Where the register puts the drive-in

What the imagery shows

2012-08-22

2023-07-29

Full observation: Beverly Drive-In, Hattiesburg, Mississippi, 2012 and 2023 →

Public inventories often describe places that no one has visited in years, and the locations they record can be out of date or imprecise. The Beverly Drive-In is a small, clear example. The National Register of Historic Places lists the property, records its address on U.S. Highway 49, and maps its boundary. That boundary sits on the wrong lot.

In the August 2012 image the drive-in is easy to identify: the fan of parking ramps, the screen at the apex, and the access road curving in from the highway. The register's outline is the amber box to the north, which covers woods and an open field. The distance between the center of the outline and the center of the ramps is about 280 meters.

By July 2023 the ramps have been removed and an apartment complex stands on the site. The register continues to list the theater, and its "still standing" field reads Unknown.

This is not a criticism of the register. It records what was submitted when the property was nominated, and no one is funded to revisit each entry. Comparing recorded locations against current imagery is useful for the same reason: it identifies the entries that warrant a second look without sending anyone to the site.

Sources

• National Park Service, National Register of Historic Places, reference 08000761 (Beverly Drive-In Theatre). Boundary polygon from the nrhp_locations map service, layer 1, queried 16 September 2026. Fields at query time: STATUS=Listed, IS_EXTANT=Unknown, certified 30 July 2008.
• USDA National Agriculture Imagery Program, scenes ms_m_3108946_se_16_1_20120822_20121010 (22 August 2012, 1 m) and ms_m_3108946_se_16_060_20230729_20240103 (29 July 2023, 0.6 m), via the Microsoft Planetary Computer catalog.
• Local news coverage of the 2010 fire (WDAM, "Historic Beverly Drive-In destroyed by fire").

Method

Both aerial images were reprojected to the same 1.1 km by 0.6 km window (UTM zone 16N) and are shown in true color. The register polygon was projected onto the same grid and drawn in amber. The offset is the straight-line distance between the polygon's centroid and the visual center of the ramp pattern in the 2012 image, measured on the grid. No automated detection was used. This note is a worked example of the comparison rather than an output of it.

Caveats and limitations

• This is a single site. It illustrates the kind of mismatch that exists in public inventories and says nothing about how common that mismatch is.
• The 280 m figure was measured by eye against the ramp pattern and should be read as approximate.
• "Continues to list" reflects the map service on the date queried. The register's official list of removed properties can lag or differ.
• Aerial imagery shows what is visible from above. It does not establish ownership, legal status, or the register's reasons.