HISTORY
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WESTERN STAR DRIVE-IN
After opening a small but successful drive-in at Dove Creek, Colo., in 1953, and a less successful one in Holbrook in early 1955, Elizabeth Young and her son Robert tried again—this time in Buckeye. They named their new theater after the Holbrook site: the Western Star Drive-In. Its first mention in The Arizona Republic came on Sept. 26, 1955, when it appeared in an Independent Theatre ad for The Country Girl starring Bing Crosby and Grace Kelly. Clockwise: At the Buckeye Museum, Deanne Miller Forney confirmed her undated family photo was indeed the Western Star. A 1971 aerial photo shows the drive-in and its screen. A 1955 newspaper ad promotes the original Western Star opening in Holbrook. Buckeye would follow just a few months later.
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In 1957, the Louis F. Long theatre company, which also owned Buckeye’s indoor Roxy Theatre, purchased the Western Star from Robert and Elizabeth Young. “The new owner made immediate arrangements to replace the big screen which blew down in an early spring windstorm,” Boxoffice magazine noted at the time. The Motion Picture Almanac first listed Buckeye’s Western Star in its 1957 edition, with Robert Young as owner and a capacity of 200 cars. By the 1960
edition, ownership had shifted to L. F. Long Theatres, where it remained through at least 1967. By 1969, the drive- in had disappeared from the listings. The site lingered a little longer on the ground. The drive-in and its screen still appeared in this 1971 aerial photo and were outlined in a 1972 topo map. But by 1981, housing had replaced them — though a 1988 topo map continued to show the drive-in, a reminder that such maps aren’t always reliable.
Source: Cinema Treasures
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InBuckeye.com | September 2025
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