page_title: The Great Escape and Hurricane Harbor
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: The Great Escape and Hurricane Harbor / History
context_page_description: The Great Escape and Hurricane Harbor is an amusement and water park owned and operated by Six Flags Entertainment Corp. It is located approximately 60 miles north of Albany, in Queensbury, New York. It is one of three Six Flags parks not to be officially branded with the "Six Flags" name, with La Ronde in Montreal, Quebec, Canada and Frontier City in Oklahoma City, Oklahoma being the two others.
context_section_description: The Great Escape was opened in 1954 as Storytown USA, a Mother Goose themed amusement park by businessman Charles Wood who bought the land with his wife for $75,000. In 1957, realizing that the park was geared only toward small children, the park opened its Ghosttown area, the first of many themed areas opened in the park's history.
  For publicity, the park placed bumper stickers on every car in the parking lot. This practice stopped a few years later due to complaints and employees switched to attaching cardboard versions with wire. This was back in the day when a car bumper was separate from the body and you could get all the way around it with wire. In 1983, the park officially changed its name from Storytown USA to The Great Escape.
  In 1984, The Great Escape opened the Steamin' Demon, the first of its eventual seven roller coasters. The showpiece attraction at The Great Escape is the Comet. Re-opened at The Great Escape in 1994, this roller coaster already had a 41-year history as The Comet at Crystal Beach (an amusement park near Niagara Falls, Ontario). It was saved shortly after the park closed down forever after the 1988 season. Charley Wood, the owner of Great Escape Fun Park and Fantasy Island in Grand Island, New York successfully bid for The Comet and it sat in storage for a few years in Fantasy Island before making its way to the park in Queensbury, NY and reopening in 1994. Roller coaster enthusiasts recognize it as one of the best wooden roller coasters in North America.
  In February 2006, The Six Flags Great Escape Lodge & Indoor Waterpark opened up with positive reviews and sold-out weekends throughout the first month. This major addition includes a 38,000 square feet (3,500 m²) waterpark exclusively for lodge guests. This is New York State's first indoor waterpark.
  The park debuted several new features for the 2006 season. These included character greetings from the likes of the whole Justice League.
  For the 2007 season, The Great Escape re-themed their dive show to a pirate themed show, branded their pizza restaurant a Papa John's, and brought back the Superstars and Legends: Elvis! Show (Which featured throughout the summer not only Elvis, but also Buddy Holly, and Billy Joel) to JollyTree Theatre.
  In addition to typical amusement park rides, the Great Escape offers a variety of unique shows, most notable of which is a high dive show featuring a team of divers scaling an 80 feet (24 m) tower and plunging into a 10 feet (3.0 m) deep pool. This also features a fire diver.
  Other milestones include:
  1954 — Charles Wood opens Storytown USA.
  1957 — Ghosttown section of the park is opened.}
  1960 — Jungleland section of the park is opened.
  1967 — Alice in Wonderland walk through adventure is opened.
  1971 — Great escape introduced their first roller coaster, The Italian Coaster
  1982 — Addition of about eight adult spinning rides.
  1983 — Name change from Storytown USA to Great Escape Fun Park along with the addition of  a few other adult rides.
  1984 — Addition of Steamin' Demon, an Arrow Dynamics 3-inversion roller coaster, which was previously installed at Pontchartrain Beach as Ragin' Cajun.
  1986 — Opening of Raging River, an Intamin river rafting ride.
  1994 — A used wooden track and steel frame roller coaster called the Comet was brought from Crystal Beach Park and reassembled at Great Escape and opened, giving the park three roller coasters.
  1995 — Great Escape opens its water  park, Splashwater Kingdom.
  1996 — Acquisition by Premier Parks, which later bought and changed its name to Six Flags.
  1997 — Addition of Boomerang: Coast to Coaster, a Vekoma Boomerang. Was and currently is still the tallest roller coaster at the park.
  1998 — Addition of Alpine Bobsled, an Intamin alpine themed bobsled roller coaster (Previously located at Six Flags Great America from 1990 to 1995 as Rolling Thunder and Six Flags Great Adventure as Sarajevo Bobsleds from 1984–1988).
  1999 — Addition of Nightmare at Crack Axle Canyon, an indoor Schwarzkopf Jet Star featuring four-person cars, but only operated with two people. Building s
caption: Entrance sign to the Alice in Wonderland walkthrough.
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