Who invented the drive-in theater?
In 1932, a man named Richard Hollingshead placed a screen in front of his garage in Riverton, New Jersey, and sat in his car to watch a movie.
He did so so that he could become the first person in a car to watch a movie, and thus obtain a patent on the idea, which would prevent anyone else from using it.
Hollingshead created the first drive-in shortly after in a vacant lot in Camden, New Jersey. The lot had room for 400 vehicles. But then the government declared that Hollingshead did not have the patent on the idea, and many other people started creating their own drive-in movie theaters.
In 1948, there were 820 movie theaters in the United States, and in its heyday during the 1960s, the total had increased to more than 4,000.
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