Carmel.
The Natalie Drive-In was ready.. on route 54, along side the ‘famous’ Natalie market ..
Natalie was ready for a May 5 1949 grand opening, featuring the headline of ROBINHOOD–in technicolor!
850 in-car speakers were ready. It was a giant 70 foot screen…
This drive-in was constructed in 1948 and 1949 by the Natalie Amusement Company.
It cost $200,000 according to reports a the time.
Officers of the amusement company were William Grossman and Fred Morris. Those same people also operated a Leighton drive-in and the then Airport Drive-in in Allentown.
The company almost immediately created a “family night” at the drive-in on Tuesdays. That meant that for the sum of $1.00, plus of course tax, every car containing an entire family would be admitted into the theater.
The movies opened normally around 7:30 pm and a playground was available for children until dusk..
The theater continued in popularity for 20 more years until January 1969 when the theater was sold to new owners from Berwick. Joseph Lee purchased it at the time for an undisclosed price. Lee also owned three other theaters in Berwick and Bloomsburg.
Lee was not from the area. He moved to Berwick in 1967 before being an active theater owner in Ohio and Wisconsin.
But from family fare to … less than that?
Eventually new owners ran the theater — and it became something very different than what it opened as.
PORN.
Nudes..
Rated X…
As showcased from this ad on September 10, 1977:
It was at least in color….?
This story from the DAILY ITEM on October 30, 1985, showed what plans were being made for the soon to be former Natalie Drive-In:
x x x
It never happened.. but Natalie had a second life as a paint-ball facility, but that, too, went by the wayside.
x x x
This video from 2017 uploaded to YouTube shows what became of the drive-in:
