Monday, August 16, 2010

Aerial Antics: Frontier City


This is the entrance to Frontier City, Oklahoma's only theme park, complete with rustic covered wagons that greet guests as they start their day. The park has changed hands several times over the years, starting as a Premier Park, then later being a Six Flags property (though never named as such), and currently operated by PARC Management.

The park isn't the biggest one around, well, I guess it is if you consider "around" to be Oklahoma then it is. But while it may not have massive acreage, it does have a lot of attractions packed into its boundaries.

And above is a Schwarzkopf coaster! The Silver Bullet opened in 1986 and features a single loop as it's main element. The ride has history prior to its home at the park when it was a traveling ride on the fair circuit.

Another interesting contraption that's at Frontier City is Eruption, seen here. This is a product of the Six Flags days; thrills were king you know! The ride takes passengers up in that tiny car in the center and flips them around in their seats. The three towers stand well over 200 ft. tall. These rides are a rare breed after just a slight mishap with one at Cedar Point.

As I said, there are a lot of attractions packed into the park. Here we see the log flume, named the Mystery River Log Flume, which passes in front of the old Nightmare Mine building, and has a Sky Coaster going over it! The Nightmare Mine was an indoor Galaxy style coaster, but that was closed some years back.

Just as a great park should, Frontier City features a classic wooden coaster named the Wildcat. The Wildcat was actually relocated from Fairyland Park in Missouri, and opened at Frontier City in 1991. The coaster features an interesting faux splash section where the track is slightly below grade with a lagoon around it.

Another industry relic is the Diamond Back (no we are not at Kings Island), an Arrow shuttle loop ride. It came as one half of the Lightning Loops coaster that was at Six Flags Great Adventure in the 1980s. Only a handful of these rides can be found still operating in the world.

And finally, a mystery name-the-coaster-parts question. What ride can be seen here in many pieces sitting in Frontier City's graveyard? It's since been melted down but was originally planned to be built at the park.

Here's a link to Bing's aerials.


1 comments:

Ryan said...

Excalibur from Astroworld, moved some time before the park closed.