it breaks my heart to know that this place is gone!! It was where my dad would take us every summer after he and my mom divorced, and it really helped to heal the pain. We have so many wonderful memories here, and the wonderful old time pictures to remember them by. I would have loved to have taken my children there, it is just so heart renching that they didn't keep up this wonderful family spot!! Thanks for the video!
The GyroTower ride was originally installed by Intamin at Lion Country Safari - Stockbridge / Atlanta GA in the mid 1970s before it was sold to Aquarena Springs around 1978. The pit that nestled the ride at LCS was still in a solid state, preserved well considering its age and the vandalism in endured, back in 1994 when I explored the former park. Today, there is no evidence of it at all as a subdivision now lays over the last existing remnants of the park. Shame to see it decaying here...
It was an awesome magical place. I guess this is what happens when environmentalists and drab academics take over, back to the stone age, nothing but a dilapidated, overgrown demolished memory. I loved that park!
rosebudforglory I don’t get why people blame the environmentalists etc - the exact people who want it maintained to be in it’s natural style as it has been for thousands and thousands of years. Yet short minded people want it filled up with millions of people and water parks etc so that it eventually will be destroyed. It has been in the natural state much longer than as a water park. More important to keep the wildlife who have so little left these days and to be here for generations to come than people who really don’t care about anything but their “fun”. Just think how your grandparents and great grandparents felt when it became so overgrown and built over. I have seen so many beautiful wild places ruined because of humans. We take and take and think these places will be forever but it isn’t so. Resources are drying up everywhere from fish to shellfish to water, plants, animals etc - even in your beautiful Texas, you have springs that were once pristine with great fishing - are now littered and dried up due to all the development. People flock there with all their trash, perfumes, lotions, etc and destroy the pristine water. Housing developments with millions of wells are draining the aquifers to where some springs that once gushed several feet above water went to just inches, then to no above surface and to now many the creeks around these areas are dry. For many small towns, once those aquifers are dry - the wells go dry, and the town dies due to no water. For others that gain a lot of revenue at hotels, restaurants, shops, etc in the nearby town due to folks coming to visit - if the springs become muddy mosquito pits - no one comes. A good example of a site in the world that has been famous for thousands of years and is in the bible - The Dead Sea. The salinity so high you could float and read the paper - you can’t sink. People came from around the world to see and float in the mineral rich waters. My gosh - it’s where Dead Sea Clay/mud products comes from because it was so rich in minerals. Due to development in near by towns - the area is basically a stinky yucky mess, drying up and has shrunk miles from where it use to be. And they haven’t figured how to stop the decline. Once a place is totally ruined - that’s it. Virginia and Maryland - I heard growing up - the crabs and oysters would be there forever - and they totally over harvested, people polluted and ruined the area for miles and miles out and it still hasn’t recovered - will never be at the levels it was. Pollution, stress on the water and beds - caused diseases. Towns and livelihoods of thousands of people gone due to greed of people. Everyone wants what they want - NOW - they don’t care about anyone else or for the future. I can think of dozens and dozens of places I have seen destroyed and overused in my state by us smart intelligent humans in just the past 50 yrs - really since WW2. We have a lot of technology and convenience - we need to be smart enough to want to keep and maintain the things in life that don’t need technology to continue on for eternity. Thousands of animals and plants extinct - thousands more on the brink of extinction and hundreds more quickly approaching the point of no return. We keep building out and out - where do we think we will grow food for ourselves once all the land is polluted, destroyed and built on? I’d like to see us go one month, heck 2 weeks without all the shipped in foreign food - we’d realize really quick the problem we have. Gosh, our entire food supply nation and even worldwide is pretty much owned by 20 companies. Everyone is now owned by someone else. They say we have a 3 day supply of food at any one time on the store shelves - I believe it. Look what happens when major storms hit and trucks can’t get through (or gas and diesel is in shortage or tractor trailers drivers go on strike). Let’s also go 2 weeks without all the foods dependent on the bees and other pollinating insects. It is virtually everything..even meat. They need grass and grains - those things depend on pollination to make seed to be replanted. Everything requires pollination to produce seed to be available for future replanting. And yet many people think nothing of the chemicals they use that kill these little supposedly insignificant insects everyday or just stomping them. Honey bee colony collapse is serious - some areas already have to hand pollinate some products. For decades, we have had to bring in hives to various farms from fruit to vineyards to pollinate crops. Sometimes they go back and find dead bees, disconcerted bees whose sense of direction is destroyed due to neurotoxins in the chemicals in the Neonicotinoid family first developed by Shell and Bayer in the 80 and 90s. Bees have enough issues with the Varroa mite (from Asia starting in 60s) that causes serious hive damage, then they have us doing them in. The neonicotinoid family includes acetamiprid, clothianidin, imidacloprid, nitenpyram, nithiazine, thiacloprid and thiamethoxam. Imidacloprid is the most widely used insecticide in the world. Compared to organophosphate and carbamate insecticides, neonicotinoids cause less toxicity in birds and mammals than insects. Some breakdown products are also toxic to insects. We save us and birds but without bees - nobody will eat. I know this is a long post and a soapbox - but I find it so sad that we humans continue to be so stupid and greedy. Pests, diseases, soil fertility, etc have been dealt with for thousands and thousands of years - probably 30,000+ and yet since the 50’s we have let companies like the Bayers, Shells, DuPonts, Monsanto’s, etc take over and convince us we must use their products to have beautiful gardens. We had them centuries ago from the pictures I have seen before chemicals ran amok - we need to say no and use other methods. Yes they might be slower and take more work - but we will all be the better. I find it sad that people after me will never see the natural places, plants and animals I have seen in my lifetime but are now almost gone. Just think about these things -it’s all I ask. If the worse name someone can call me is a nature lover or an environmentalist - well that’s just fine with me. I can die and RIP knowing I tried to take care of our beautiful earth for those who come after me.
It is too late!!!, demolition is set to start in about a couple weeks, 1st with the Aquarena Springs restaurant, then gift shops, submarine theater, sky rides (Power station loading area), Texana village, all admin buildings. 2nd phase on the opposite side of park demolition of Sky Ride receiving area (Tension station), the Sky Spiral, the old Spanish Mission, the Glass House, the Spring house and gift shops. Everything will go except the glass bottom boats and hotel. Very sad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
Dude i remember going here alot as a child tons and tons of memories , how much would it take to repair and refurbish this place i am a guru at finding money and donations for this sort of thing.
it breaks my heart to know that this place is gone!! It was where my dad would take us every summer after he and my mom divorced, and it really helped to heal the pain. We have so many wonderful memories here, and the wonderful old time pictures to remember them by. I would have loved to have taken my children there, it is just so heart renching that they didn't keep up this wonderful family spot!! Thanks for the video!
very sad, but my dad told me when i was a young boy , that if you live long enough, you will see many changes in life and nothing stays the same.
It breaks my heart it’s gone, it’s a very happy memory from my childhood and one that I still dream of today.
My uncle used to be a rescue lifeguard for the underwater show, and I remember visiting the park as a child back in the early 1970's. Sad face.
@sandybarefeet we also miss it a lot. I visited it in 1959 and again in 1994, both visits were unforgetable. Thanks for the video.
The GyroTower ride was originally installed by Intamin at Lion Country Safari - Stockbridge / Atlanta GA in the mid 1970s before it was sold to Aquarena Springs around 1978. The pit that nestled the ride at LCS was still in a solid state, preserved well considering its age and the vandalism in endured, back in 1994 when I explored the former park. Today, there is no evidence of it at all as a subdivision now lays over the last existing remnants of the park. Shame to see it decaying here...
My heart is broken with this that our children will never know what glory and happiness was there
It was an awesome magical place. I guess this is what happens when environmentalists and drab academics take over, back to the stone age, nothing but a dilapidated, overgrown demolished memory. I loved that park!
rosebudforglory
I don’t get why people blame the environmentalists etc - the exact people who want it maintained to be in it’s natural style as it has been for thousands and thousands of years. Yet short minded people want it filled up with millions of people and water parks etc so that it eventually will be destroyed. It has been in the natural state much longer than as a water park. More important to keep the wildlife who have so little left these days and to be here for generations to come than people who really don’t care about anything but their “fun”. Just think how your grandparents and great grandparents felt when it became so overgrown and built over. I have seen so many beautiful wild places ruined because of humans. We take and take and think these places will be forever but it isn’t so. Resources are drying up everywhere from fish to shellfish to water, plants, animals etc - even in your beautiful Texas, you have springs that were once pristine with great fishing - are now littered and dried up due to all the development. People flock there with all their trash, perfumes, lotions, etc and destroy the pristine water. Housing developments with millions of wells are draining the aquifers to where some springs that once gushed several feet above water went to just inches, then to no above surface and to now many the creeks around these areas are dry. For many small towns, once those aquifers are dry - the wells go dry, and the town dies due to no water. For others that gain a lot of revenue at hotels, restaurants, shops, etc in the nearby town due to folks coming to visit - if the springs become muddy mosquito pits - no one comes. A good example of a site in the world that has been famous for thousands of years and is in the bible - The Dead Sea. The salinity so high you could float and read the paper - you can’t sink. People came from around the world to see and float in the mineral rich waters. My gosh - it’s where Dead Sea Clay/mud products comes from because it was so rich in minerals. Due to development in near by towns - the area is basically a stinky yucky mess, drying up and has shrunk miles from where it use to be. And they haven’t figured how to stop the decline. Once a place is totally ruined - that’s it. Virginia and Maryland - I heard growing up - the crabs and oysters would be there forever - and they totally over harvested, people polluted and ruined the area for miles and miles out and it still hasn’t recovered - will never be at the levels it was. Pollution, stress on the water and beds - caused diseases. Towns and livelihoods of thousands of people gone due to greed of people. Everyone wants what they want - NOW - they don’t care about anyone else or for the future. I can think of dozens and dozens of places I have seen destroyed and overused in my state by us smart intelligent humans in just the past 50 yrs - really since WW2. We have a lot of technology and convenience - we need to be smart enough to want to keep and maintain the things in life that don’t need technology to continue on for eternity. Thousands of animals and plants extinct - thousands more on the brink of extinction and hundreds more quickly approaching the point of no return. We keep building out and out - where do we think we will grow food for ourselves once all the land is polluted, destroyed and built on? I’d like to see us go one month, heck 2 weeks without all the shipped in foreign food - we’d realize really quick the problem we have. Gosh, our entire food supply nation and even worldwide is pretty much owned by 20 companies. Everyone is now owned by someone else. They say we have a 3 day supply of food at any one time on the store shelves - I believe it. Look what happens when major storms hit and trucks can’t get through (or gas and diesel is in shortage or tractor trailers drivers go on strike). Let’s also go 2 weeks without all the foods dependent on the bees and other pollinating insects. It is virtually everything..even meat. They need grass and grains - those things depend on pollination to make seed to be replanted. Everything requires pollination to produce seed to be available for future replanting. And yet many people think nothing of the chemicals they use that kill these little supposedly insignificant insects everyday or just stomping them. Honey bee colony collapse is serious - some areas already have to hand pollinate some products. For decades, we have had to bring in hives to various farms from fruit to vineyards to pollinate crops. Sometimes they go back and find dead bees, disconcerted bees whose sense of direction is destroyed due to neurotoxins in the chemicals in the Neonicotinoid family first developed by Shell and Bayer in the 80 and 90s. Bees have enough issues with the Varroa mite (from Asia starting in 60s) that causes serious hive damage, then they have us doing them in. The neonicotinoid family includes acetamiprid, clothianidin, imidacloprid, nitenpyram, nithiazine, thiacloprid and thiamethoxam. Imidacloprid is the most widely used insecticide in the world. Compared to organophosphate and carbamate insecticides, neonicotinoids cause less toxicity in birds and mammals than insects. Some breakdown products are also toxic to insects. We save us and birds but without bees - nobody will eat. I know this is a long post and a soapbox - but I find it so sad that we humans continue to be so stupid and greedy. Pests, diseases, soil fertility, etc have been dealt with for thousands and thousands of years - probably 30,000+ and yet since the 50’s we have let companies like the Bayers, Shells, DuPonts, Monsanto’s, etc take over and convince us we must use their products to have beautiful gardens. We had them centuries ago from the pictures I have seen before chemicals ran amok - we need to say no and use other methods. Yes they might be slower and take more work - but we will all be the better. I find it sad that people after me will never see the natural places, plants and animals I have seen in my lifetime but are now almost gone. Just think about these things -it’s all I ask. If the worse name someone can call me is a nature lover or an environmentalist - well that’s just fine with me. I can die and RIP knowing I tried to take care of our beautiful earth for those who come after me.
Thanks for sharing - how I miss Aquarena Springs.
No, I didn't know this :( I had fond memories of this when I was young! I'm so late. I was just telling my kids about this
It is too late!!!, demolition is set to start in about a couple weeks, 1st with the Aquarena Springs restaurant, then gift shops, submarine theater, sky rides (Power station loading area), Texana village, all admin buildings. 2nd phase on the opposite side of park demolition of Sky Ride receiving area (Tension station), the Sky Spiral, the old Spanish Mission, the Glass House, the Spring house and gift shops. Everything will go except the glass bottom boats and hotel. Very sad!!!!!!!!!!!!!!
@rommel414 dam! i remember runing around in here when i was 10 i was intrigued by the old mission etc. its sad to see this go :-(
Dude i remember going here alot as a child tons and tons of memories , how much would it take to repair and refurbish this place i am a guru at finding money and donations for this sort of thing.