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10 defunct water parks you can never visit again
Slap on a swimsuit and take a slide down memory lane!
Image: The Everett Collection
Nothing is more American than apple pie, so the saying goes, and baseball is our national pastime. But water parks deserve a spot on that Mount Rushmore of American recreation, too.
This country is riddled with water slides. There are more than 1,200 water parks in the U.S.A. and the number increases every year. Well, the number fluctuates. Some close, too. Visiting abandoned water parks has been a YouTube trend.
Aquatic amusement parks didn't take off until the late 1970s. Over the years, many beloved parks have come and gone. Here are a handful of historically significant water parks of yesteryear. Did you ever splash down at any of these bygone parks?
1. Disney's River Country
Bay Lake, Florida
Walt Disney World jumped into the water park business 40 years ago, on June 20, 1976, with the opening of its River Country. There was a touch of Frontierland to the place, which featured rustic wooden designs. The water came directly from the adjacent Bay Lake, pumped through a filtration system into the park. However, those filters did not screen everything. In 1980, a boy died after being infected by the "brain-eating amoeba" (Naegleria fowleri). The park closed in 2001.
Image: disneyparks
2. Ebenezer Floppen Slopper's Wonderful Water Slides
Oakbrook Terrace, Illinois
Obscure, but too fabulously named to not include, Ebenezer Floppen Slopper's Wonderful Water Slides sat in suburban Chicago in the early '80s. It was more the pioneering days of water parks. The proof was in the materials — the water slides were made of concrete. At first, there were just two of them, 800-feet long, but more were added, including a tube. Oh, did we mention that the place was built atop a waste dumb dubbed "Mt. Trashmore" by locals? Unsurprisingly, danger, injuries and safety concerns closed the park by the end of the decade.
3. Heritage USA
Fort Mill, South Carolina
Televangelists Jim and Tammy Faye Bakker opened their Christian amusement park — complete with (holy?) water park — in 1978. In 1987, fellow TV preacher Jerry Falwell took a plunge down the 163-feet-long Typhoon slide, wearing a suit and tie. A picture of Falwell's fully clothed slide was named one of the top 100 national photos of the century by the Associated Press in 1999. Alas, Heritage USA had been closed for a decade by then.
Image: AP Photo / Sam Jones
4. Lake Dolores Waterpark
Newberry Springs, California
An oasis in the Mojave Desert between L.A. and Vegas, the Lake Dolores Waterpark claimed to be the first of its kind in America. Later, after being sold in 1990, it was renamed the Rock-A-Hoola Waterpark. Today, weeds and sand cover the abandoned park, which is used here and there for extreme skateboard tricks or cool post-apocalyptic sets.
Image: YouTube
5. Paradise Landing
Milwaukee, Wisconsin
One downside to water parks? One can only visit them in warm weather. But if you put a roof over one? A-ha! The first indoor water park opened in Alberta, Canada, in 1985. The Polynesian Resort Hotel opened the first in the States, and more followed in the vacation haven of Wisconsin Dells. A little bit further east, the Hilton Milwaukee opened the first indoor urban water park in the city's downtown area. It closed in 2013.
Image: Hilton
6. Six Flags WaterWorld
Houston, Texas
WaterWorld — not just a dystopian Kevin Costner movie! Part of the sprawling AstroWorld amusement park, WaterWorld opened in June 1983 in downtown Houston, across the highway from the Astrodome. Initially, admission was separate, but in 2002 it was decided to let one ticket allow admission to both parks. Alas, AstroWorld left this world in 2005.
Image: ramsayadagency
7. Water Mania
Kissimmee, Florida
Sitting just up the highway from Walt Disney World, Water Mania offered wet rides for thrill seekers. As if attractions dubbed the Double Bezerker and the Anaconda were not intimidating enough, the surfing simulator was named "Wipe Out." Must have been hard to stay standing. Even the "lazy river" ride promised speed, as it was titled Cruisin' Creek. The joint operated from the 1980s through 2005. Now a Golden Corral buffet sits on the site.
Image: YouTube
8. Wet 'n Wild
Las Vegas, Nevada / Garland, Texas
In 1977, SeaWorld creator George Millay opened his visionary Wet 'n Wild Orlando, which some claimed to be the first water park in America, despite Lake Dolores predating it by more than a decade. Still, Millay had great success with the idea, building a Wet 'n Wild chain across the country. Some remain to this day. Locations in Garland, Texas, and Las Vegas, however, are long gone. The Vegas location shut down in 2004, despite a prime location on the north end of the Strip.
Image: YouTube
9. Wild Rivers
Irvine, California
Orange County kids of a certain age undoubtedly recall this water park — and perhaps have the scars to prove it. The Edge and Ledge rides were shut down in 2003 due to violent drops on the slide and tales of people getting stuck in tubes. Wild Rivers closed in 2011.
Image: YouTube
10. Wild Waters
Florida has no shortage of tourist attractions, but Wild Waters felt a little more for locals. It sat in the middle of the state, in Silver Springs, by Ocala, far from any beach. It was a more bucolic setting, with trees and shade. The brochure promised to send you "careening through the trees," in fact. The kiddie area was called "Bonanza." But it was for the little ones, not Little Joe.
Image: Wild Waters / eBay
27 Comments
#9 ????? Holy buckets (please bring it back!!!!!)
Regarding Lake Dolores: My friend and I begged our parents to make the drive to take us there (it was advertised heavily in southern California where we lived), but they weren't thrilled with the idea, and we sadly never got to go.
We'd get a lot of advertising on tv about Frontiertown and Santa's Workshop (in North Pole, NY, the CBS affiliate in Plattsburgh long announced it as their location), and there were others. In the sixties we had a local show hosted by a magician, and in tge summer, he'd do shows at remote locations, including Frontiertown. How exciting it lokked through the lens of tv. We never went to any.
Onky Santa's Workshop remains.
