GREATAMERICAparks.com

Found this site with a few pictures from the early 1980's:

http://www.negative-g.com/SFGAM/SFGAM80s/SFGAM80s1.html

I was wondering if anyone has ever seen any of the original plans for what Marriott envisioned for Gurnee's Great Southwest? Was it pretty much the same layout that Six Flags eventually built there? Was there ever talk about also building a Great Southwest area in Santa Clara? There must have been s...

From what I remember (and this is only regarding the Gurnee park), Yukon Yahoo (industry name: Bayer Kurve) originally opened in Yukon Territory and was later moved to Orleans Place under the name Delta Flyer. Hilltopper (industry name: Himalaya) in County Fair was later renamed Industrial Revolutio...

Yes, that information is correct. I was an Area Host (sweeper) in Yukon in 1977. The scrambler was in Yukon Territory in 1976 and 1977. It was moved to Hometown for the 1978 season and Bugs Bunny's Fort Fun was build in the abandoned space.

No, the original 3 Six Flags parks (Texas, Georgia, & Mid-America...now St. Louis) featured Sid & Marty Krofft characters. The characters I remember were named H.R. Puffin Stuff and Witchipoo. I never liked those characters but they used to have a Saturday morning tv show in the early 1970's...

I know this is an old post but since nobody replied with actual numbers, I figured I'd chime in. During Marriott's ownership, the Gurnee park always beat the Santa Clara park in attendance despite having a much shorter operating season. The Santa Clara park was open 150 days/year while the Gurnee pa...

Hey all, After reading this thread and watching the 5-25-77 trailer and hearing "you'll still be Pat Johnson...", a memory came back to me of meeting a MGA employee back in '78 named "Pat Johnson". I met him at an employee event back in '78...I'm pretty sure it was the Tidal Wave...

The original colors of the buildings in Carousel Plaza from 1976 to 1980 were mostly cream, yellow, & brown. This pic from the photo albums shows the original ticket booth colors....same color scheme was used for the rest of the from gate buildings. http://www.greatamericaparks.com/albums.html I...

Thanks for the update & good luck at NIU....go Huskies! I remember MGA having some problems with a few kids from Warren H.S. out in the parking lot back in 1981. In the mornings, a couple guys from the parking lot crew would stand out on the entrance road between Grand Avenue and the parking lot...

Did Warren H.S. get a new building since 1977? I'm pretty sure I remember that high school kids from the Gurnee area attended Warren H.S. back in 1977 when I was an Area Host at the park. Also, I never heard of this movie before. Has anyone seen it? Is it available on DVD? Is there any more scenes o...

This incident must have happened in 1978. I worked on the Loggers Run crew in Gurnee in '78 and remember hearing about the Santa Clara accident. We were told one log in Santa Clara went down the left chute with a missing guide wheel & the log got stuck in the metal swing gate at the bottom of th...

Cool! Thanks Rick for posting the newspaper clip. I guess it was actually in May 1978 prior to Memorial Day so that means the park was open 10am-8pm on weekends...I'll edit my previous post. I remember the park was closing & it was dark outside by the time the last guests were rescued. Any chanc...

In '76 and '77, there was a street entertainment Fife & Drum corp that wandered through Yankee Harbor. They didn't have a specific stage but a lot of the time, they performed inside the Yankee-Orleans covered bridge.

Thanks for posting the additional close ups. Carousel Plaza was built exactly as shown on that print...the only thing that's missing was the pet kennel building. Since then, the building on either side of the entrance gates have been expanded and re-purposed. There were only 8 ticket booths (dual si...

According to an article on Wikipedia, actual construction on the park started in 1974 and within 2 years, the entire park was built and ready to open by May 1976. That's an amazing amount of construction to complete in two years...considering Marriott had to have all the details like landscaping, co...