A major pop culture phenomenon began on June 6, 1933 — when a man named Richard Hollingshead sensed a good marketing opportunity.
With the automobile increasingly reshaping the American landscape, he opened the nation’s first drive-in movie theater in Camden, New Jersey.
Soon, drive-in movies became a fixture across the country and a popular place for teenage dating.
Some even had heaters to go along with the speakers, so they could stay open through the winter.

Drive-ins reached their peak in the 1950s. At the time, there were nearly 21,000 movie theaters and more than 4,000 of them were drive-ins.
Now, there are nearly 4,800 movie theaters around the country — most of them with multiple screens — while there are fewer than 300 drive-ins remaining in operation.
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