The USA is famed for its larger-than-life theme parks – but not all of them have had staying power. Like America's Gold Rush-era ghost towns they now sit abandoned, imbued with an intrigue all their own.
Read on to discover the most haunting abandoned theme parks in America – before developers get their hands on them and they are lost forever...
Not to be confused with the still-operating Joyland in Texas, this family-focused park was founded in 1949 by race-car mechanic Lester Ottaway and his sons. A toy steam train, Wurlitzer-style organ, mighty wooden roller coaster, and twirling carousel drew in the crowds, and the park went from strength to strength.
Here we see the park in its heyday, in 1997.
In the 1970s, after Ottaway passed away and his sons retired, the park was sold to Stanley and Margaret Nelson. By 1974, they had introduced what would become the site's most well-loved attraction: the Whacky Shack.
The haunted-house-esque ride saw cars rattle through a whimsical hut, with wonky chimneys and haphazard windows. Popular, too, was the Tilt-A-Whirl, a spinning attraction similar to the teacups. The roller coaster, pictured, was another popular attraction.
The fun was destined to stop though, and steep costs and dwindling visitor numbers forced the Nelsons to close the park in 2006. Various attractions have now been donated or sold to preservation societies or museums, but the site is still dotted with some ruinous rides and peeling ticket boxes, which stir nostalgia in long-time Wichita residents.
Sadly, plans to redevelop the site with carnival rides and a paintball range in 2019 fell by the wayside.
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The site of Lake Shawnee has a dark history that predates the park. The bloodshed begins with the Clay family who, in the 18th century, settled on this land, which belonged to a Native American tribe.
Mitchell Clay and his wife had 14 young children and, in 1783, tribespeople captured and killed two of them. Bereft and enraged, Clay continued the carnage by murdering several of the native peoples.
More than a century later – and ignorant of the site’s macabre past – entrepreneur Conley Snidow bought the land with the intention of establishing a theme park here. Lake Shawnee Amusement Park opened in the 1920s, finished with a giant Ferris wheel, a swing carousel, a vast swimming pool, and other kitsch attractions.
But the bloodshed was to continue. Over the years, numerous patrons died on the purportedly 'cursed' site, including a young girl who was hit by a truck as she played on the swings, and a little boy who drowned in the pool.
The fated park finally closed in 1966. Yet in the 1980s, the by-then rusting site was snapped up once more by businessman Gaylord White. He intended to return the park to its former glory but, when construction began, White’s workers found human remains and Native American artifacts, and the project was promptly abandoned.
Long left to waste and molder, the park now attracts a different kind of thrill seeker: tours run here regularly, regaling the site’s spine-chilling tale.
Built in the late 1960s by eccentric estate agent O.J. Snow, this curious theme park was based on the comic strip Li'l Abner, which followed the lives of rural folk in the fictional town of Dogpatch. Eschewing the extravagant coasters and thrill rides of competing parks, Dogpatch was a land of lazy rivers, rickety water slides, and quaint candy shops.
But it was hapless from the start. Its low-key vibe failed to attract the paying public and the park was passed between owners, fading all the while.
Eventually, its time was up, and the gates were closed in 1993. Shortly afterwards, the owners attempted to sell the park on eBay, but its decaying slides, creaking shells, and character statues garnered no interest.
When a well-received documentary film about the park aired, hopes were high that there'd be a happy ending for this sorry story.
That happy ending may soon be upon us. In 2021 Johnny Morris, the founder of the famous outdoor sporting goods retailer Bass Pro Shops, bought the 400-acre property with hopes to turn it into the Marble Falls Nature Park.
Known as 'the Walt Disney of the Outdoors', Morris previously developed Big Cedar Lodge into one of America's premiere wilderness resorts. His exact plans for Dogpatch remain unknown, but doubtlessly it will chime with his stated mission to ‘connect everyone with nature'.
Rose Island was first opened in the Roaring Twenties, and was the vision of mogul David Rose. The site, in fact, isn't an island at all, but a picturesque area that had earned the nickname 'Fern Grove' for its abundant vegetation.
Rose filled the space with a sizeable swimming pool, ritzy hotel, wooden roller coaster, and pocket-sized zoo, and the visitors soon followed.
However, it was mother nature that would sound this park’s death knell. In 1937, the fierce Ohio River flood wrecked the park, leaving it swamped in some 10 feet of water.
The site was beyond repair, and it was left to perish. Now a handful of traces remain, including a dried-out swimming pool, filled with gravel (pictured).
Today the abandoned remains of Rose Island form part of the beautiful Charlestown State Park. The crumbling buildings have been left in place, eerie and silent and in the process of being reclaimed by nature and are best explored by following the hiking path, Trail #7.
The most striking ruins have information signs identifying what they once were, along with fascinating stories dating from their heyday.
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Dating back to the 1850s, the Williams Grove Amusement Park began life as a small recreation area, popular with picnickers. The Little Show Boat ride (pictured) was exceedingly popular and by 1928, the Williams family, the park’s owners and namesake, began adding rides of increasing size and splendor.
In 1933 the ever-popular Cyclone, a dizzying wooden roller coaster, became the park’s crown jewel. A speedway was also opened next to the site.
In 1972 the park was sold to a man named Morgan Hughes, and it immediately seemed as though the writing was on the wall. Hurricane Agnes tore through the site in the very same year, leaving it devastated.
A tenacious Hughes did not give up, though, and the park was repaired, remaining open for another three decades.
However, by 2005, Hughes wanted to scale things down a notch, and made the decision to close the park, pouring all his energy into the still-running speedway. Various rides were sold off at an auction in 2007 (pictured), but the Cyclone, among others, still lingers, suffocated by trees and crumbling more by the day.
The abandoned site is off limits to the public, though it has occasionally been opened for special events.
Chippewa Lake Amusement Park had a good run. It opened in 1878, and its story spans an entire century. It began as a humble resort with a ballroom, steamboat, and a roller coaster that relied on manpower to reset it after every ride.
But after the turn of the century, Chippewa was acquired by ambitious businessman Mac Beach who catapulted modest Chippewa Lake into the 1900s.
A Ferris wheel, a modern Big Dipper and a beloved Tumble Bug (pictured) joined the ranks, and fast-food shacks and vibrant ticket booths peppered the site. The Hotel Chippewa was another highlight, and the park established itself as a must-visit.
Eventually, an ageing Beach sold his park onto Continental Business Enterprises in 1969 but despite an ambitious set of plans from the new owners, local interest dimmed.
In 1978, CBE closed Chippewa Lake, leaving it to be another ruin ravaged by nature. Trees broke the backs of roller coasters and fell through the roofing of derelict ticket booths, and weeds forced their way into every crevice. The historic ballroom and hotel were eventually also destroyed by fire, although the ticket booth (pictured) remains.
Though various redevelopment plans have surfaced over the years, none of them have stuck – the site was chosen as the location for 2010 horror film Closed for the Season, but otherwise remains in disuse.
This once-colorful tangle of pools and water slides opened to the public in 1962, focused around a man-made lake and plonked in the unforgiving Mojave Desert. The park (later known as Rock-A-Hoola) swelled over the coming decades: more garish water rides were added, and so was a speeding zip line and an indoor arcade area.
However, interest in the park eventually dried up, and its expanse was left to the mercy of the desert by the end of the 1980s.
The Mojave’s scorching sun peeled at the paint of polished slides, and once brimming pools stood parched. But in the 1990s, the park was bought up once more, and a huge cash injection transformed it from a torrid desert wasteland to a retro, Route-66-themed adventure playground.
The future of the park looked bright once more.
However, tragedy struck in 1999, when an employee took an ill-fated ride down one of the slides. The plunge pool had insufficient water and the staff member was paralyzed. The resulting legal settlement cost the park millions of dollars and it would never recover from this unforeseen outpouring of cash or the blot on its reputation.
In 2004, the park was closed once more and today Lake Dolores is off limits to the public, though that doesn't stop curious visitors from trespassing on the abandoned site.
Rocky Point has always been Rhode Island’s working-class shoreline. The Rocky Point Amusement Park was opened in 1847, and by the early 1900s had become known as 'the Coney Island of Rhode Island'. Visitors came from all over the state to ride its roller coasters and giant Ferris wheel, with steamships bringing excited patrons from even further afield.
For a time it was the biggest attraction in Rhode Island, equally famous for its dining hall serving classic New England food as the big-name concerts held in its grounds.
Over the decades the Rocky Point Amusement Park continued to grow and expand, but financial struggles in 1995 saw the park close for good. The site lay abandoned for over 20 years, with famous rides like the Skyline Gondola (pictured) left to fall into disrepair.
Rhode Islanders mourned the loss of their beloved park, with Rhode Island filmmaker David Bettencourt eulogizing it in his emotional 2007 film, You Must Be This Tall: The Story of Rocky Point Park. Worse, with the site closed, they lost public access to the scenic shoreline.
In 2008 the city of Warwick acquired the site and set about developing it into an extraordinary coastal state park. Mindful of the special place the amusement park is held in local hearts, they have left remnants of many of the rides scattered about the park.
The most visible is the park’s iconic giant 'A' shaped arch (pictured), originally from the 1964 World’s Fair. Look closely and you’ll also spot the graffiti-covered base used as the central support for the circle swings and the rails of the old roller coaster rails, hidden under fallen leaves.
Hobbiton USA sits just off the Avenue of the Giants in Phillipsville, northern California and was once a popular roadside attraction in this neck of the woods. Built in the mid-1970s, it wasn’t a traditional theme park as such.
Rather than thrilling with adrenaline-pumping rides, Hobbiton invited visitors to take a stroll through scenes inspired by JRR Tolkien’s beloved book.
Each tableau came equipped with a button-activated speaker that enthralled visitors with tales from the scene being presented. Here we see a concrete Gandalf guarding the door of Bilbo’s hobbit hole, perhaps uttering the famous words “You shall not pass!”
Other memorable scenes on display include Bilbo’s encounter with the spiders of Mirkwood and his climactic battle with the dragon Smaug.
Sadly, Hobbiton closed for good in 2009, just as all things hobbit were becoming popular again thanks to Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies. Its charming dioramas have become overgrown and fallen into disrepair. And there are reports that the Gandalf guarding Bilbo’s door has been vandalized.
The only visitors making the unexpected journey to this recreation of the Shire are urban adventurers, risking an encounter with an aggressively territorial dog that lives on the property next door.
When Ghost Town in the Sky opened its doors to the public in 1961 it was an immediate success. Built around 40 life-sized replica Wild West-style buildings and perched on a mountain peak overlooking the town of Maggie Valley, it was promoted as 'North Carolina’s mile-high theme park' and by the early 1970s was welcoming up to 400,000 visitors during its peak seasons.
The park was also famous for its live shoot-outs, staged to much excitement every hour on the Old West main street.
In 1988, one of Ghost Town’s most popular attractions, the Red Devil coaster (pictured), opened. Unusually, the boarding station for the steel roller coaster was at the top of a hill, meaning that it rolled around a 90-degree curve into the main drop.
Sadly, the coaster was plagued with maintenance issues. It was refurbished and rebranded as the Cliffhanger in 2009 but was immediately shut down when safety inspectors found problems with one of the seats. It failed another test run in 2010 and was shut down indefinitely.
Spiraling maintenance costs were to prove the death knell for the park. In 2009 high operating costs saw Ghost Town’s owners declare bankruptcy. Businesswoman Alaska Presley bought the Ghost Town property at auction two years later, but by 2016 she had given up any hope of reopening the park permanently.
When Presley passed away in 2022, her niece inherited the park. Subsequent legal wrangles have left the future of Ghost Town still in limbo.
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