About Us
The Francis family has been showing movies in Newberg for three generations.
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The 99W and the Cameo
A Brief History of Movies in Newberg
By Brian Francis
The 99W Drive-In Theatre opened in August 1953 with Sea Devils and Under the Sahara as the first features to be played there. The theater was built by my grandfather, J.T. (Ted) Francis who, at 98 years old, worked six nights a week at the Cameo Theatre until a few weeks before his death in 1999.
The Cameo is a nice single-screen cement-poured movie house built in 1937 and located in downtown Newberg. It is open every night of the week.
The 99W Drive-In was a single screen drive-in from opening until 1983 when we built an indoor Twin Cinema on the property in order to be able to stay open year-round. The indoor theaters have 225 seats each, while the drive-in can park from 275 to 300 cars. The Twin closed in 2015 when available films ran out due to the film industry's move to digital.
The 99W Drive-In is presently on its third screen!
The first was lost in the Columbus Day Storm of 1962. It blew our marquee letters half a mile away and also destroyed the screen in neighboring McMinnville at the Corral Drive-In. The Corral was, coincidentally, run by three parties, one of which was the Francis family. However, the Corral did not continue to stay in business after the loss of it's screen. Currently there is a Wilco Farm Supply store where the drive-in once stood and is, curiously, right next to a Walmart.
We rebuilt our screen and it lasted until 1990 when another gust knocked it down. That might have been it for us since business had slowed down at that point. Luckily we hit upon the idea to move a screen from a closed drive-in in Portland, the 104th Street Drive-In Theater, and that solved our problem of not having a screen.
Since 1994 we have been having larger car counts every year! Business was strong in the 50's to late 70's and was awful in the 80's and early 90's. It shot way up starting in 1994 when other neighboring drive-ins started closing down.
We soon started getting prints a lot earlier due to the enormous print counts required to cover all the new existing indoor screens at the multi- and mega-plexes. We can now book any title just a few weeks into its release where a decade ago it took a month or longer to get the same level of movie.
Portland now has no drive-ins and we are only 23 miles away. As a result we get a lot of out of town business. We have regulars who drive down from Washington and other farther towns here in Oregon.
In 2014 the 99W Drive-In Theatre was added to the National Register of Historic Places. It was joined by the Cameo Theatre in 2018, making both theaters owned by the Francis family nationally recognized as historic places in Oregon and the United States.
We have had radio sound since 1983 when we retired the in-car speakers and added AM broadcast sound. FM broadcast sound was added in 1993.
Part of our nostalgic appeal is that I maintain the old concession snack bar reel between shows so it's what you call a real intermission. Sometimes an older movie trailer is added for fun if it seems appropriate. Of course I am always looking to buy snack bar trailers since they do wear out and it is best to build up a reserve of this material for future presentation.
We open the drive-in around late April or early May and usually go until late October.
Hope to see you there!
The Cameo is open every night of the year except Christmas Eve.
Construction of the 99W Drive-In Theatre, 1953
Just over 30 minutes from Portland, Hillsboro and Beaverton, 40 minutes from Salem and only 25 minutes from McMinnville, The 99W Drive-In Theatre is closer than you think. Come on out for an evening of fun, friends, family, entertainment and memories.
*Lasting Memories included with admission*