Opryland U.S.A.

[Chris the Coaster Freak]

The "Elizabeth" from Astroworld, and Opryland before that, sits dead on a side track at Six Flags Over Georgia now. It's been there since the season after Astroworld closed. It came with several other pieces given to the park after the closing of Astroworld. It has not been used at SFOG since being brought over.

 

Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of its current location or current state.

[thrillerman1]

A while ago the local PBS station did a documentary on Opryland, did any of you locals get the chance to see it? They used some of my old home movie footage so I was able to get a copy of the program...maybe I should get it posted to this thread.

 

I would love to see a new version of Opryland open in Nashville.

 

Shane I did see that PBS special about Opryland when it aired last year. It was done really well and would be awesome if you posted it here!

 

The dvd is available for $75 at:

 

http://www.wnpt.org/productions/memories/opryland/index.html

 

It mainly focused on the performers at the park, but did have some ride segments.

[coasterfreaky]

The "Elizabeth" from Astroworld, and Opryland before that, sits dead on a side track at Six Flags Over Georgia now. It's been there since the season after Astroworld closed. It came with several other pieces given to the park after the closing of Astroworld. It has not been used at SFOG since being brought over.

 

Unfortunately, I do not have any pictures of its current location or current state.

 

Here are a couple of pics off the "Memories Of Opryland" yahoo group. On the bottom we have Beatrice in use at SFGA...looks like the passenger cars are from Opryland as well, but hard to tell for certain, and then on the top we have Elizabeth in her current state at SFOG...not sure how long ago these were taken.

 

There are tons of great Opryland pictures in the facebook group...go here to take a look...

http://www.facebook.com/inbox/?folder=[fb]messages&page=1&tid=239743003146#/photo_search.php?oid=2220971496&view=all

[mcjaco]

Ah yes. The bottom one is a diesel, just like the ones at SFGAm. You can see the exhaust stack at the rear of the tender.

 

I hightly doubted Six Flags would pay for the constant upkeep of a working steam locomotive, along with the insurance. Doubtful the other one will ever run again, unless someone really wants to take it off their hands.

[montezooma]

Coming this afternoon and over the next 5 days in Shane's Amusement Attic...a very special 5-part mini series, "Memories of Opryland"

 

I will be presenting over the next 5 days the wonderful program that aired on Nashville's PBS station.

 

If you are a fan of Opryland or never got the chance to visit this unique park you MUST see this program.

 

-Shane

[coasterdude5]

I'm so excited to finally get to see this!

[montezooma]

I just watched it again this morning as I uploaded it. It really is a well done documentary and makes you very sad for the loss of this truly unique park.

[coasterdude5]

It was my first "big" amusement park so I've always cherished what little I remember about it. As a kid everything seems so big - I'm sure if I returned to the park today it wouldn't seem as huge but it still seemed like a park that had a lot of character, something that can't be said about most parks today.

[ernierocker]

Awesome! Can't wait to see the documentary.

[montezooma]

MEMORIES of OPRYLAND

 

[coastertube]http://www.themeparkreview.com/coastertube/play.php?vid=Opryland_Memories_part_1_6cx2[/coastertube]

[coastertube]http://www.themeparkreview.com/coastertube/play.php?vid=Opryland_Memories_part_2_ww51[/coastertube]

[coastertube]http://www.themeparkreview.com/coastertube/play.php?vid=Opryland_Memories_part_3_pnh6[/coastertube]

[coastertube]http://www.themeparkreview.com/coastertube/play.php?vid=Opryland_Memories_part_4_afai[/coastertube]

[coastertube]http://www.themeparkreview.com/coastertube/play.php?vid=Opryland_Memories_part_5_qlr3[/coastertube]

[linearinduction]

Ah yes. The bottom one is a diesel, just like the ones at SFGAm. You can see the exhaust stack at the rear of the tender.

 

I hightly doubted Six Flags would pay for the constant upkeep of a working steam locomotive, along with the insurance. Doubtful the other one will ever run again, unless someone really wants to take it off their hands.

After Doe River Gorge, Rachel was donated to the city of Grapevine, Texas, by Gaylord. Beatrice (#1/#4) was a 2-4-4 Steam Locomotive like Rachel, but later Converted to a Diesel Hydraulic 2-4-0 by Opryland. Elizabeth was Manufactured by Custom Fabricators (Just like the Great America Trains) for Opryland.

 

Rachel Info

 

Beatrice and Elizabeth Info, Scroll Down to 1993.

 

- Sid

[tntornadox]

I figured this was as good a place as any to post some chilling images from last weeks flooding in Nashville that claimed the entire Opryland complex. Water rose to almost ten feet in places at Gaylord Opryland, Opry Mills and the Grand Ole Opry House itself. The following images were taken by an Opryland employee who visited the Hotel the day after the flooding and posted them onto his Facebook, where he has given people his approval to re-post them since it's a public album.

 

Escalator to nowhere.

Delta Island living up to its name.

The entire first floor of the Delta area was submerged, we found out later 117 guestrooms were affected.

The Cascades Lobby was completely submerged.

 

Gaylord released the following images this afternoon, showing the damage sustained:

Cascades atrium

One of those zero level guestrooms in the Delta.

The Cascades Lobby.

Convention Center lower level

 

Gaylord officials say over 800,000 square feet of the 4,000,000 square foot Hotel were damaged, mostly the atrium spaces. Their concern is the underground tunnels and technical equipment as well as the power plant. They hope to re-open Gaylord Opryland before the year is out, with the Grand Ole Opry returning to its home a lot sooner than that... it's just sad that it took a huge flood to have water running in Grizzly River Rampage again.

[DBru]

Wow. It's scary to see just how much damage nature can be responsible for...and this is nothing compared to some of the other aftermath in the area.

 

My thoughts and prayers go out to everyone affected by this disaster. Hopefully everyone (including Gaylord Opry) can recover as quickly as possible!

[thrillrider]

They never did mention why the park closed. Any idea why it closed?

 

Looked like a nice park, I wish I was able to visit.

[netdvn]

Short answer: Gaylord felt that a mall would do better financially than a theme park would, so they ripped the park out and put a shopping mall on top of where the park used to stand.

 

I've also heard rumors that Gaylord was planning on expanding the park but the residents complained. From satellite pics, the park was in a similar situation with Knott's (landlocked) and couldn't expand without interfering with some residential neighborhood or something similar.

[tntornadox]

They never did mention why the park closed. Any idea why it closed?

 

Looked like a nice park, I wish I was able to visit.

 

Longer Answer: (Sorry, I was typing this up before the previous post was posted)

 

Gaylord Entertainment (GET) from the 80's onward shifted its focus to the Hotel business and left the park to coast on cruise control, after the installation of CHAOS in 1989, they didn't build anything until 1995 when they installed Hangman, but the damage had been done... the theme park business (especially in a tourist market like Nashville) is one of 'build or stagnate'... attendance plateaued and began to drop slightly, and they had used up what expansion space the park had in favor of expanding the Opryland Hotel to include the Delta atrium. Executives in the mid-90s decided the park was not performing to their expectations and would likely never return to it without major work and investment, so they decided to bulldoze it and build a year-round venue where money could always be made.

 

At the beginning, GET owned a minority interest in Opry Mills, along with the Mills Corporation (later merged with Simon Malls) and it opened with quite a roster of stores, but the mall has slipped quite a bit in recent years with the loss of a few key anchors which were replaced by generic companies... so GET sold its shares in Opry Mills back to the Mills Corporation, now it's only tie to the mall is they lease the 'Opry' name to them. Ironically, the land where Opryland once stood where it didn't make enough money is now earning them absolutely nothing...

 

The current management at Gaylord have came out and condemned the actions of the previous management team, the current CEO, Colin Reed, has said it's obvious to him the previous management team had absolutely no vision or plan for Opryland and it was a mistake it was closed in the first place. In recent years, rumors have been abound that Gaylord is seeking to rebuild an entertainment venue to help support Gaylord Opryland (the current name of the Opryland Hotel), perhaps even another theme park in the near future... we shall see... local residents are very NIMBY around Opryland, so we shall see...

[aimster]

Wow this thread brought back some serious memories for me! We visited Opryland several times in the 80's. My last visit was in 1991. I know I have some photos from that trip and probably some from the old trips too. I'll have to see about digging them out and scanning some in to post.

 

And now a couple funny Opryland stories...

 

I don't remember what year it was, but it was sometime in the early or mid 80's. My parents &I were at the park and we decided to go on Grizzly River Rampage. None of us had been on a water ride like this, so we didn't know what to expect really. My mom & I took the only 2 dry seats on the raft, thinking we'd be ok. We ended being the ONLY TWO who got SOAKED. And with it being the 80's, my mom was wearing one of those one piece shorts/halter top things... made of TERRYCLOTH! So that thing absorbed so much water and just CLUNG to her! She had to go into the bathroom to wring out her clothes. She said it was like wearing a wet washcloth the rest of the day. She was PISSED!

 

Then in 1991, my best friend was with us and we decided to go on Chaos. We had no idea what it was about... and still don't. The effects weren't working, so they were just sending trains through in the pitch black building. We thought it was fun and did it 2 or 3 more times. I kept trying to take photos with the flash to see what was inside the building, but all I got were photos of black walls. So then I took a photo of my friend in the car in front of me and when it was developed, the flash made it look like she had NO FACE!

 

Oh here's one more funny Opryland story...

 

It was in the early 80's. I was riding some antique carousel they had (it was unique as it was like all carriages or something... no horses). While my parents were waiting for me, this golf cart comes driving by with a park employee and some guy eating an ice cream cone. My mom realized he was somebody famous (probably a country singer) because people came up and asked for his autograph. Since she was standing right there, she offered to hold the ice cream while he signed autographs and he happily obliged. She peeked to see what name he signed... "T.T. Hall". After the autograph hounds left, he did a photo shoot, got his ice cream back from my mom & left. That night my mom went in the first record shop we came across and started looking through the "H" section until she came across him.... It was Tom T. Hall! A couple months later, my dad got one of his RV magazines in the mail and lo and behold.... in it was an ad with none other than Tom T. Hall and the carousel I was riding at Opryland was in the background! My mom was all "I held his ice cream cone while he shot that ad!"

[QueerRudie]

I relocated to Nashville the year that Opry Mills opened it's doors- and I have several memories of the journey myself.

 

Having been to Opryland in 1992, the park was, to me, very classic in it's feel; it had in fact been in decline by that point; even so, the park was maintained well, it was clean, and it was friendly.

 

Returning to Nashville in the late spring of 2000, however, it was a different story all over. Where people laughed, screamed and had fun was a blank, emtpy parkinglotland with a huge ugly building resting on where once a Mine Train and a Bobsled had once occupied. But the most terrifying- nee haunted- moment for me was walking from the Opryland Hotel across to the Mall- and seeing the empty, lifeless corpes that was once Grizzly River Rapids. GRR was left to rot; the ride itself was gone, no water, no rafts, nothing left over from it's earlier days.

 

I'm not a superstitious person under most circumstances- but for me, it seemed like the area was haunted by a possessed ghost of the old ride. I could feel a sense of loss; the ride felt to me like it was saying "I didn't need to die like this. I didn't want to go."

 

I can only hope that the new managment at GET will get the right idea- and ressurect in some format the Opryland park again- It is sorely missed.

[Velo_editor]

Thought I'd post an update on Opryland:

 

Opryland USA is long gone, but as others have reported (and shot pictures of), the remnants of the Grizzly River Rampage can still be found near the Opry House between Opry Mills mall and the Hotel. A month or so ago I shot some pretty cool pictures of the remnants but my camera card was corrupted and I lost them all.

 

We just returned to visit the Hotel and we’ve discovered that a great majority of the ruins are gone! The Opryland Hotel is adding on to their convention center and they’ve torn down the river path and the bear cave is now gone. There are still a few structures here and there and I was able to take some shots with my iPhone. Who knows how long they’ll be here. It's sad to think the entire park is about to be gone.

The iconic boulders of the Grizzly River Rampage still stand.

Construction is underway and has removed the old river bed and bear cave of the ride.

Remnant of a park path in the foreground and some of the ride's walls can still be seen. In the background you can see they've cleared everything out.

I'm not sure what this building was for but I'm pretty sure it was part of the ride.

Another view of the largest remaining part of the boulder facade.

Park path and part of the wall can still be found here.

[ernierocker]

 

I assume this was the ride's pump house?

 

Someone had mentioned in this thread that they were going to expand the hotel and it was assumed that they would finally remove what was left of the ride. Looks like they still left part of it.

[Velo_editor]

Yeah, my pictures shows what's left for now but I can't imagine they'd leave the pump house as ugly as it is. The rocks they might leave just because they can probably play off the motif since there's plenty of fake rock inside the conservatories. The whole area is kind of weird, though. This is kind of no man's land between the parking lots and the hotel/convention center and as they build out closer to the parking lots, I would assume they'll tear down stuff like the buildings, the odd remnants of broken up park pathways, etc., just so it doesn't look so abandoned and haphazard. Hopefully they'll at least keep the big boulder wall though.

[coasterfreaky]

Yes that was the underbelly of the station...it used to be hidden by a wood fence. Pumps, conveyor belt motors, etc were all housed there. Thanks for posting, sad, but not unexpected. IIRC, Griz was going to be leveled a few years ago, but the sagging economy and probably the flooding in 2010 put the brakes on the demo/hotel expansion work.

[DarienLaker]

They never did mention why the park closed. Any idea why it closed?

 

Looked like a nice park, I wish I was able to visit.

 

My answer: I don't know why they've closed Opryland and demolish nearly all the park for a mall. I mean it was a decent park, I went there in 1997 not knowing it was their last season EVER!

But Opryland could have had better future if it was still open. I think Gaylord should have sold Opryland to Six Flags. Can you imagine if Opryland was still open and owned by Six Flags?

[coasterfreaky]

Opryland was totally focused on shows, the Opry and the hotel/convention center, not rides and the amusement side of the theme park. They didn't know what a 20-year plan was, or a 5-year plan, or any type of plan that had anything to do with rides and coasters, they just winged everything they did for the entire 25 years of existence, so they were unable to keep up with other parks who did know what they were doing - SFOG, Dollywood, etc. Also, they were landlocked and had no where to expand since the hotel got the bulk of the extra property. When an opportunity came along in 1997 to provide something (an outlet mall!) that generated revenue 365 days per year vs. 180 or so, then that was the path of least resistance, everyone who cared about the park-be-damned. That is the short answer, read back through this thread if you want more of the story.

[Velo_editor]

Yes that was the underbelly of the station...it used to be hidden by a wood fence. Pumps, conveyor belt motors, etc were all housed there. Thanks for posting, sad, but not unexpected. IIRC, Griz was going to be leveled a few years ago, but the sagging economy and probably the flooding in 2010 put the brakes on the demo/hotel expansion work.

 

Ah, yes now I can place the station as being there. Thanks! You're right about the construction delay. The economy and flood definitely played a role in delaying their expansion. But now it's full steam forward.

 

The hotel itself seems to have fully recovered from the flood. It was extremely crowded with conventioneers, tourists and I assume some regular hotel guests and all of the major restaurants had long lines.