GOOD OLD DAYS:

There are the well-known theaters of the area’s past, like the Port. Their buildings still stand, evoking easily accessed memories.

And then there are the ones that live on in the minds of area residents — like the Mesa and the Paulo.

The Mesa Theater was built in 1948 on Newport Boulevard at 19th Street. Local newspapers from the time hailed it for its lavishness.

A year later, the Paulo Drive-in Theatre opened on the northwest corner of Newport Boulevard and Paularino Avenue.

The Mesa was a result of a city ballot that asked which structure residents would next like to have after World War II.

After building controls were removed, the $175,000 structure opened Nov. 4, 1948.

Its operators — who also ran the nearby Lido and Balboa venues — didn’t cut corners, adding accouterments like luxury seats, smoking and crying rooms. Admission was 60 cents.

Attendance declined after the Mesa’s purchase by Edwards Theatres, which eventually made it a second-run, $1-per-ticket venue before demolishing it in 1998, according to Ron Pierce, a local expert on theater history.

Today, its land is capped by Borders Books.

The Paulo Drive-In operated from July 1949 to February 1976, and took four months and $300,000 to build.

“The Paulo grand opening in 1949 featured movie stars, radio stars, a gala stage show, Hollywood lights, music, glamour, fun and spectacular fireworks,” said Art Goddard of the Costa Mesa Historical Society.

The double feature on opening night was “Streets of Laredo” and “City Across the River.”

After a short time as a Cabart theater, operated by the owners of the venerable Cabart in Long Beach, the Paulo joined Pacific Theatres, which also operated the Orange Drive-In and other properties.

The single 40-by-60-foot screen drive-in served thousands of postwar families in the area’s housing boom.

Surrounded by fields and farm houses, the theater could hold hundreds of viewers in its quarter-pie-slice-shaped lot.

In its later years, the drive-in began showing Spanish-language films, but sunk into decline.

Its final showing — a double billing of sexploitation films “Flesh Gordon” and “The Cheerleaders” — was an inauspicious end to the drive-in’s saga; it was later demolished to make room for housing developments.

The theater was likely named after the town of Paularino, which briefly stood near the area where the 55, 405 and 73 freeways intersect.

The name Paularino was a butchered version of ranchero Eduardo Polloreno’s last name, according to county historian Phil Brigandi. His 1855 adobe was said to have been on a bluff near the Diego Sepulveda Adobe.

To further add to the confusion, a man who claims to be a direct descendant of Polloreno claimed in 2005 that the spelling was actually Poyorena.

CANDICE BAKER can be reached at (714) 466-4631 or at candice.baker@latimes.com.