The community of Ensley has a long history dating back to the beginning of the nineteenth century when the area was part of a land grant granted to Jeptha Turvin by Spanish Governor Folch.

Ensley has steadily grown over the course of two centuries and the Holiday Drive-In served as a social gathering for the residents through the second half of the twentieth century.

The Holiday Drive-In opened on March 7, 1956 with the film Indian Fighter. The drive-in was located on Highway 29 about one-and-a-half miles north of Nine Mile Road. It featured a one hundred foot screen and a four channel stereophonic sound system. There was one main building that housed the concession stand, and there was a playground on the site for children.

Some of the films shown throughout the 1950s and 60s included Sleeping Beauty, Loving You, and Alexander the Great. The Holiday Drive-In was one of at least five drive-ins that were present in Pensacola.

In the 1970s there was a general decline in the popularity of drive-in movie theaters. The advent of malls and plaza movie theaters that could show multiple movies at any given time played a major role in the decline.

By roughly 1975 the Holiday Drive-In, as well as most of the other drive-ins in the area, had closed. Today Pensacola Ready Mix USA occupies the site.

Written by University of West Florida Public History Student Ricky Gomez.