St. Louis

The Geauga Lake area was home to early settlers such as the Brewsters and Bohan Blair. There is a city park and ballfields on East Boulevard in Aurora which is named after this lake. Sullivan Giles chose this area for his log cabin in 1817. He built a large frame home on the spot behind Geauga Lake depot on the north side of the lake. When the railroad came to town in 1856, it made a stop at pond station. Giles took advantage of his scenic lake location and, in the last half of the 19th century, established picnic grounds and a dance hall as well as the people taking the train to the country. Geauga Lake opened for picnics and swimming in 1872. A 1880 history of Geauga County reported the Giles residence "being easy of access by rail, has become, within a few years, a very popular place of resort during the summer months, for fishing, picnic, and excursion parties" and "for the convenience of such parties, Giles has recently erected a hall of considerable size near the lake. The surrounding grounds are kept clean and attractive, and, without exception, this is the most charming place to spend a leisure day to be found in this section." At the time, a full-sized steamboat circled the lake. The boat, first owned by William Banford and Rowe Fuller, was later purchased by the Kents. In 1907, the boat was shipped by rail to Brady Lake near Kent. Geauga Lake park was established in 1887. Three major league baseball games were played on Sundays at Geauga Lake in 1888 (plus a Thursday exhibition game) by the Cleveland Forest Cities of the major league American Association. By 1889, the park installed its first ride, a steam-powered carousel. More rides would follow. William J. Kuhlman expanded the park in 1925. Geauga Lake built the Big Dipper which was 2,800 ft long and 65 ft high. Geauga Lake's Olympic-sized swimming pool was built and it stayed in operation until the mid-1960s. On 11th July 1926, Johnny Weissmuller set a new world record in the 220-yard free style swim in the pool in front of 3,000 spectators. Lake swimming also continued over the coming decades. Many amusement parks at the time had race tracks, dance halls, and sometimes a theater and bowling alley, making them year round attractions. The race track was added in 1931, although it closed in 1969. The theater, dance hall, and bowling alley were also added around the same time. In 1937, the Marcus Illions Carousel was added at a cost of $35,000 and the park's dance hall and ballroom were major draws with big band music performed by Guy Lombardo, Artie Shaw and other big names of the time. In 1942, a tornado hit the park, injuring six, destroying buildings and damaging the Big Dipper. In 1970 SeaWorld Ohio was built across the lake from the amusement park after Funtime persuaded SeaWorld to build the marine park on the other side of the lake. SeaWorld and Geauga Lake were friendly neighbors for 30 years working together to become a regional destination. SeaWorld focused on marine life and shows, while Geauga Lake focused on thrill rides and swimming. SeaWorld was purchased by Harcourt Brace Jovanovich in 1976 and later by Busch Entertainment Corp in late 1989. A corporate deal in 1995 saw Premier Parks acquiring Funtime, which gave Geauga Lake a new owner. Premier Parks invested US$9 million in new rides including the Mind Eraser which is a steel looping shuttle Boomerang roller coaster and Grizzly Run which is a water rapids ride designed by Intamin. These attractions opened in 1996, and the Corkscrew was closed and sold and moved to Dizzee World in Chennai in India. The next year, the park expanded its water area by 32,000 square ft with Hook's Lagoon. In 2000, Geauga Lake received a $40 million expansion and became Six Flags Ohio. As part of that expansion the park received 20 new rides, including a junior roller coaster called Road Runner Express and a wooden roller coaster called Villain, a floorless roller coaster called Batman: Knight Flight and an inverted impulse roller coaster called Superman: Ultimate Escape. Busch Entertainment determined that its SeaWorld parks should feature roller coasters and other attractions to supplement the marine displays and shows, and the company began de-emphasizing the educational aspects of its parks. They began modifying their Orlando and to a lesser extent their San Diego parks to reflect this. Because of Six Flags Ohio's close proximity as well as the former SeaWorld side of the lake having height restrictions Busch approached Six Flags about buying the Six Flags park. Six Flags then made a counter offer to instead buy SeaWorld Ohio. That winter, Six Flags purchased SeaWorld for US$110 million in cash, merging the two complexes into one and changing the entire complex's name to Six Flags Worlds of Adventure. By combining the parks, Six Flags created the largest theme park in the world to date, at 700 acres. The SeaWorld side became known as the "Wild Life" area and remained primarily marine life shows, with a few portable children's rides placed throughout. In 2002, Shamu was replaced by Shouka who came on a breeding loan from Marineland in Antibes in France. The original amusement park area became known as the "Wild Rides" area and continued expansion with a Vekoma Flying roller coaster called X-Flight. The small water park area also continued, so the park was marketed as "Three Parks for One Price." Facing financial difficulties across its chain and high debt, Six Flags considered selling the park. 2 months before the 2004 season a sale to Cedar Fair which is a owner of Cedar Point which is located 85 miles away was announced. The deal was finalized less than a month later for $145 million. The park was immediately reverted to Geauga Lake. The Six Flags Looney Tunes characters and DC Comics superhero branding was removed. To conform with copyright laws the names of many of the rides and roller coasters were changed. Batman Knight Flight lost the Batman theming and opened under the name of Dominator. Mind Eraser was renamed Head Spin, and, of course, Superman Ultimate Escape was renamed Steel Venom. In 2005 Cedar Fair invested US$26 million in Wildwater Kingdom which is a new water park on the former SeaWorld Ohio site, which resulted in the name being altered. The Wildwater Kingdom side had about six water slides and a children's water play area. The Hurricane Hannah area remained. In 2006, Wildwater Kingdom was expanded to include Tidal Wave Bay. The Hurricane Hannah area was then shut down and left Wildwater Kingdom as the remaining water park. The season was also scaled back, eliminating the spring and fall weekend operations and opening strictly between Memorial Day and Labor Day with one last weekend in mid-September. At the end of the season, the X-Flight roller coaster was removed as well as the former Superman Ultimate Escape at the former Worlds of Adventure. Steel Venom was relocated to Dorney Park where it opened as Voodoo until 2009 when it was renamed Possessed*.*2 years earlier the summer only operation of Geauga Lake continued. Rumours that ranged from the total closing of Geauga Lake to closing everything except the water park were rampant but Cedar Fair refused to comment on the rumours. Cedar Fair announced that it would permanently close the ride side of the former Geauga Lake and that Wildwater Kingdom would reopen as Geauga Lake's Wildwater Kingdom exclusively on 21st September. This followed efforts to save the former Geauga Lake and the Carousel including letters to public officials. In July 2011, Cedar Fair announced that they had dropped the Geauga Lake name and that the water park would be called Wildwater Kingdom. While the Geauga Lake property is for sale, Cedar Fair has stated that Wildwater Kingdom is not for sale. 5 years later Cedar Fair announced that Wildwater Kingdom shall not reopen over the City of Aurora redeveloping the entire property "into what will best benefit the surrounding communities. After examining its long-range plans, Cedar Fair has determined that the time is right to begin this transition and will continue to work together with community leadership in the positive future development of the property." The water park's final day of operation was 5th September