Six Flags Great America - Part 1: Marriott in the Midwest.

April 06, 2019 by Dave Gottwald

After a rather unengaging six hours spent at Michigan’s Adventure, I had only planned on assigning a single day to Six Flags Great America, just a ferry ride away across the waters of Lake Michigan located in the VIllage of Gurnee, Illinois. But the park surprised me with much more to take in than I anticipated, and I ended up spending two days instead.

Six Flags Great America, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

A Tale of Two Americas

Seeing the success of Disneyland clones like Six Flags Over Texas and its sequel Six Flags Over Georgia, in the early 1970s the Marriott Corporation sought to expand their core hospitality business and get in on the action. The company wisely took advantage of the coming American Bicentennial and planned two sister theme parks called “Great America” as a tribute to the history of the United States.

Both Great America parks—this one in Illinois between Chicago and Milwaukee, and the other in Northern California near the Bay Area—were liberally sprinkled with the Disney design approach to nostalgia: a narrow-gauge railroad circling the property, vernacular architecture rendered in forced perspective, individually themed lands—it’s all there.

Even a weenie! Rather than a castle at the end of a main street, drawing the public forward, at the Great America parks a double-decker carousel sits at the end of a long pool. In Illinois it’s known as the Columbia Carousel, and out in California it’s known—conversely—as the Carousel Columbia (where it still remains the world’s tallest carousel).

The California park opened on March 20, 1976 and its counterpart in Illinois followed on May 29. Yet just like Kings Island and Kings Dominion, the layout and design of the sister parks has diverged over the years. I guess it’s like two twins who are born identical, but then develop their own unique characteristics and personality—personhood—as they mature. And even more distinctly so if the twins grow up in different environments.

Six Flags Great America 1987 souvenir park map poster.

After Marriot divested of them to focus on its hotels, the Great America parks went through a series of various owners. Six Flags has owned the Illinois park—in one corporate guise or another—since 1984. The California park went much the way of Kings Island, being owned first by Paramount and then passing to Cedar Fair in 2006. Thus since the 1980s, the changes to each park have been unique, but the focus has been the same—an emphasis on roller coasters and more traditional amusement park rides.

California’s Great America (left) as compared with Six Flags Great America (right). Map data: Ⓒ Google.

In California, Great America has been hemmed in on all sides in the City of Santa Clara by housing developments, business parks, and even a sports stadium. Conversely, in Illinois the park was built well outside Chicago in the Village of Gurnee, which was pretty much in the middle of nowhere back in the 1970s, and still remains somewhat so today. Thus Six Flags America has had ample berth to widen beyond the original park boundaries; California’s Great America, much less so.

Both Great America parks feature an Intamin Gyro tower ride just to the right of Carousel Plaza. The Gurnee park’s version is called the Sky Trek Tower.

Up in the tower there are magnificent views from some 300 feet in the air. What struck me the most was how much more verdant this Great America park is compared with the one in California. There are dense trees surrounding each and every land, and it really adds significantly to the charm of the place.

Original organization of Great America, with “Duell Loop” and central service corridor. Underlay map data: Ⓒ Google.

Thrown for a Loop

Both Great America parks were designed by Southern California firm R. Duell & Associates.

Like nearly every creative professional who came to practice thematic design, Randall Duell began his career as an architect but struggled to find work in that field during the Great Depression, so he took jobs for Hollywood movie studios as an art director. He had over 30 MGM titles to his credits, including The Wizard of Oz (1939) Singin’ in the Rain (1952), when he left the business in 1959.

Blue-line site plan dated October 30, 1974.

Duell first collaborated with C.V. Wood and Wade Rubottom on the failed Freedomland U.S.A. theme park in The Bronx, New York before founding R. Duell & Associates in the early 1960s. That park had featured many Disneyland-esque elements which would return in Duell’s subsequent park designs, the first of which was Six Flags Over Texas, which his company developed for Angus G. Wynne. It opened in 1961 and serves as the basis for the Six Flags chain we know today.

Service corridor as seen on a concept painting of the Gurnee park.

Characteristic of his Texas project was Wynne’s desire to ‘one-up’ Disneyland, and one way in which Duell and his design team did that was in proposing a loop instead of a hub-and-spoke model. Duell repeated this device so many times at the parks he designed that industry folks still refer to it as the Duell Loop. In the Great America model, there is a service corridor placed through the middle section which allows the various lands to be serviced without disrupting the flow of guests.

Great America under construction, winter of 1975–76.

The original themed areas or ‘lands’ within the design of both Great America parks on their respective opening days (clockwise from entry) were Carousel Plaza, Orleans Place, Yukon Territory, The Great Midwest Livestock Exposition at County Fair (now just County Fair), and Hometown Square. In 1996, Southwest Territory was finally added to the park, outside the railroad berm to the right of the square.

Another tradition borrowed from Disneyland are framed promotional posters on display throughout the park. Unlike Disney, however, here at Great America there is a poster for each land as opposed to individual attractions.

When Disneyland operated under the original A–E ticket system, such posters served to advertise the park’s offerings to guests—especially ones they might overlook. In the era of single-ticket admission, they only serve a commemorative, perhaps nostalgic purpose.

The illustration style for this poster series reminds me very much of those drawn for Knott’s Berry Farm in the early 1980s—it’s painterly but somewhat cartoonish at the same time.

The Orleans Place poster features the Arrow steel coaster ShockWave (1988–2002) and Yankee Harbor one sports Bolliger & Mabillard’s inverted prototype Batman: The Ride which was added in 1992. Country Fair shows the Sky Whirl prominently at front and center, which was removed in 2000. So I suspect these posters were commissioned for Great America’s 20th anniversary in 1996.

As you enter the park at Carousel Plaza, there isn’t much of a theme, other than “amusement park-ness.” The structures resemble traditional boardwalks and midways, like those found at Cedar Point or Coney Island. It’s not unlike the “Victorian Gingerbread” found at many theme parks. And to American eyes, at least, this is all that’s needed.

All signage is rendered in the expected Circus Wood Type look. It’s nice to see graphics like this actually routed in wood and hand-painted, as opposed to the plastic variety found at most other Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks.

There’s No Place Like Hometown

I’ve visited California’s Great America several times, and it only took the first twenty minutes or so inside the Six Flags version to judge it superior. More of the original thematic design from the Marriott era remains, the landscaping is thoughtful, and the changes and expansions over the years have been well considered and executed throughout.

Concept painting of the Hometown Square area.

All the areas of Great America were thoroughly rendered as concept paintings and illustrations by Duell’s design team, just as the Disney imagineers were accustomed to doing. And also like at Disney, what ended up being actually constructed was a scaled back version of the original vision.

Once you walk around the Columbia Carousel, there are two brick entry points, one for Hometown Square (to the right) and one for Orleans Place (to the left). They appear identical to their California counterparts, and their placement bothered me in the same way—the entrances are not laid out symmetrically, and they’re both outside the railroad berm. In fact, the entire Orleans Place area is outside the berm.

To the right as you enter the Hometown Square area is a page right out of the Disneyland Main Street U.S.A. playbook, although it seemed to my eyes at least that the forced perspective has been executed less skillfully. Paint schemes are both lively and authentic, however, and don’t suffer from a 1990s mall-like, garish genericization as seen on International Street at Kings Island.

I do wonder why Duell’s design team chose only a Town Square, as opposed to the more thematically traditional Main Street model.

One book I refer back to over and over again is historian Richard V. Francaviglia’s Main Street Revisited: Time, Space, and Image Building in Small-Town America (1996). The text explores the genealogy of the American Small Town throughout different regions of the country, and explores the illusions we have in our imagination of these places as filtered through film, television, and theme parks.

Hometown Square, satellite view. Map data: Google.

Francaviglia notes that the Town Square was imported from Europe and took root predominantly in New England. It was also established in the Southwest as a result of Spanish influence. But somewhere in the middle of the country (Ohio, Indiana, and Illinois) the Main Street model became more popular, and this extended through the Plains to the Rockies and eventually to the American West.

Disney’s Magic Kingdom-style parks do feature a Town Square at the entrance which then connects to the rest of Main Street U.S.A. and leads down to the castle.

Yet there’s an irony here at Great America: Walt Disney brought the Midwestern Main Street from his hometown memories of Marceline, Missouri to Southern California. And Randall Duell brought the Town Square from his design firm in Southern California (where the Spanish had built Zocalos, or Town Squares). to Gurnee, Illinois—the region where the Main Street model originated.

It could just be that doing a small town Main Street in cute Victorian trimmings would have been too direct of a lift from Disneyland, and Duell’s designers—whether creatively or legally—were reluctant to go there.

Which is why I found this particular structure, first on the right as you enter the square, supremely odd. There appears to be a small residence of some kind on the second floor. And even during the day, there is a single lamp illuminated inside.

To me this smacked directly of Walt Disney’s famous apartment above the Firehouse on Main Street U.S.A. As the story goes, Walt asked for this small residence to be incorporated into the park’s design so that he could stay overnight at Disneyland as the long hours of construction neared completion.

Walt stayed in the apartment frequently, often with family members, in the years after the park opened. Walt Disney passed away in December, 1966, and ever since, a single lamp remains lit during park hours day and night as a sort of ‘eternal flame’ tribute.

I don’t know if this similar presentation in Hometown Square at Great America is a coincidence or not, but there’s the lamp up in the window. I asked a couple park employees what was up on the second story and what the single light was all about, but neither had any idea. Mystery marked: unsolved.

Opposite the park entrance at the far end of Hometown Square is the Grand Music Hall, and it was closed during my visit. This did not surprise me, as live entertainment does not hold the same draw at theme parks that it had in decades past—comedy shows and musical revues used to play to packed houses like this one several times a day. I’m not sure if it’s because we’re in the age of the smartphones and streaming, but these shows simply don’t pull in the crowds anymore. Yet when Great America first opened, this venue was the hottest ticket in the park.

Despite the various restaurant rebranding and vendor turnover which has undoubtedly occurred over the years, most of the structures I saw at Great America were decently maintained and retained their original charm (and paint schemes).

There’s a single-room schoolhouse in the area of the square which appears to function as restroom facilities. At first I thought it might have been a historial relocation or re-creation, like at Knott’s Berry Farm, but I think it was simply designed thematically along with the rest of the park.

Everything in Hometown Square is a sly and subtle mixture of Victorian Gingerbread with Midwestern Small Town elements, and Old Country Ranch with some Generic Americana thrown in. Again, I was pleasantly surprised to find so much actual routed wood type. Although the lettering treatment here screams “Seventies Strip Mall Laundromat,” it’s at least real painted wood, not plastic.

This is the view of Hometown Square from the railroad station near the park entrance towards the Grand Music Hall. Forward and to the right lies the way to Midwest County Fair. Because of the central service corridor to the left, Orleans Place is accessed by going back towards Carousel Plaza and outside the railroad berm.

All Aboard the Great America Scenic Railway

The Hometown Square Railroad Station perhaps best illustrates the differences in design vision and attention to detail which set Disney apart from its many imitators and competitors. From the walls to the roofing to the interlocking cinder blocks and green railings, this feel more like a mobile home park in rural Illinois than a turn of the century train depot.

Even setting scale aside, the grandeur of Disneyland’s primary railroad depot is obvious. And it’s not just a matter of money—construction costs for both Great America parks was 72.75 million in 1976 dollars (by comparison, Disneyland cost some $17 million in mid-century money). Just like at other Six Flags and Cedar Fair parks, it’s a matter of priorities. And the priority is thrill rides.

And among all the thrilling roller coasters, it is nice that the attraction is here at all. The railroad and two train stations at California’s Great America were dismantled in 1999.

Rather than the custom themed graphics found at Disneyland, the train station features actual antique sign reproductions.

The Great America Scenic Railway is the same narrow gauge as the railroads at Disneyland, Cedar Point, Kings Island, and many other parks throughout the United States. In fact, one of Great America’s former locomotives (c. 1980) was traded to Disneyland, then later relocated to the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, then sold to Cedar Fair, run at Knott’s Berry Farm, and finally returned to Cedar Point in 2010 and operates there today as the G.A. Boeckling.

The railroad ride around the park was relaxing and cool, a result of the lush landscaping throughout. It felt different than either Disneyland (which has varying amounts of foliage and views of backstage areas throughout) or Cedar Point (with the views of Lake Michigan). The ride felt close to Kings Island in terms of being lost in the woods, but the route was far longer.

The Midwest County Fair Railroad Station is of the same basic modest design as the one I left at Hometown Square, though I think it has a better paint scheme.

Unlike the antique reproductions I saw earlier, around this train station are stylized, themed graphics. “For good and reliable service to all Six Flags Theme Parks.”

Walt Disney’s design instincts have been proved right time and time again, and for certain, there’s just something about having a train circling a park. That’s probably why it’s the most oft-copied Disneyland feature found at parks across the country.

Continued in Part 2.

Michigan's Mis-Adventure.

March 09, 2019 by Dave Gottwald

After spending several days at Cedar Point and Kings Island in Ohio, I continued my travels through the Midwest and made a quick, nearly half-day stop at what I discovered is the smallest park in the Cedar Fair portfolio—Michigan’s Adventure.

Michigan’s Adventure, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

Peering down from a satellite view, the park looks quite larger than its actual 250 acres. This is because a substantial (5,383 feet, fourth longest in the world) out and back wooden coaster runs the entire length of the parking lot and then some (pictured here along the bottom right edge).

It wouldn’t be a Cedar Fair park without another hyperbolic park map, and scale and proportions are all out of whack as usual. I make it a point to limit my reconnaissance and online research before I visit a new thematic site, as I prefer my initial impressions to be fresh. As such, I wasn’t aware of how ridiculously small Michigan’s Adventure is. So glancing down at the park map as I entered for the day, I thought, ok, plenty enough to do here. How wrong I would be.

A Deer Destination

Like many parks which Cedar Fair has come to acquire, this property began as something quite different.

Deer Park opened on this site in 1956, and featured a petting zoo (with, you guessed it, deer being on display prominently).

There was also a storybook themed land (similar to Children’s Fairyland in Oakland, California and other such parks across the United States), some small rides for children, and a picnic area.

In 1968, during a decade-long, nationwide scramble to compete with Disneyland which brought forward the first Six Flags parks, the admission gating of Knott’s Berry Farm, and expansion at Cedar Point, a man named Roger Jourden bought the park with the intention of developing it into a larger local attraction.

Jourden dispensed with the deer and started adding more rides, renaming the place Deer Park Funland in 1972 to suggest an amusement atmosphere. He continued to add more rides each and every season. By 1979 the park had a standard Arrow model Corkscrew (the seventh) which is still in operation.

Shiver Me Timbers

Throughout the 1980s and early 1990s, the park continued on in this manner, quietly adding a few new attractions from year to year. For the 1988 season Deer Park Funland was renamed Michigan’s Adventure and gained its first wooden roller coaster, Wolverine Wildcat.

Yet ten years later, for the first time the park landed on national roller coaster radar with the addition of Shivering Timbers. The ride broke records and brought in fans from all over the world. Michigan’s Adventure was finally, somewhat, famous.

The landscaping around the coaster is lush, with foliage suggesting a logging theme (though this is not made explicit by any theming or propping in the station ). Timbers = logging = trees seems to be the extent of the vision here.

Even after Cedar Fair purchased the park in 2001, no great efforts were taken to ‘theme-up’ Michigan’s Adventure. It doesn’t have ‘lands’ and never has, so design motifs are sporadic and not cohesive. In and around Shivering Timbers the retail and dining structures carry a generic “woodsman” frontier look, which scans decently as the Northwoods region of Wisconsin as well as Michigan’s Upper Peninsula.

It’s woodsy, there are shingles on the roof…time to cut down a tree, start a fire, and cook some game! But again, I should go easy on the place. Michigan’s Adventure is not a theme park, has never been a theme park, and is not pretending to be one, either.

Here we have the kind of cheesy plastic-molded 19th century wood typography that is stock in trade for Six Flags parks and remains hopelessly stuck in the Jimmy Carter’s only term.

The park’s Timbertown Railway is a cute, scale train ride (smaller than narrow gauge). This is the depot near Shivering Timbers, and it feels much like the station I found at Cedar Point’s Frontier Town.

The typography on the signage here is a more authentic treatment than the “General Store” above, but certainly a contemporary interpretation—it’s from the Letterhead Fonts Foundry (LHF) which was founded in the late 1990s.

At first I assumed this was the same railroad as pictured in the vintage advertisement above, but actually it was only added to Michigan’s Adventure in 2002, just a year after Cedar Fair acquired the park. The track appears to be the same gauge, however.

Rapids All Around

After a relaxing journey out into the the surrounding woods—including a small lake and a tunnel—the train stops at its second depot, the Grand Rapids Junction. Once again, solid 19th century type, though the fonts themselves are of more recent vintage.

As I glanced back, I noticed that this station is even more rustic—less Victorian—than the one I departed from over in the wooded area surrounding Shivering Timbers (the first lift hill of which can be seen here in the distance).

During the 2006 season, Michigan’s Adventure celebrated its 50th anniversary, and for the occasion Cedar Fair added the Grand Rapids water ride. This was a previously undeveloped corner of the park, and probably contains its best-executed thematic design. The structures, rock work, and foliage all work to tell the same story with considered visual literacy.

Since acquiring Knott’s Berry Farm in 1997, Cedar Fair’s designers (or, more likely, their contractors) have been cribbing liberally from that Southern California park’s classic Old West theming as the company has augmented its other properties with renovations of existing attractions, new rides, and even new lands.

Whether it’s a new coaster, shop, quick service food stop, or even a sign, Cedar Fair seems to return to Knott’s for inspiration. This makes sense—it’s the only park, besides Cedar Point itself, which has a rich history to draw upon. I hadn’t noticed this until I visited Michigan’s Adventure, but looking back now, there are bits of Knott’s all over Cedar Point and Kings Island as well.

Case in point, this “RIP ROARIN’ FUN” sawblade is right from the Knott’s Berry Farm playbook. And the type, as before, is from the Letterhead Font Foundry. Again, a late-1800s industrial proprietorship becomes the most natural backstory for a ride conveyance, just like at Cedar Point and Kings Island.

The Grand Rapids ride itself also nods quite directly to BigFoot Rapids at Knott’s, which is actually currently undergoing renovation and retheming and will open in the summer of 2019 as Calico River Rapids (tying it more closely to other attractions in the Ghost Town portion of the park).

Although I didn’t ride it, I observed the “Old Faithful”-style water effects which were quite neat. The queue, load station, and surrounding props were all well designed. I will say though that the sweltering humidity of midsummer in Michigan worked against the visuals here, which smacked more of the Rockies region.

The Grand Rapids area aside, Michigan’s Adventure just didn’t deliver. I was glad to have ridden one of the more noted wooden roller coasters in the United States, but the park is lacking in scope. There just wasn’t enough to do. I planned on staying all day but barely lasted six hours (and this was with a lot of walking around and re-riding attractions multiple times).

I ended my stay with a pleasant lakeside view of the Wolverine Wildcat. Though the lake is artificial, the cool breezes blowing off its surface were certainly real (and welcome, given both the sun beating down and the heavy humidity).

I will say that Michigan’s Adventure did have this going for it—it was quiet, uncrowded, and relatively inexpensive. It just wasn’t the thematic destination I was hoping for.

Next stop: Six Flags Great America.

Kings Island - Part 4: Odds 'n' Ends.

March 03, 2019 by Dave Gottwald

One of the more interesting side effects of a theme park having shifted between different owners over the years is the swath of odds ‘n’ ends left behind—the orphaned areas and attractions, conflicting design motifs, abandoned IPs, and renamed lands. And Kings Island certainly has its share.

Oktoberfest on Kings Island 1972 souvenir park map poster. — *Oktoberfest* on Kings Island 1972 souvenir park map poster.

The Ghosts of Oktober Past

Kings Island opened in 1972 with a Bavarian-themed land called Oktoberfest. Although it still exists today on park maps, you’d be hard pressed to identify it.

Oktoberfest during the park’s first season. — *Oktoberfest* during the park’s first season.

The theme seems appropriate given that this was once the site of the western station for the park’s Von Roll Sky Ride, which was called the Swiss Sky Ride when it first resided at Cincinnati’s Coney Island. Just like at Disneyland, the thematic logic was as follows: gondola / cable car = ski resort = Switzerland. And Bavaria is certainly close enough, geographically as well as aesthetically. Not to mention that Ohio, and nearby Cincinnati specifically, is home to a large Germanic population.

Here is the park’s “Der Alte Deutsche Bier Garten” at the heart of the Oktoberfest area, sometime after the Sky Ride was removed for the 1980 season; there is no sign of the support tower to the left as seen in the earlier photograph. For years this delightfully designed biergarten served up German gastronomic standards such as bratwurst and sauerkraut, traditional music performers in the requisite lederhosen, and, of course, plenty of beer.

Oktoberfest area on Kings Island 1989 souvenir park map poster. — *Oktoberfest* area on Kings Island 1989 souvenir park map poster.

Although by the mid-1980s the stand-up coaster King Cobra had been added to the area (the first of its kind in the world to be designed as such), Oktoberfest managed to maintain its original charm. But it wouldn’t last.

Oktoberfest, 1990. — *Oktoberfest*, 1990.

For the first season of the nineties, the Der Spinning Keggers ride was removed. From design through to the name, this Kings Island version of Disney’s Mad Tea Party (commonly just called “The Teacups”) was very Oktoberfest—guests spun about in massive beer kegs. This could be seen as the beginning of the end for the land’s overall theme, which continued to be chipped away at throughout the decade when Paramount owned the park.

Here is the biergarten as it looks today; a completely generic “country cottage” structure surrounded by picket fencing. During the Paramount years, this building was briefly a location in the Bubba Gump Shrimp Company themed restaurant chain. Currently, the closest to German it gets is the sponsor—Budweiser.

As seen from the park’s Eiffel Tower, this is the Festhaus building, which was added between Oktoberfest and International Street in 1982 for the parks’ inaugural “Winterfest” Christmas event as the largest indoor entertainment and dining venue at Kings Island. Offerings were strictly German for many years, but these days it’s all pizza, burgers, and similarly generic amusement park fare.

The Festhaus also used to have ornate decorations and signage, in addition to a working glockenspiel clock. Just like I saw in Frankenmuth, Michigan, this kind of clock has music bells and dancing figures that move around in a circular performance (“glockenspiel” literally translates into English as “bells play”). After years of disrepair, the Festhaus glockenspiel was removed for the 2014 season.

Around on the other side of the biergarten is a Mexican restaurant (this area also contains, inexplicably, a Panda Express Chinese fast food outlet; completely out of place, just like I saw in a Frontier setting at Cedar Point). The thematic design is pretty well executed, it just has no place in a supposedly “German” neighborhood.

Nice use of gooseneck-style barn lighting, corrugated metal roofing, and appropriate, vintage typography on the signage. There’s a decent pan-Latin American vibe here, very plantation house. But again, this land is still identified as Oktoberfest on park maps.

And why the Latin American motif? In 1991 an Aztec-adventure-themed Arrow mine train coaster called Adventure Express opened—yes, in the Oktoberfest area, adjacent to Coney Mall. The park’s own official history blog notes the audacious incongruity in all this, saying that the addition of Adventure Express “signaled the first time the park would install an alternatively-themed attraction to a previously established themed area.” My thinking is that the Mexican eatery next door was added to reinforce the ride’s theme, but to the detriment of the original Bavarian theme of Oktoberfest .

Getting in the Zone

During the nineties, the Paramount Action Zone was added right next door to Oktoberfest. This was a move Paramount pulled at all the parks it took ownership of during this period—adding fairly standard amusement park thrill rides under the banner of some of the studio’s action movies.

Top Gun postcard, 1993. — ***Top Gun*** postcard, 1993.

This included the aforementioned Arrow suspended roller coaster originally themed to Top Gun (1993 to 2007), then known as Flight Deck (2008 to 2013) after Cedar Fair acquired Paramount Parks, and finally rechristened The Bat in honor of the park’s original (failed) Arrow suspended prototype for the 2014 season.

Local newspaper article announcing Top Gun. — Local newspaper article announcing ***Top Gun***.

The theming for Top Gun was originally quite considered. In the April, 1993 issue of Cincinnati Magazine, an article on Paramount’s purchase of Kings Island noted:

The addition of the new “Top Gun” roller coaster—an inverted version of traditional coasters, with the wheels and tracks above the seats, leaving nothing underneath riders except the treetops—was handled the same way. The physical structure—all 660 tons of it—was in the planning long before Paramount. Not so long in advance, though, that Paramount couldn’t jump in and inject its Hollywood twist, hiring John DeCuir Jr. to make the coaster’s boarding station resemble an aircraft carrier. DeCuir was in charge of the design for the original Top Gun movie…

This local television news broadcast from 1993 shows the original aircraft carrier theming of the queue area, along with music and steam effects.

Days of Thunder postcard, 1994. — ***Days of Thunder*** postcard, 1994.

That same Cincinnati Magazine article quoted a consultant involved in the Paramount acquisition: “You’re going to see a lot of movie theming going into existing rides, and new rides that are orientated and built around future or successful movies that Paramount has released.” And indeed, Paramount’s cinematic additions to Kings Island during the nineties also included a virtual reality ride themed to the (completely forgettable) 1990 Tom Cruise NASCAR vehicle Days of Thunder, in a venue called the Action Theater.

The most recent addition to the Action Zone area is Banshee. This Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M) triumph is the longest suspended roller coaster in the world, and it actually contains a fair amount of theming for a Cedar Fair park. A banshee is a female spirit in Irish mythology who apparently shows up wailing and shrieking whenever a family member dies. The press release at the time called Banshee “the first female-inspired thrill ride” at Kings Island, although I’m unsure what kind of honor that is.

True to theme, the queue area winds through a graveyard with various markers. One of these is an eternal flame in tribute to the prior coaster which occupied this park of the park—Son of Beast. No name, just the defunct ride’s mysterious logo and the date ranch of its operation. I thought this kind of obscure reference was a very nice touch for park history aficionados.

Son of Beast. Wikimedia Commons. — **Son of Beast**. *Wikimedia Commons*.

This first wooden hypercoaster—with a steel vertical loop—broke all kinds of records when it opened in 2000. But it was not to last. The ride was plagued with problems, and the loop in particular caused numerous issues; it was eventually removed for the 2007 season. Two years later the ride closed permanently, and the coaster was finally demolished in 2012.

I think the Action Zone needs to go away completely, replaced by some kind of cohesive theme that can include The Bat as well as Banshee (and maybe even the nearby Adventure Express). Perhaps something horror-related? And while they’re at it, the park could restore Oktoberfest to its German roots.

The Inner Limits

There is one last thematic remnant of the Paramount era which I’d like to mention. The Outer Limits: Flight of Fear opened in 1996 as one of two linear induction motor (LIM) launch coasters, the world’s first (the other opened at sister park Kings Dominion).

The ride’s original theme was tied to the classic 1960s science fiction show The Outer Limits, and features an alien spacecraft in an Area 51-like miliary warehouse setting. When Paramount’s licencing agreement expired, references to the show were removed and the ride became simply Flight of Fear beginning with the 2001 season. The UFO theme, however, has remained.

Flight of Fear is completely indoors, and a such serves as sort of the Kings Island equivalent of Disney’s Space Mountain. Unlike the detailed exterior design found at Disney parks, however, the building for the ride is relatively unadorned. The outside of the hangar housing the queue references a bit of UFO mythology—it’s marked with a large 18 (Hangar 18 at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base is supposedly where flying saucer remains and alien corpses were stored after the legendary Roswell crash).

Once through the queue of this Hangar 18, guests “board” the alien ship (a flying saucer design) by walking up a ramp into the interior. The ride loading area is designed to resemble some type of generic sci-fi alien environment.

There are even what appear to be cryogenically frozen alien bodies stored here. I would imagine during the Outer Limits era, there was a more explicit backstory throughout these spaces, possibly tying into a specific episode from the series (which certainly featured its share of creepy aliens). But now it’s just generic “weird.”

The linear induction launch was quite thrilling, and the coaster experience felt very much like Space Mountain. Kings Island has done a decent job of maintaining the alien theme despite losing the originating IP.

The thematic missteps at Kings Island are all due to turnover in owner and management. During the Taft years, there was at least sense of shared vision—something more immersive than the average amusement park, but less so than Disney. Sort of how Six Flags Over Texas began. When Paramount bought Kings Island, they (haphazardly) tried the Universal approach of injecting IP from their film library throughout, with mixed results. And then when Cedar Fair acquired the Paramount Parks in 2006, they brought with them a very uneven tradition of retheming and adding even more thrill rides.

The lesson is clear—for thematic design, consistency means constancy. Kings Island is a beautiful park with a rich history. I can only hope that, in the tradition of recent attractions like Banshee and Mystic Timbers, Cedar Fair remains committed to quality, thoughtful alterations.

Over at KI Central, a forums site that’s been around since 2003 and calls itself “a community that loves Kings Island” I saw a comment that seemed to me to be quite astute. In a thread about the degradation of thematic integrity, a user pointed out that “Cedar Fair doesn’t manage theme parks, they manage amusement parks.” Which is true, and I shouldn’t expect Disney-level design from them.

Yet the near future looks promising: International Street is being completely overhauled and resurfaced for the 2019 season, along with the opening of the new Kings Mills Antique Autos, comparable to the original Les Taxis antique car ride (1972–2004).

Keep it up, Kings Island!

Kings Island - Part 3: What Remains of Rivertown.

February 24, 2019 by Dave Gottwald

Although Kings Island today is made up of a variety of themed areas, the last core aspect of the park’s original design which I am going to examine is Rivertown. Sadly, this Wild West equivalent of Disney’s Frontierland (called Frontiertown and Frontier Land during the park’s design phase) has been degraded almost beyond recognition through the park’s multiple owners over the years.

Like International Street, garish paint schemes and contemporary retail tenants have ruined the charm, but at least that area of the park retains its structural (architectural) thematic integrity. With steel coasters towering overhead and Charlie Brown’s Peanuts gang encroaching, Rivertown doesn’t even have that.

Rivertown area, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google. — *Rivertown* area, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

Go West (Again)

Just as I’ve seen at parks like Cedar Point, adding a venerable Wild West area has been seen time and again as a way to expedite drawing a Disneyland-like audience. It’s almost as if having a “Western Land” of some kind or another is American shorthand for “theme park.”

As is frequently the case, placemaking in this kind of Old West setting is established through the use of fictional proprietorships (more of which I’ll point out below). Based on the photo research I’ve done, I cannot tell if this small rooftop water tower is part of the original 1972 structures in the area. But the typeface treatment—despite evoking a period-appropriate slab serif—feels quite recent in fact.

Rivertown area on Kings Island 1989 souvenir park map poster.

As recently as the late 1980s, Rivertown still retained most of its original Old West thematic charm. On this 1989 souvenir park map poster you can see the extent of the various buildings and winding streets. All the elements you’d expect are here, from the “Saloon” to the “Shooting Gallery.”

Vintage postcard, Rivertown. — Vintage postcard, *Rivertown*.

That same article in the July 1972 issue of Cincinnati Magazine which I quoted in my first Kings Island post describes a place which

…lives in the mid-1800’s, when the steam locomotive was an important part of local life. At the center of the town are a general store and the frontier train station where the Tecumseh and the Simon Kenton, narrow-gauge steam locomotives arrive pulling coaches.

I’ll return to said railroad in a moment, but I want to first point out what the buildings in RIvertown used to look like, and how they appear now. As you can see in the 1970s postcard above, much of the wood is bare and treated to look aged. The trims of the Court of Games here—which are painted—are rendered in desaturated, dull, and subtle hues.

This is the same block of buildings in 2017. Any bare wood is gone (which, fairly, might have been a victim of weather) and all surfaces take on a more artificial, fiberglassy vibe. Kings Island is clearly trying to go for the kind of cute variety found on Disneyland’s Main Street U.S.A. but it’s just not working. As with at Cedar Point’s Frontier Town, there’s a Baudrillardian simulacra vibe going on here—a copy of a copy; an impression of a remembrance of what the Disney Version is like.

This kind of design treatment is so widespread in the United States that, again, it telegraphs “theme park” quite succinctly, or at least a theme park of the Cedar Fair / Six Flags variety.

I wish I could have experienced the original, bare, desaturated Rivertown from the 1970s, but this is what I found. Here at the games area at least, the structures themselves are intact.

Beverages and The Beast

However, the entrance to The Beast, which opened in 1979 as the tallest, fastest, and longest wooden roller coaster in the world (it still holds the title of longest after all these years) struck me as odd. It’s a vending machine area called “Beast Canyon Cold Drinks.” You sort of navigate around the candy and soda and the route evolves into a queue for the ride. The walkway abruptly ends, with everything to the right fenced off. And that “ENTRANCE” sign looks super tacked on. Something was amiss.

“Beast Canyon Cold Drinks” on Kings Island 1989 souvenir park map poster.

At first I thought this was likely a more recent development. But nope, looking closer at this 1989 park map poster, there’s the same building, nestled up against The Beast coaster station. Tooling around online I discovered that “Beast Canyon Cold Drinks” has always been there, and there’s even a video showing people waiting in front of the building during the ride’s opening season.

The Beast and surrounding area on Kings Island 1979 souvenir park map poster, the ride’s opening season. — **The Beast** and surrounding area on Kings Island 1979 souvenir park map poster, the ride’s opening season.

Originally there was an actual concession stand here (which also sold beer), not just vending machines, but the queue for the The Beast did not run through it. As shown above on the opening season’s park map poster, there used to be a path alongside to the right of “Beast Canyon Cold Drinks” and what appears to be a block of assorted mining town structures. That was the ride’s original entrance.

The logo for The Beast is wicked cool, and remains pretty much the way it looked when it was first unveiled back in 1979. It was designed by a Cincinatti ad firm, Lawler Ballard Little, and actually won an award from the New York Advertising Club. This sign is off to the left side of “Beast Canyon Cold Drinks” and functions as sort of a photo op.

The original, much larger, logo sign for The Beast.

But I also discovered that this is not the original sign—it’s a smaller and less detailed version of what used to be displayed more prominently out in front of the ride’s queue entrance. The original featured real chains and dimensional lettering that appeared to burst off the wood planking.

Vintage postcard, The Beast. — Vintage postcard, **The Beast**.

Another sign near the original queue entrance once carried a warning from the president of the “The Little Miami Amalgamated Mining & Minerals Co” providing some backstory for the ride, pictured on the above postcard from 1981. Here is this text:

PUBLIC NOTICE: Help is urgently solicited!

Due to the increasing occurrence of mysterious noises, inexplicable tremors, and vicious acts of vandalism within these premises, it has become necessary to suspend the normal operations of this company.

Although the cause of this evil phenomena defies identification, authorities agree it is surely the work of some demonic creature of prodigious size, which for now can only be designated as: THE BEAST

LET THE FOOLHARDY BEWARE! This so-named Beast appears to be very much alive and intent upon conquering all who would oppose him. Nothing of the imagination would be able to inflict such terror upon the human soul.

IT IS WITH UTMOST URGENCY that the Management entreats all civic-spirited persons to assist it's loyal employees in the ongoing effort to subdue this disruptive scourge and restore order to the community.

ALL VOLUNTEERS will kindly apply by entering through the employment office. (At times it may be necessary to await recruitment at the observation area to the left of the office building.) Thank you, and may the Lord have mercy!

CHARLES J. DINN President
The Little Miami Amalgamated Mining & Minerals Co.

Kings Island 1978 press kit announcing The Beast. — Kings Island 1978 press kit announcing **The Beast**.

So the coaster actually had a fairly cohesive theme when it opened—that of a haunted mine!

Playing on the Kings Mills region for which the park is partially named (although Kings Island is actually just to the south, near the town of Mason), the queue and station building for The Beast was designed as an ol’ timey mill, complete with an operating water wheel and all the appropriate accessories, “adjacent to a small lake.” There were also mining implements and a small mine entrance.

The queue for The Beast during its first season. — The queue for **The Beast** during its first season.

This still from a local news broadcast shot during the ride’s first summer shows that small lake which was originally part of the theme of the The Beast as a mill operation. The 1979 souvenir park map above also clearly shows this body of water, which was once host to Kenton’s Cove Canoes and Shawnee Landing. Later part of this land was used briefly by The Bat, and since 1987, Vortex.

Here is a good view of the original water elements which were a part of the ride station. Today this entire part of the queue is fenced off—there’s just a wall of wood planks along the left side of the line.

The queue at Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, Disneyland, 2007. — The queue at **Big Thunder Mountain Railroad**, Disneyland, 2007.

The sluice structure in particular reminds of the elements in the queue at Disneyland’s Big Thunder Mountain Railroad, a mining operation-themed roller coaster type ride which opened some six months after The Beast in September, 1979.

In this early photograph the mine entrance diorama is clearly visible, complete with a small track and ore car.

The lake was drained in 1987 as the pump and wheel elements in the station building picture above had not worked in years, leaving the body of water stagnate. This also facilitated the introduction of an accessibility ramp, which re-routed the exit.

GhostRider at Knott’s Berry Farm, 2007. — **GhostRider** at Knott’s Berry Farm, 2007.

Knott’s Berry Farm borrowed a number of these design elements for their own classic wooden roller coaster GhostRider which opened in 1998. The queue and station are themed to a mining operation, with the same sort of propping, mine diorama with ore car, etc. Everything is more elaborate than at Kings Island, but the basic idea is the same—if you’re going to have trains of small cars (a roller coaster) depart from a large industrial shed and travel on a wooden superstructure over hills and through tunnels in an Old West setting, what does that sound like? Some kind of mining operation. Or perhaps a lumber mill (more on this in a moment).

And as Kings Island and Disneyland had established some two decades before, the idea of a haunting—of a spirit causing the trains to run out of control—adds the appropriate amount of drama. Unfortunately, this original theme for The Beast has long since been patched over and forgotten.

The Diamondback Bites

What changed everything about the entrance and queue for The Beast, disrupting its original theme as a haunted mill and mining operation? A massive steel hypercoaster designed and built by Bolliger & Mabillard (B&M) called Diamondback, which opened for the 2009 season.

Diamondback under construction in 2008. Eddie~S/Flickr. — **Diamondback** under construction in 2008. *Eddie~S/Flickr.*

You can see here while Diamondback was under construction that there used to be a sort of midway lined with trees leading up to the queue for the beast. That’s where the original logo sign was. From the accounts I’ve read online, fans are nostalgia for this original entrance, feeling that it added a forbidding vibe, and heightened anticipation for the coaster. None of the tracks and trains of The Beast could be seen from this wooded area. It must have looked even cooler in the dark of night.

Compare with this picture of nearly the same vantage which I took from the observation deck at the top of the park’s Eiffel Tower.

One of Diamondback’s helix elements cuts back into that part of Rivertown, so all the trees had to be torn out. Here are the stumps during the coaster’s construction.

The Beast entrance, satellite view. Map data: Google. — **The Beast** entrance, satellite view. Map data: Google.

The entrance to The Beast was rerouted through the somewhat incongruous “Beast Canyon Cold Drinks” building, and the original entrance was fenced off and became a backstage area.

I understand the addition of Diamondback, as Cedar Fair prides itself on the biggest and best coasters. The logo and signage are pretty typical for the Six Flags / Cedar Fair interpretation of “Old West Thrill Ride.” The steel track as a snake’s forked tongue is a nice touch, although the orange gradient lettering is very SNAP INTO A SLIM JIM. Yet, truth be told, the queue area and station have all the requisite trappings—corrugated metal roofing, barn lighting, signs on distressed wood planks, etc.

Where Diamondback throws a wrench in the thematic design of the Rivertown area is with both materials and scale. You can’t unsee those massive support beams sprouting up at every odd angle in and around the quaint country cottage shacks. As such, any attempt at immersion is shattered beyond repair.

Silver Bullet looms over Ghost Town at Knott’s Berry Farm, 2007. — **Silver Bullet** looms over *Ghost Town* at Knott’s Berry Farm, 2007.

This very same visual disruption can also be seen at another park in Cedar Fair’s portfolio—Knott’s Berry Farm. The first major thrill ride added after the company acquired the park, Silver Bullet opened in 2004 and has dominated the skyline of three themed areas—Ghost Town, Fiesta Village, and Indian Trails—ever since. The construction of this steel inverted coaster (like Diamondback, provided by Bolliger & Mabillard) required that many historic structures at Knott’s—including a church—be removed or relocated.

Wood coasters, by contrast, are made of the appropriate materials for the Old West setting, and don’t interfere with the overall scale. They also present well as mining, milling, or lumber (getting to it) operations.

Mystic Timbers

So appropriately, the latest addition to Rivertown is another wooden coaster, Mystic Timbers, which opened for the 2017 season. What’s nice to see is—perhaps to make up for the losses over the years to The Beast—this attraction packs a ton of thematic design into its queue, station, and even on the ride itself.

Much like its older cousin, The Beast, Mystic Timbers makes wonderful use of the heavily wooded terrain around the park’s edges. One thing Kings Island did right was to purchase far more land than they actually developed for the 1972 opening. As such, over the years they’ve been able to subtly expand into the forest periphery. The coaster whips through the trees and changes elevation multiple times, crossing over train tracks as well as water features.

Once again, a fictional industrial concern (as I’ve seen at Cedar Point and elsewhere here at Kings Island) forms the backbone of the theme for Mystic Timbers. Since The Beast had already laid claim (pun intended) to a mining operation theme (even though today you wouldn’t know it), this time it’s a lumber company (I told you I’d get to this), or “Co.” in Old West Speak.

I was confused to see “Miami River” here in Ohio (as I think of Florida) but as it turns out the Great Miami River runs through southwestern Ohio and Indiana and is named for the Miami tribe who are one of the local Native American groups who speak Algonquian. I subsequently discovered that Miami, Florida is of no relation, and that state’s Miami River is named after the Mayaimi people.

See, roller coasters can be educational.

The layout of Mystic Timbers is terrific and makes great use of the terrain. What sets this coaster apart from others at Kings Island, however, is the finale. Although I was unable to photograph it on the ride, when the train completes its course and returns to the station, it stops first inside a warehouse space.

Don’t Go in the Shed

I can’t really describe what goes on, so here’s a video clip. There are audio-animatronics, digital projections, surround sound, and light and smoke effects. It’s pretty nifty, and takes the “haunting” aspect of the original theme for The Beast and brings it into the twenty-first century. However I don’t think they properly built suspense for it throughout the queue area or in the station loading, so coming as it does right at the end of a traditional wooden roller coaster experience, it does feel tacked on; an afterthought.

Rivertown during the 2017 season. Underlay map data: Ⓒ Google. — *Rivertown* during the 2017 season. Underlay map data: Ⓒ Google.

All Aboard the Kings Island & Miami Valley Railroad

As I’ve looked at elsewhere, if you were making additions to your park—or developing an entirely new project—in order to compete with Disneyland in the 1960s and 70s, one of the required attractions on your wishlist was a narrow-gauge railroad.

So naturally, Kings Island opened with one. Named after the aforementioned Great Miami River, the Kings Island & Miami Valley Railroad is a charming line which meanders through the backwoods at the southern edge of the park. There is a station stop at the adjacent Soak City waterpark, so there were plenty of folks with swimwear on looking to get wet for a bit and them come back to Kings Island’s coasters.

I want to point out the obnoxious Coca-Cola advertising on the Rivertown station, however. The entire interior has been stripped of whatever 19th century theming and props it was originally adorned with, and now it’s a red and white Coke retail space. At least they’re using the old-timey script logo, and not the modern one. Still, yuck.

The park’s railroad maintains two working locomotives. There is the #12 engine, nicknamed the "Kenny Van Meter" and the #19 engine, pictured here, which carries the nickname the "Lew Brown." Both are powered by propane and are 2/3 scale replicas of the Western & Atlantic Railroad #3 General, which apparently became quite famous during the Civil War.

Why is the Rivertown depot noting a township called “Losantiville?” That’s actually the original name of nearby Cincinnati, going back to 1788.

Most of the ride was charming (and unlike at Cedar Point, in the shade), but just like in Rivertown proper, the massive steel presence of Diamondback intrudes from time to time.

The forest made the difference—such a lovely, cool, relaxing trip. It’s no wonder the park’s railroad, per total rides, is the second most popular at Kings Island (over 50 million and counting).

Vintage postcard, Kings Mills Log Flume. — Vintage postcard, **Kings Mills Log Flume**.

Flumes from Island to Island

My last stop in Rivertown was the park’s Log Flume. Just like The Beast, I was excited to see it given its history. And just like The Beast, I was disappointed at what had become of its theming over the years (yet there is actually some redemption at the end of the tale).

The original log flume Race for Your Life at Cincinnati’s Coney Island. — The original log flume **Race for Your Life** at Cincinnati’s Coney Island.

Race for Your Life was one of the original attractions which made the move from Cincinnati’s Coney Island. They sort of had to move it, because this standard Arrow log flume model cost half a million dollars to install in 1968 (a fortune at the time).

To fit with Rivertown’s 19th century pioneer setting, the ride was christened the Kings Mills Log Flume. As you can see by comparing this vantage with the Coney Island photo above, the basic structures are different, but the features like the waterwheel and the flume’s route are retained. The western trappings also appeared dialed back in the new installation; the roof planks of the original are uneven, for example.

For the second season at Kings Island (1973), a second Arrow water ride—a variant called a hydroflume—opened in the back corner of Rivertown. Kenton's Cove Keelboat Canal lasted through the 2000 season. This photo shows the ride sometime in the 1970s, before The Beast had opened next door to the left.

For the 2001 season the following year, Rivertown took a sizeable thematic punch to the stomach. The Hanna-Barbera Land (which Kings Island opened with) was re-themed as Nickelodeon Central at the behest of the park’s Paramount owners. Parts of Rivertown were annexed, including the log flume, now called The Wild Thornberry’s River Adventure, based on a television series which ran on Nickelodeon for several years.

But the retheming didn’t end there. After Cedar Fair acquired the park, they slowly eased the Nickelodeon properties out and introduced Charlie Brown and the Peanuts gang. The Peanuts?

In 1983 Camp Snoopy opened at Knott's Berry Farm, and upon buying that park in 1997, Cedar Fair found that the Peanuts license came with the deal. Cedar Fair eventually extended this arrangement and brought the popular Snoopy and Friends to its other parks across the country. So it was only a matter of time until they set up shop at Kings Island.

The once proud Kings Mill Log Flume became Race for Your Life Charlie Brown in 2010. The theming is now cheeky and cartoonish, but also colorful and fun. I’m just disappointed that, for one, the ride is no longer part of Rivertown, and second, that it’s not themed to an actual pioneer log flume anymore.

What’s wild about the name, though, is at first I assumed it was a tribute to the original Race for Your Life at Cincinnati’s Coney Island. But nope. There’s actually a 1977 feature-length animated film called Race for Your Life, Charlie Brown in which the gang goes to summer camp in the wilderness, and they run in a river-raft race. Which means what I thought was just an IP lazily slapped onto an aging log ride turned out to be spot-on. So although I’m personally disappointed, kudos to the designers at Kings Island for nailing this.

Rivertown at Kings Island is—from a thematic design perspective—a land of abandoned visions and contradictory elements. Some things to love, some to like, but mostly “meh.” I’ll conclude my disappointment with this House of Coca-Cola, which sort of sums things up.

Continued in Part 4.

Kings Island - Part 2: Coney Island Resurrected.

February 02, 2019 by Dave Gottwald

Just beyond the Disney-esque International Street area lies a major component of Kings Island (and the reason for half its name—I told you I would get to this), and a special one at that. One might argue that the Coney Island area is the sentimental heart of the park, and it represents a great example of meta-theming—here the classic amusement park of old becomes a theme in and of itself within another park.

Vintage postcard, Cincinnati’s Coney Island, 1926.

The Coney Island of the West

Cincinnati’s "Ohio Grove, The Coney Island of the West" opened in 1886 on the banks of the Ohio river, and was named to capitalize upon New York’s already famous seaside resort and amusement boardwalk; for the second season the park made this even more explicit and shortened its moniker to simply “Coney Island.” The park was popular and seasonal attendance was high. Citizens of Cincinnati and the surrounding area came to view their Coney Island as a much-beloved local institution.

Vintage postcard, Cincinnati’s Coney Island.

The above postcard perfectly illustrates the park’s strong aesthetic and kinetic link to the New York original, as well as all such early twentieth century amusement parks and boardwalk areas from California and Colorado to the mid-Atlantic Seaboard and Massachusetts. Popcorn and peanuts, wooden roller coasters and balloons, carousels and carnival midway games and cotton candy. You can almost smell it.

Cincinnati’s Coney Island underwater, 1968.

The problem with Cincinnati’s Coney Island, despite its overwhelming popularity, was its location. The Ohio River was prone to seasonal flooding, and the park was frequently damaged as a result. By the storms of 1968 pictured above, talks were underway to reestablish the park at a new location, still close to the Cincinnati metro area, but far from the unpredictable riverbanks.

Vintage postcard, Cincinnati’s Coney Island, mid-to-late sixties.

The park was wildly popular with the public, attracting over one million guests in 1970. Obviously Taft Broadcasting, Coney Island’s new owner and the developer of the soon to open Kings Island, couldn’t just shutter the old park and expect people to embrace a new one, sight unseen.

So the idea was to honor the park’s 85-year-old legacy and disassemble and move many of Coney Island’s attractions to the new Kings Island—classic flat rides dating back to the 1920s and 30s such as Dodgem, Monster, Scrambler, The Whip, and The Wild Mouse—as well as more recent additions like a Von Roll Sky Ride (1965) and even an Arrow log flume called Race for Your Life (1968) which was the most expensive in the park, constructed for some $500,000, a fortune at the time.

The park closed in its original form forever on September 6, 1971. However just two years later, Cincinnati’s Coney Island reopened in a somewhat reduced incarnation, and today it remains a popular water park destination featuring the famous Sunlite Pool, the largest recirculating swimming pool in the world.

Coney Island area on Kings Island 1989 souvenir park map poster.

When Kings Island finally opened in 1972 after years of development, this area was simply called Coney Island in tribute to the original park. For the 1980 season—and I couldn’t discover why; perhaps a desire for more pointed literalism—the area was renamed Old Coney. In 1986 the name changed again to Coney Mall and has remained that way ever since.

The Racer Which Started a Renaissance

The great wooden roller coasters of Cincinnati’s Coney Island did not make the move to the new park and were demolished. However, it was decided to build one from scratch. The flagship attraction of Coney Mall today—and indeed all of Kings Island when it opened—is The Racer, and its place in the history of American roller coasters is legendary. For The Racer is credited by historians as single-handedly sparking the American “Coaster Renaissance” of the 1970s and 80s.

In the years between the Depression and the end of the 1960s, countless old amusement parks across the United States and their beloved classic wooden roller coasters, or “woodies,” had been burned, were quietly closed, and/or demolished for redevelopment. Many of these rides were designed by the legendary John C. Allen of Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters (PTC), and in 1964 his Blue Streak opened at Cedar Point and was the first coaster to be built there since before World War II.

Seeking to capitalize on the popularity of the Shooting Star (1947) woodie at Cincinnati’s Coney Island, Kings Island literally brought Allen out of retirement to design The Racer, a dual track coaster with a first drop of 88 feet and a top speed of 53 miles per hour (in 1972, this was record-setting). Racing coasters, in which two separate trains run alongside each other, were extremely popular during the 1920s, but none had been built since. The traditional “out and back” layout of The Racer is ridiculously long (some 3,415 feet), so here’s a panorama taken from the observation deck of the park’s Eiffel Tower replica (264 feet in the air).

Peering down from that same vantage you can admire the amount of landscaping that the park dedicated to the Coney Island / Old Coney / Coney Mall area. In fact, that was one of the most impressive aspects of the park as a whole—all the trees and bushes were well-kept, and there was shade in abundance almost everywhere. The effect was rather charming (though certainly not on par with Disney).

Coney Mall recreates the original midway feeling of Cincinnati’s Coney Island park with a single, wide thoroughfare chocked full of arcades, game booths, and traditional food and beverage concessions. If it wasn’t for people staring intently (and distractedly) at their smartphone screens while paying for softball throws with a credit card swipe, this could be the early twentieth century at any state fair or travelling carnival in the United States.

And why did The Racer generate such national interest, leading parks old and new all over the United States to begin building their own coasters at a fantastic rate? Many claim it was actually The Brady Bunch.

In August of 1973 the popular television sitcom shot an episode at Kings Island, “The Cincinnati Kids,” which aired the following November and featured a family ride on The Racer in a prominent sequence. It would seem nearly everyone in the country saw it, because the park experienced record attendance for the 1974 season as a result.

In the above clip you can watch The Bradys ride The Racer in “The Cincinnati Kids.”

Rollercoaster! quarterly, 1985. — *Rollercoaster!* quarterly, 1985.

American Coaster Enthusiasts (ACE) was founded in 1978 in the wake of the American amusement park’s second golden age which was begun with the success of The Racer. Even over a decade later, the ride was popular enough to be featured on the cover of the organization’s quarterly publication Rollercoaster! (likely in tribute to the ride’s enormous influence, as there wasn’t even an article about it in that issue).

This meta-theming—a nostalgic amusement park within another theme park—was first pioneered at Kings Island, but the trick has since been pulled elsewhere.

Lost Kennywood

In 1995, Kennywood near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania added a Lost Kennywood section to their park. Kennywood has a rich heritage dating back to the 1890s, and was even granted landmark status in 1987 (one of only two amusement parks listed in the National Register of Historic Places). Lost Kennywood, which the park calls “a themed area you’d only find in Kennywood, presenting rides and architecture of days gone by,” faithfully recreates (as much as possible) the look and feel of the original park in the early decades of the twentieth century, complete with majestic fountains and a Shoot-the-Chutes ride called, nostalgically, the Pittsburg Plunge (from 1890–1911 Pittsburgh was spelled without the 'h').

Paradise Pier

Disney even got into the act when their California Adventure park opened on Disneyland’s former parking lot in February of 2001. An entire land dedicated to the early twentieth century seaside amusement park—some of which like the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and Belmont Park in San Diego, still operate in California today—the Paradise Pier area featured an oversize Ferris wheel-type ride and a coaster called California Screamin’ which was constructed to appear like a classic woodie but was actually made of steel.

The supreme (some say disgraceful) irony here is that in developing Disneyland, Walt Disney was reacting against exactly these kinds of parks, which he considered seedy places run by “tough-looking people.” His park would be the anti-Coney Island. Paradise Pier has since been rethemed into Pixar Pier, and California Screamin’ is now home to the characters from The Incredibles (2004), having been redubbed the Incredicoaster in 2018 to coincide with the opening of the film’s sequel.

Parks Within Parks

As I observed while visiting Cedar Point, both classic amusement parks and their roller coasters are a distinct form of American visual culture. Wood coasters in particular have an unmistakable form to them (so much so that Disney was inspired to design a modern steel coaster aping a wood structure, down to the smallest details on each and every support).

This is the power of the meta-theme, and what makes possible (read: credible) that one type of familiar amusement park—frozen in setting as a particular time and place—can exist as a land within a larger park.

Just as with the Old West, no one needs to have any first-hand memories of Cincinnati’s original Coney Island, or any other such amusement park from the early twentieth century, to understand Coney Mall at Kings Island. Basically, Disneyland’s Frontierland and Cedar Point’s Frontier Town work even if you’ve never even seen a Western movie or visited a Western state; it’s just in the American cultural bloodstream. It’s the same reason I can know what Breaking Bad is (and even understand a bit of its premise) without having ever seen a single episode.

Remnants of The Bat

There is one last bit of design I’d like comment on within Kings Island’s Coney Mall area, and it’s what I call a thematic remnant. The station for Vortex (1987), an Arrow steel looper featuring six inversions, has a Victorian station that’s decidedly gothic in appearance. The building could almost be a haunted house attraction; all that’s missing is a belfry, some fog, and some creepy organ music.

For a Reagan-era vintage coaster, Vortex is ridiculously photogenic. The park is well aware of this; there is even a path alongside much of the ride’s footprint clearly intended for picture taking.

But the beauty of the ride’s structure, layout, and landscaping isn’t connected to the theme of its station at all. The name Vortex certainly doesn’t help us either.

The Bat on Kings Island 1982 souvenir park map poster.

But you see, Vortex wasn’t always there. Sitting on this same exact footprint for a very short time (1981–1983 and running intermittently, at that) was a suspended coaster prototype, also developed by Arrow, called The Bat.

Original Bat marquee, circa 1982.

The ride’s logo was simply delicious, almost belonging on an early eighties Ozzy Osbourne album cover. And considering the appropriately Medieval blackletter typography, suddenly the gothic castle vibe of Vortex’s station makes total sense.

The coaster station is a thematic remanent, left over from the previous tenant, The Bat. The disastrous, spectacular failure of this suspended prototype, which Arrow would fix a year later with the debut of The Big Bad Wolf at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, has been well-documented (I recommend this extensive post at the Kings Island official blog if you’re curious about the details). So why was the station left? Quite frankly, the failure of The Bat had cost Arrow and their relationship with Kings Island dearly. They needed to make good on replacing the ride with Vortex, and they had to do so without breaking the bank. The station was neither replaced, nor redesigned, nor rethemed; it was a cost-saving measure.

Some of concrete footers which held the steel support columns for The Bat still remain in and around the layout of Vortex to this day like grave markers.

Arrow eventually returned to Kings Island with its tenth (and final) perfected suspended coaster model during the years when Paramount owned the park. The ride thus opened as Top Gun (1993) but retained its naval aircraft theme sans-Tom Cruise as Flight Deck (2006) after Cedar Fair bought the property.

Given the incredible nostalgia that Cincinnati locals have for their long-vanquished winged mammal, Kings Island made good and rechristened the coaster The Bat for the 2014 season. The ride also received a new paint job reminiscent of its predecessor. Although riders swear it pales in comparison to the original, I really appreciate it when parks honor their history like this. I loved riding The Bat v2.0, but one thing’s for sure—the new logo can’t even hold a candle to the old one. It looks like a sports franchise!

The above camcorder footage, a full-circuit POV on The Bat during its April, 1981 grand opening, also includes a vintage television advertisement for the ride, demonstrating its gothic horror theme. Knowing, as I did, a bit of the coaster’s tragic history when I visited Kings Island made discovering the station for Vortex—this thematic remanent, virtually untouched—a delightful surprise.

It’s details like this at thematic environments the world over that enhance (for me, at least) the delicate, layered history of these places. I think this rather unremarkable coaster station was perhaps my favorite discovery of all at Kings Island.

Continued in Part 3.