He installed a small gas station at one drive-in. He ran more than 50 outdoor and indoor theaters in Illinois, Wisconsin, Indiana and Michigan. Late founder Stan Kohlberg was a drive-in visionary. The Cascade began its life in 1961with a screening of Henry Fonda’s “Mister Roberts” and Troy Donahue’s “Parrish.” The Cascade was opened by the Kohlberg Theatres chain. I told the owners they had an open invitation to drink Pepsi-Cola from paper cups and watch movies in my driveway. I bought a paper cup soft drink dispenser for $25. But I had to go back to the projection booth/concession stand one more time. A vintage popcorn machine was on sale for $175-even in the early 2000s, the Cascade had three popcorn machines going at the same time. ![]() ![]() For $10 I bought a CD of drive-in movie pop songs that were played at the Cascade: Andy Williams “Can’t Get Used to Losing You,’ the Everly Brothers “Bye Bye Love,” the Dell-Vikings “Come Go With Me” and 26 others. I later realized this was my untitled sequel to the Skylark. So on the weekend before the fourth anniversary of my Dad’s death I was scrounging around a forsaken drive-in movie theater. The society placed the speaker in a glass case with a brief history of the Skylark along with my Dad’s name. The aluminum drive-in speaker sat in my parent’s basement for years until I donated it to the Theater Historical Society of America, then located above the York Theatre in Elmhurst. He was born in 1920, so the idea of a family sitting in a car watching a movie through a drive-in speaker on a big screen had to be mind-blowing. The whole drive-in thing resonated with him. I know the date because he also took pictures. This was the kind of rogue behavior I would have engaged in. He walked through the weeds and grabbed a drive-in movie speaker right off its post. This was awesome for a polite man of gentle intentions. In May of 1988 my Dad wandered over to the Skylark. There are no curtain calls at drive-in theaters. Weeds grew around the speaker stands, the poles became full of rust and the Skylark sign fell into shadows. The Skylark sat abandoned for a few years. The Skylark closed in 1987 and was sold to real estate developers. The owner of the Cascade’s land also has put the 28-acre property up for sale but has not submitted any new plans to the City of West Chicago. When most of my high school classmates were going to sweet dances or nice movie theaters, a group of us would sometimes adjourn to Row Five of the Skylark, drink beer and watch bad horror movies. ![]() It was near the old Skylark Drive-In off of Route 59 on the Naperville-Aurora border. My parents finally built a ranch house in Naperville. I also remembered staying at the Du Wayne Motel on Route 64 in West Chicago when my parents were looking to build a new life in the western suburbs. John’s closed in 2017 after a 96-year run leaving nothing but ghosts. And, as an adult a road trip from Chicago to the Cascade followed by a visit to John’s Buffet in Winfield made for a perfect Saturday night date.Īs I wandered down Route 64 (North Avenue) I thought about the live Dixieland jazz behind the bar at John’s Buffet. I spent several summer nights at the Cascade while growing up in Naperville. When spring opened its renewing arms for the first time last Saturday, I went to the liquidation sale at the Cascade Drive-In on old Route 64 in West Chicago, Ill.
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