As the sun sets on a Wednesday night in September, the sky in Oregon, a suburb of Toledo, is still flooded with light. It is community night at Parkside Drive-In and engines rumble in anticipation of tonight鈥檚 feature, 鈥淕rease.鈥�
The Parkside Drive-in opened in Oregon in 1949. It鈥檚 hung on through tornadoes and recessions and several name changes. Last year, it was hit with another challenge: The drive-in鈥檚 lease on the land it sits on expired. The owners announced they wouldn鈥檛 renew it.
That stunned community members, like Jennifer Beaver, who saw the drive-in as part of what made Oregon special.
鈥淭his little area used to have eight drive-ins,鈥� Beaver said. 鈥淎nd this is the last one.鈥�
In the 1960s, Ohio was home to nearly 200 drive-in theaters. All but 24 of those have shuttered. Beaver and other drive-in movie theater evangelists are fighting to make sure their beloved community drive-in isn鈥檛 next.
An oasis of memories
Beaver used to work part-time at the drive-in, where she managed the concession stand to save up money for her wedding. She fell in love with the fun atmosphere.
鈥淲e get used to, in this area, having one. But if you talk to people from other areas that don't have one, they've never experienced it. And I really would have hated to see this place bulldozed into storage units or something,鈥� she said.
So, when she heard the news that it would be closing its doors, she couldn鈥檛 sit back and watch. She started a nonprofit in July of 2022, called 鈥淪ave Our Screen,鈥� dedicated to keeping it open.
She took over the drive- in鈥檚 operations, started collecting donations and assembled volunteers like Scott Jaegly. He saw his first movie here in 1978 when he was just nine years old. He鈥檚 a film buff, but he also just loves the way the drive-in makes him feel. The smell of popcorn blowing in the breeze steeps him in nostalgia.
鈥淚f you want to travel back in time, you come to the drive-in. That's going to take you back to a time when things were a lot simpler and a lot better,鈥� Jaegly said.
Something special
It鈥檚 not just locals that come to Parkside. Tonight, someone drove all the way from Texas to watch 鈥淕rease.鈥� Beaver said its ability to attract visitors from across the country is another reason to preserve the theater.
鈥淥hio is one of the major places left where there is a drive-in,鈥� Beaver said. 鈥淭he majority of them are in New York, Pennsylvania and Ohio.鈥�
Beaver said she thinks this spot is the perfect place for the first National Drive-In Museum. She wants Ohio to be at the epicenter of preserving this slice of Americana.
鈥淎 lot of times when a place like this closes, everything gets scrapped. Nobody's saving that stuff,鈥� Beaver said.
To do that, though, they have to own the land. Beaver鈥檚 negotiated a deal with the landowners to keep the theater open through next summer. But, the organization needs to raise just over a million dollars to buy it outright.
The future
Until then, Beaver and her team will continue to show movies and take the orders of the influx of customers that line up each week for pizza, popcorn and pretzels. Beaver鈥檚 daughter, Piper, now manages concessions, just like her mom did years ago.
When she鈥檚 not buttering popcorn, the sixteen-year-old is thinking up ideas on how to bring more people to Parkside. She said she doesn鈥檛 want to be the last generation to see movies under the stars.
鈥淚 want to create an attraction,鈥� Piper said. 鈥淚 want to make a very, very popular drive-in. And make our own kind of mark on the drive-in world.鈥�
To Piper, drive-ins aren鈥檛 a thing of the past. They鈥檙e her future, and she doesn鈥檛 want to see them left in the rearview mirror.