Malden Drive-in


HISTORY OF MALDEN DRIVE-IN



Opened as Cuppie's Drive-In on June 29, 1947. Only operating drive-in in Washington County at this point.

  The first drive-in was built June 6, 1933, located in Camden, New Jersey by Richard M. Hollingshead, jr., and called the Camden Drive In.   (Photo 1) Photo 2 The first drive-in in Pennsylvania was built in 1937, by the same people who owned the New Jersey drive-in.

In 1947, Mr. Kaup, from Malden Pennsylvania built a drive-in called Cuppies Drive-In. In 1976 the Shashura family purchased the drive-in from Mr. Kaup. They changed the name to Malden Drive-In. On September 13, 1989 a brother, Wesley Rager Jr.and sister, Wendy (Rager) Haywood purchased the Malden Drive-In. In 2004 Wendy (Rager) Haywood and her brother Wesley Rager split the land and drive-in. Wendy is the current owner/manager of the drive-in getting lots of help from her family and friends.

Projectors
There are two (2) Xenex projectors, these projectors use 3,000 watt lamps as a light source. Each projector has two (2) forty (40) inch reels one on either side of the projector. The purpose of the two reels is one feeds the film and the other catches the film.
In 2003 Malden Drive-In updated it's projectors to the red light sound system. Currently, Malden has only one projector with one complete projector to be used as spare parts. Where the other projector was is now a 3 tier platter system.

Sound:  Old System:
The sound starts at the source either the projectors pick-up tube or a radio, which is played before the movie. The sound goes into a pre-amp, then to the amp, before hitting the driver amp, which gives it an extra push to the speakers. There is three (3) types of sound at the drive-in. The first type of sound used are the vacuum tube amps. We have four (4) 100 watt tube amps. The amps are used in pairs for maximum sound quality and no one amp has to work hard. So one set is in use while one set sits idle on standby. Also as alternative there is a solid state 100 watt amp. New System: