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Opryland U.S.A.


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Thank's for sharing those.

 

I always kicked myself for never making the trip it did look like a cute park. Minus the fact I really hate country music.

 

Well on the bright side of it, if the park still was around the naacp would have marched the park in protest of the hangman. So at the least they avoided that one.

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What happened to the Chaos roller coaster? It was fairly new when the park closed.......

Probably the scrap heap. That was quite simply the worst excuse for a "coaster" I've ever been on. Wow, thinking about it even now makes me want those few minutes of my life back. What a waste.

 

Nice trip down memory lane though.

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I always thought Chaos was quite overrated myself, and I rode it when all the 3D special effects were working. Not quite sure why that ride seems to have built up such a large fan following.

 

I remember reading that in 1989 a lot of rival park officials laughed at the Opryland guys during the IAAPA Expo for spending $8 million to build the Chaos dud, because in comparison Cedar Point spent exactly that much on Magnum XL.

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That's quite a collection of photos. Thanks for posting those. I remember going on vacation with my family every summer to visit my Dad's side of the family for one week. Once we got there, we'd watch the weather to pick a day that would be best to visit Opryland. I grew up visiting the park once every summer. My cousin, Stephen was one of the ride-ops on Screamin Delta Demon in the summer of '94.

 

I happen to have three defunct parks listed in my Defunct Parks section on my site. Opryland USA, Old Indiana Fun Park and Williams Grove.

 

If you visit my site, there are several photos of the Opryland coasters in storage at the Old Indiana Fun Park.

 

http://www.houstonthrills.com/brachphotography/series/defunct/

(I did not take any of those photos, they were taken specially for me by Robert Burtz and Scott & Carol Holmes (theacers))

 

That's Screamin Delta Demon rusting away.

 

 

The following photos were taken by either my Dad or my Grandfather.

 

Me enjoying the mist/wave of water coming off of Old Mill Scream when I was 14.

 

General Mills cereal photo!

 

It's a shame the park never made it to 27.

 

Yes, I was crying in this photo. June 1998, less than a week after I graduated from High School, my grandfather (RIP) took me and my dad out to see what was left of Opryland. (The sign says: AREA CLOSED)

 

If anyone played RCT/RCT2, I recreated Opryland for those games. I'm trying to find the files since I haven't played in eons. If you are interested in the file, please send me an email using the email feature of the forums.

 

 

-William Brach

BrachPhotography

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My cousin, Stephen was one of the ride-ops on Screamin Delta Demon in the summer of '94.

 

There's a decent chance I saw him because that was the one and only visit to the park for my family, girlfriend, and I. I too was splash victim of the Old Mill Scream, but it kicked me in the groin. Embarassing, but funny.

 

If you do a search on Opryland Remnants, I've got a photo tr up that shows what's left as of March 2007. Hope to get up there in the next couple weeks or after the first of the year for an update.

 

Do you remember the cheese logs that they sold near the Old Mill Scream? It was a sub bun with several cheeses melted on it with some really great seasoning. Haven't found anything like that since.

 

So so glad to see all of these pictures and info. Thanks everybody for sharing!

 

Edit: One of the 3 old guys in the Opry Mills / Demolition pictures is Porter Wagoner (center with hat and glasses) who died recently.

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What happened to the Chaos roller coaster? It was fairly new when the park closed.......

Probably the scrap heap. That was quite simply the worst excuse for a "coaster" I've ever been on. Wow, thinking about it even now makes me want those few minutes of my life back. What a waste.

 

That's why coasters come in all different styles and 'flavors'. Everyone likes different things.

 

I loved Chaos. True, it wasn't a huge thrill, but it was unique, fast, and fun.

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It's such a shame that Opryland is gone. Gathering from the research I've done, and the people I've talked to, is seems a lot like Dollywood.

 

Also, the shopping mall that replaced Opryland is officially ghetto. The Alabama Grill was replaced by..........furniture consignment. *shudders*

 

If Nashville wasn't already regretting the removal of the park, then they certainly were after the shootings that occurred in the mall food court around a year ago.

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Thanks for the walk back in time. My first job was at Opryland USA when I was 15. I worked the games in the State Fair section of the park back in about 1995. One day I was working the electronic 'hit the silver stump to send the light to the top of the tower' thing (forgive me for not knowing what the heck this thing was called). This large man reminiscent of 'Bald Bull' from the PunchOut video game hit the stump thing and the hammer bounced back and busted his head open. I flagged down my supervisor and the bloody guy was rushed away. A crew of people came to spray bleach water on everything and I was up and operating an hour later. Crazy!

 

I think most Nashvillians did not want to see the park dismantled - especially knowing a mall was going to take its place.

 

By the way, the sign with the Hangman logo that sat above the Hangman entrance is now sitting over the door of a bar along US Hwy 41 around the Smyrna / LaVergne, TN area. Next time I'm down there, I'll take a picture and post it.

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It's such a shame that Opryland is gone. Gathering from the research I've done, and the people I've talked to, is seems a lot like Dollywood.

 

Eh, definitely not. It was a nice place and all, but it was fairly generic. Nothing really set itself apart from any other typical park. It didn't even have 25% of the theming and atmosphere that Dollywood has. It's still a shame it's gone. I really hate it. But I'll definitely say that it was no Dollywood.

 

The Opry Hall is a great example of 1970s architecture that looks very dated today, anyone else agree?

 

Yes, but it is still awesome and impressive.

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  • 2 months later...

Going thru my old movies I came across this little bit from Opryland, I wish I would have filmed more of this park but never in a million years did I think that it would not be around today.

 

Kind of makes you wonder what parks will not be around 10 years from now...

 

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This was taken on super 8 film and then transfered to digital.

 

Grizzly River Rampage was the second of the Intamin Rapids Rides to open. Thunder River at AstroWorld opened in 1980 which means that the ride at Opryland opened in 1981.

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That is such an amazing video of Opryland, Shane!

 

I wish I had gotten to go to this park when it was open. I have a few old flyers from it here somewhere in the house, that I got by mail a couple or few decades ago, lol.

 

You've really put together some nice retro-vids of the parks you've shown us, so far with videos. The music works great with this one, I must say.

 

 

 

But - it was too short, tooooooo short!

 

And more, more MORE!

 

Thanks for putting it all together.

 

AND what is the mountain in your avatar? It looks familiar and yet....?

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