I am new here and just wanted to get a discussion started on abandoned amusement parks. I put together a video of my trip to Santa's Village after it had been closed for 1 1/2 years it was awesome and would love to see any media/hear and stories from parks you have visit after they were abandoned or closed. The link is suburban food: Santa's Village Amusement Park - Abandoned Thanks!

Welcome to TN. I actually live near the former Opryland amusement park, and it's funny to see remnants here and there, as most of it has been redeveloped into a mall as well as improvements to Opryland itself.

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Everytime I ride a coaster, it valleys. I've never been on a stalled coaster or had one roll back (except Wicked Twister and what was Superman: Ultimate Escape, which does that by design).

Welcome to TN, Stevesteve. Cool video. Would be better if the place were still open, but...

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My neighbor got a big new house, and all I got was his lousy payments

I'll actually be driving past Myrtle Beach Pavilion's site in 2 weeks and that will be a sad site. From what I hear nothing is left but an empty lot.

Pavilion was a great classic seaside park and I hate B&C for closing it.

Incidentally (and I'm not sure how true this is) I just heard from a friend that the reason B&C closed it like they did and then let the lot sit empty was that they knew if they kept the park open one more year, it would be designated a historic landmark. How's that for a wonderful corporate citizen?

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Intimidator Coming in 2010 to Carowinds!

Welcome to the site. Thanks for the video It was interesting to see the park. I'm amazed how often I hear news about this park despite it being gone. Looks like a solid park that met an untimely end.

As for abandoned/closed parks. I will be driving by the property that housed Benson's Animal farm.New England Playworld. It was a Zoo that started in the mid 60's adding rides and other attractions. by the early 80's the Park and zoo offered more animals then both of Boston zoos and a solid ride selection. They had a goal to be an attraction like Busch gardens in Fl. but the economy had other plans. High intrest rates adn a bad business deal with the owner of Riverside park(now SFNE) killed the park. The name change was a last ditch effort to save the park and many rides were added including a roller coaster in it's last year of operation.

Whalom park in Ayer MA is another one. It operated for 104 years before shutting down in 2002. But there is some hope. I've been working with a group trying to reopen the park.
check out the web site and forums: New Whalom Park Ownership Program, LLC

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Michael C

Lesourdsville Lake.

I live 5 minutes away from this park. Long live Screechin' Eagle.

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Wood #1 Voyage, #2 Renegade, #3 T-Express, #4 Boulder Dash, #5 Ghostrider

I went to Lesourdesville Lake back when it was Americana and I was too short to ride the Screechin' Eagle.

More recently, I went to Libertyland in Memphis TN during it's last year of operation. The Zippin Pippin, AFAIK, is the oldest standing coaster in the US (built in 1912) and finally became a historical landmark only after the city of Memphis threatened to tear it down after the park closed. It was sold at auction for $2,500, and the people who purchased it took the trains off (that's all they wanted) and gave it to the Save Libertyland! group, who is trying to get it moved to Mud Island River Park on the Memphis riverfront. I look forward to riding the amazing Pippin (which is still run with the old fashioned lever system, and had non-adjustable locking lap bars, no seatbelts and no dividers in the seats so that you always felt like you were about to go flying out on the corners) once it is settled in a new home.

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05.16, 05.17, 05.18, 06.05, 06.06: Cedar Point
05.25.09-06.01.09: KD, SFA, BGE, SFGAdv, Morey's & More!
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2009 Diamondback laps: 41

I think The Pyramid Arena Redevelopment is going downhill for an amusement park so if Pippin could go to that Memphis public park that would be great.

For all my life I've been looking at a vacant Burlington Island near my house that had an amusement park in the 20s that burned down. There's a big concrete foundation for a carousel of some sort but the site for the Greyhound out and back coaster was excavated for sand in the 60's. I work with a board that is trying to redevelop the island. It has taken years for them to move.

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2008 & 2009 TN Coaster Draft Champion
You knew I wanted the other repeat too

The people who are trying to develop the Pyramid Arena into an amusement park are the people who are trying to put the Pippin on Mud Island. They want to develop that entire area but the city of Memphis is blocking their efforts. The city still wants Bass Pro Shops to move into the Pyramid even though Bass Pro has said they aren't interested anymore, so they won't sell the Pyramid to this other group even though it'd be better for the city and for downtown redevelopment.

Here's the plans for what they want to do, but they don't show where they'll put the Pippin because this was all drawn up before Save Libertyland! offered to give them the coaster if they get the go-ahead.
Pyramid Harbor - Home

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05.16, 05.17, 05.18, 06.05, 06.06: Cedar Point
05.25.09-06.01.09: KD, SFA, BGE, SFGAdv, Morey's & More!
06.18.09: Holiday World
2009 Diamondback laps: 41