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A Trip Down Memory Lane Through Drive-In Theaters
Joe Quaintance, who built more than 30 drive-in theaters from Virginia to New York, at home near Culpeper.
(By Eugene Scheel)
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Some drive-ins, such as the one in Warrenton, stayed open for 30 years. Others lasted until the 1990s. Television was a factor in their demise, but it was the mushrooming price of land near towns that induced Pitts's organization to sell for a tidy profit.
Quaintance withdrew from 42 years of wiring drive-ins in 1980, but well before that he prepared for retirement by buying property. He also owns and manages two water systems serving about 100 homes on the outskirts of Culpeper.
One nearby vestige of the cinematic past survives: Family Drive In, one mile south of Stephens City, on U.S. 11 in Frederick County, Va. For show times, call 540-665-6982 or visit http:/
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In my March 23 column on the official Loudoun County coat of arms, I mentioned that no one I had spoken with in county government had seen it in many years. An observant Leesburg lawyer, Stephen Price, spotted the coat of arms in the basement of the Circuit Court clerk's office and told me about it. Archivist John Fishback verified that it's still framed and hanging in the depths of the office's archives.
Eugene Scheel is a historian and mapmaker who lives in Waterford.
