Off Interstate 45 about 20 miles south of Dallas, a man named Martin Murray has built a time machine: one that could possibly take Jacksonville movie patrons back more than 50 years.

Murray is part owner of Galaxy Drive-In movie theater, a museum to a mostly extinct industry - extinct, at least, in Jacksonville since around 1976, when the Chief drive-in closed.

The Chief was located off the Rusk Highway at the old underpass just outside the city limits then, now roundabout where Beall's department store sits.

Mildred Lughenbuhl, wife of the late Robert Lughenbuhl who served as manager of East Texas Theatres movie houses in Jacksonville, remembers the life of the Chief all too well.

"Drive-ins just got so popular back in the '50s that East Texas Theatres decided to build one here," she said. "Robert, of course, was the district manager at that time, and the district offices were out of the Chief. He loved the people and enjoyed managing it, and well, that was just his livelihood."

The Chief opened on April 16, 1953, to a packed crowd and a full parking lot. Tickets were 50 cents each.

"You could get popcorn for 25 cents, and drinks were 10 cents, and candy was also really cheap," Lughenbuhl said. "Now if you take a date to the movie, you have to spend a lot of money. Then it was just a good time for not much.

"Also at that time, you had to dress up to go to the theater," she said. "But at the drive-in, you didn't have to. You could just get in your car and go."

Lughehnbuhl said the theatre accommodated between 350-400 cars, which would drive in through the box office where an attendant would handle the ticket purchasing and also wash windshields. Attendants even changed tires and provided free gas if the need arose.

The screen was roughly nine times larger than conventional theatre screens, and the theatre also featured a 300-capacity air conditioned auditorium, a concession area, and a playground for kids.

"The times I went, I enjoyed sitting around the concession area and just seeing people and talking with them," Lughenbuhl said. "If you wanted to sit and talk, you could sit and talk. If you wanted to watch a movie, you could watch a movie. And you could take your kids, and they could go to the playground and make all the noise they wanted. It just allowed a lot of freedom."

Of course then, she said, young people had very little to do in town besides going to the theatre.

"It was a teenage hangout most of the time," she said.

Local residents who remember the Chief said they would mostly watch movies from lawn chairs in the backs of pickup trucks.

"You could sit in your car or go upstairs where it was heated and air conditioned and sit there," said Frank Gillespie, once manager of the Chief. "Those who could stay up a while would sit and see five movies at a time."

Gillespie said sometimes that could take them well into the night, as the sun was problematic for outdoor projection, and movies would not start in the summertime until 9 p.m.

"It was just something different for a movie," Gillespie said. "There was just such a difference from regular theaters. It was pretty. You could see the movies under the stars."

Now, people like Murray are trying to recreate that magic.

Texas drive-ins are seeing the biggest surge in decades, as Galaxy is among at least five outdoor theaters to open since 2003.

The latest debuted in Killeen, near the Fort Hood military post, on July 1, and a new two-screen in the West Texas town of Midland is expected to open in August.

Several more are planned. Steve Rodman, owner of the Crossroads Drive-In in Shiner, between Houston and San Antonio, hopes to open a Houston theater by February.

Texas went from 388 drive-ins in 1955 to 18 today, but is a nostalgia-powered comeback in the making?

Despite these building trends, Lughenbuhl doesn't seem to think so.

"It was just a novelty, and once the novelty wore off, people stopped coming," she said. "Plus it was too cold in the winter and too hot in the summer. No one wants to be outside anymore.

"I think there are just more things for people to do now," she said. "It's just a different time."

Gillespie said the reason for the closing of the Chief was the disparity between the property value, as it covered an expansive area, and the actual revenue.

"The property just got valuable, and they could sell the property for more than the theatre was bringing in," he said.

"These things are put outside the city limits, generally, but then the cities move out and join them, and they're just not worth keeping."

But now the novelty, at least, might be waxing anew.

Regardless, Murray isn't worried about his business, which has been open since 1992. He thinks the industry will do just fine, provided it doesn't become as saturated as it did in 1955.

But, it was a different time then.

Originally published online here: http://www.jacksonvilleprogress.com/articles/2005/08/02/news/newx05.txt