Auto Vue Drive-In Theatre

The story

Drive 75 miles north of Coeur d'Alene into Stevens County and you'll hit a four-and-a-half-acre field along US-395, squeezed between Colville and Kettle Falls at the base of Rattlesnake Mountain [1.1.1]. Opened in June 1953, the Auto Vue Drive-In is the single remaining outdoor movie screen in all of Eastern Washington. While Spokane's seven drive-in theaters all went under decades ago, this 220-car gravel lot survived on sheer stubbornness and dark rural skies.

The theater spent fifty years under the stewardship of the Wisner family, who bought it in 1974. Steve Wisner took the reins in the 1990s and lived in an apartment above the concession stand for 16 years. When the film industry forced a pivot from 35mm prints to digital projection in 2013, the Auto Vue nearly closed for good, but local community fundraising and salvaged hardware kept the screen standing. In 2024, Wisner handed off the drive-in alongside Colville's historic indoor Alpine Theatre to Colville native Andrew Ross and Scott Aslakson, keeping the screen lit for the next generation.

You won't find old post-mounted metal speakers to hang on your window—those were hauled away back in 1982. Instead, you tune your vehicle's stereo to their FM frequency and watch double features through your windshield or from a truck bed. Between features, you walk up to the Spanish-Deco concession building for popcorn, soda, and hot pizza under stars unpolluted by city glow.