You are here

Virginia: Valley, Piedmont, Southside & Southwest » Southwest Virginia » Montgomery County » Christiansburg and Vicinity » Starlite Drive-In Theater

Starlite Drive-In Theater

-A A +A
1953. 275 Starlight Dr.

Tucked down a side street off a long commercial strip on the eastern side of Christiansburg is this drive-in theater, a rare survivor of a once-common type. A bright-red neon star on the back of the tall movie screen structure summons movie patrons. The drive-in's speakers, ready to hang on car windows, are set in curved rows on terraced grassy slopes that step down to face the big screen. Nearby is another mid-twentieth-century survivor, Dude's Curbside Drive-In (1505 Roanoke Street), where carhops serve patrons who make their selections, including a Dudeburger, from a big menu posted on the gabled front of Dude's small building.

Writing Credits

Author: 
Anne Carter Lee
×

Data

What's Nearby

The Oaks
The Huts (Rice House)
Cambria Depot
Historic Hill School (Christiansburg Industrial Institute) and Schaeffer Memorial Baptist Church (Christiansburg African Baptist Church)
Montgomery County Courthouse

Citation

Anne Carter Lee, "Starlite Drive-In Theater", [Christiansburg, Virginia], SAH Archipedia, eds. Gabrielle Esperdy and Karen Kingsley, Charlottesville: UVaP, 2012—, http://sah-archipedia.org/buildings/VA-02-MO8.

Print Source

Cover: Buildings of Virginia vol 2

Buildings of Virginia: Valley, Piedmont, Southside, and Southwest, Anne Carter Lee and contributors. Charlottesville: University of Virginia Press, 2015, 431-431.

If SAH Archipedia has been useful to you, please consider supporting it.

SAH Archipedia tells the story of the United States through its buildings, landscapes, and cities. This freely available resource empowers the public with authoritative knowledge that deepens their understanding and appreciation of the built environment. But the Society of Architectural Historians, which created SAH Archipedia with University of Virginia Press, needs your support to maintain the high-caliber research, writing, photography, cartography, editing, design, and programming that make SAH Archipedia a trusted online resource available to all who value the history of place, heritage tourism, and learning.

,