Wednesday, April 12, 2006

Not Quite a Magic Kingdom

I seem to be stuck in my youthful past this week. My bother sent me two links that reminded me of the time when Colorado tried to get into the theme-park game with:
When I use the term 'major' I'm thinking of Disneyland (also, Knott's Berry Farm), which after its opening in 1954 had states around the nation thinking maybe they could cash in on this new trend in vacation destinations too.

Colorado already had two amusement parks Elitchs Garden and Lakeside; however, these were built in the same style as Cooney Island with tradition rides like the roller coaster and the tilt-a-whirl, but with no theme or style to the way the rides or park were laid out.

Work started in 1957 on Magic Mountain and was to be a Disneyland-style theme park, although with a more western flavor. East Tin Cup called upon Colorado's gold rush and mining town history much the same as Knott's Berry Farm referenced California's gold rush and farming heritage.

Looking back with 20/20 hindsight it seems obvious that two huge problems confronted Magic Mountain and East Tin Cup:
  1. First: weather, while the summers are very nice in Colorado there are still only three months of really warm temperatures. Colorado wasn't a year round place to vacation in.
  2. Second: small population, Denver, then the largest city in the state, in 1957 was still under a million people. There weren't enough local folks to fill the parks once the tourist season ended. Even today Disneyland counts on regular attendance from the LA area to supplement the once-a-year vacation visitor.
In defense of the investors and visionaries of Magic Mountain and East Tin Cup, at the time they attempted to start these Colorado theme parks, even Disneyland was still a new concept with no business models available to tell you what would or would not work. (Even the masters of the Game, Disney, have bombed in the amusement park game with their Disney California Adventure.) The two theme parks were a sincere attempt to make Denver a vacation destination.

1 Comments:

Blogger Diligent Blogger said...

How about the genius who put in a water slide park in Western Washington?

12:38 PM  

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