Other drive-in theater owners had to pay royalties to Hollingshead until his patent was invalidated in 1950. He called it the Automobile Movie Theatre. According to, Shankweiler's has never been closed for a season in its nearly 90-year history.Ī year earlier, in June of 1933, a man named Richard Hollingshead opened the first patented drive-in theater in Camden, NJ. Shankweiler's in Orefield in Lehigh County opened in 1934, the second drive-in to open in the country.
The oldest drive-in theater in PA is also the oldest in the country that's still in operation.
