Drive-In Theaters

Local drive-in theaters were very popular attractions for people of all ages and families from the late 1940s into the 1980s. They were meeting places for teens and an inexpensive movie night out for families and adults.

Two drive-ins existed in the Newark and Heath area. They were the Valley Drive-In Theater, located at 1300 N. 21st Street in Newark, and the Heath Drive-In Theater, located on State Route 79 (Hebron Road) in Heath near Hebron. The family of Myron Price built and owned both drive-in theaters beginning with the Valley Drive-In Theater in 1948. Initially the screen was 60 feet and later was enlarged to 100 feet. The screens were made of war surplus bridge panels erected on steel beams.

Myron Price’s father had been a projectionist at an indoor theater in Mount Vernon in the early 1900s and several family members joined together to manage Newark’s Grand theater after World War II.

The Price family built the Valley Drive-In in 1948 and the Heath Drive-In in 1953. They remained popular into the 1970s. With the advent of videocassettes enabling the public to view movies in their homes, interest in drive-in movies waned in the 1980s. Both drive-in theaters closed in 1987.

The Price Family had the Valley Drive-In demolished in 1996. The site would later be used as the Newark location of the Home Depot store. The Heath Drive-In screen was not repaired, and the site was not renovated.

K.W.