Year after year, season after season, traces of amusement parks past flicker out of existence. From historic dark rides to classic coasters; beloved landmarks to entire parks, sometimes, no amount of history, nostalgia, legend, or love can save a classic. Though Park Lore’s collection of Lost Legends is stocked with the stories of beloved theme park favorites of yesteryear, there’s no story as staggering as that of Geauga Lake.
You may never have even heard of the little amusement park nestled into the hillsides southeast of Cleveland, Ohio. But its story is one that sounds too wild to be true: a full-sized Six Flags and a full-sized SeaWorld, facing each other across a spring-fed lake that – literally overnight – merged into a single, gargantuan super-park. Mega-coasters, killer whales, dizzying flat rides, a Batman water ski show, dolphins, log flumes, waterslides, tigers, penguins, and motion simulators for one price, Six Flags Worlds of Adventure stood a chance at becoming the best amusement park on Earth… and more to the point, a fitting rival for Cedar Point just an hour and a half west…
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