“After the Heart of Illinois Fair closed in late July, you saw (drive-in) attendance go down,” he said. The Starlite was the last area drive-in to close in 1991. The drive-in season ran from Memorial Day to Labor Day in the Peoria area, recalled Larkin, who also worked at both the Pioneer and Starlite drive-ins.

While drive-ins enjoyed national success in the 1950s and 1960s, they started disappearing from the scene in the 1980s, particularly in urban areas where the cost of land was more conducive to a year-round endeavor than a seasonal drive-in. Other area drive-ins followed: the Starlite in Pekin in 1950 and the Pioneer and Holiday drive-ins in Peoria, both opening in the 1960s. “The Bellevue’s claim to fame was it was the largest drive-in south of the Chicago area,” said Farris. Next came the Bellevue Drive-in, three miles west of Peoria, which opened in 1948, noted Chris Farris, reference assistant librarian at the Peoria Public Library. The Peoria Drive-in was the area’s first drive-in, opening in October 1947. After working in concessions, he became a projectionist at the theater in 1975.

The son of Frank Larkin, the longtime manager of the Kerasotes theater group in the Peoria area, Larkin first worked at the Peoria Drive-in on Glen Avenue in 1972. “They really didn’t have the room for a proper drive-in,” said Larkin, who recalled working at several area drive-ins in the 1970s.

Kim said tickets for family-fare favorites like “Goonies” and “Ferris Buehler’s Day Off” are sold online at The drive-in concept was attempted in 2013 in the parking lot outside the Landmark Cinema in Peoria, but failed to attract a following, said Michael Larkin, a Peorian who worked at the location. “We wanted to see if we could do something so that the community could come together-that people could be socially integrated but physically distant,” said Kim, noting that films will run Friday and Saturday nights through mid-August. Peoria developer Katie Kim is providing a drive-in film series this summer at the Keller Station location at Knoxville and Northmoor avenues. The drive-in era has come and gone in Peoria, but the pandemic is giving new life to the concept of watching a movie in the privacy of one’s car.

Drive in theatre peoria il