I would so shoot a horror film at any of those places.

I drive past #2 on the list a few times a year on the way to/from Vegas. It's really weird to see a water park out there in the middle of the freakin' desert, with nothing for 50 miles in either direction.

On a mobile, so it was difficult to try making it all the way through. But I would assume many of these were like The Beach in Albuquerque where the cost of all the water lost just in evaporation every day exceeded anything possible to remain sustainable. It was fun while out lasted.

Evil Kirk vs Bad Ash: It was going to be a slideshow regardless.

Bah-dum-tssssh!

Closest thing to summer heaven that isn't either fattening or sexual.

Repeat, or déjà vu? I'm a little freaked out.

I remember awhile ago reading about Action Park in NJ, considered the most dangerous water park in the world in the 70s and 80s. Legendary for it's unsafe rides, it had a commitment of at least two major injuries a week and six deaths over the course of a decade.

Other rides were built with inventiveness and originality in mind but without a care or concern for safety. Everything from rope swings that veered dangerously near rock outcrops to slides with fiberglass splinters. The owners were sleazy bastards who spent more time burying the bad press than improving conditions, and the employees were all late/inattentive/stoned teenagers filling crappy summer jobs for minimum wage.

That park was a death trap.

Good times.

drake113: Styx River Waterworld! I spent many a summer afternoon there back in my grade school days. Now I'm sad...

/Drowns sorrow with alcohol
//Oh! Hey, I found a crumpled up $20 in the washing machine!
///Celebrates happiness with alcohol

How did a place with the same connotations to "The River Styx" manage to even open in the Bible Belt?

here to help: butt rapists hiding in the shrubs is now the name of my next bluegrass band

corridor: The funny thing is that as a kid in that area in the 80's, we all gladly risked death and the occasional bloody elbow/knee/face to spend the day there. It was a brilliantly fun place.

The more I think about it, the more I realize that the inattentiveness of the "adults" and the dangerousness of the rides was probably exactly why we craves it. It was the rare dose of coveted freedom, because parents usually just dropped you off there for the day.

Yeah, the Wiki says the same thing. Despite the danger, it is still looked upon with fondness, as a sort of Gen-X rite of passage. You weren't a man until you got seriously injured at Action Park.

And the park not only survived despite all the bad PR but positively thrived because of it....... and then came the 90s, and the Millenial generation reached prime "water park attending" years (8-13), and the injuries turned into lawsuits by helicopter parents upset that their precious snowflakes weren't incased in plastic bubbles at all times while they were there.... and that was all she wrote.

I went down that slide at Williams Grove countless times. The slide wasn't bad, but the roller coaster was a genuine deathtrap. Which of course was why we rode it, it heightened the thrill. By the way, if you want to buy the park and renovate it, I believe it's for sale.

We also stole the cow from the miniature golf course and put it on the 50-yard line at Ecker Field in Boiling Springs. Imagine, four of us riding in a Citation hanging out the window anchoring a 100-pound cow to the roof while driving with the lights out. Man, we were living large back then!

/Ah, the things you do when you're a kid...

Supes: I think abandoned amusement parks are far more haunting, especially some of them in Japan.

[ruinsds.sakura.ne.jp image 555x360]

Some more great images from that park here. (pops)

This abandoned "Circus Town" in my hometown is pretty CREEPY