Aerial Antics: Opryland Today

Writing yesterday's Vault got me thinking about how I've never really investigated Opryland much, having never visited it before it closed in 1997.  As I love to check out things from above, the park's remains were something I thought would be neat (though a bit depressing) to see.

Here's the entire Opryland property from above.  Over on the left is the Opryland Hotel, and the area inside the red lines is roughly where it seems the theme park sat.  The bulk of the gigantic mall that replaced the park is actually located in its former parking lot, though some of it sits atop where rides once were.

At the top of the red box is part of the park that still stands, and on the left of the red box is the remains of one of the park's rides.

Here is a closer view of that top part of the park that still stands.  It was actually the park's entrance plaza, and also the home of the Grand Ole Opry.  That's the larger building in the center.  Guests coming to the park entered from the parking lot which is where the mall building can be seen.  The could purchase their tickets, or even see a show at the smaller theater seen here as well.

The formal park gates looked to have been located on the very left of this shot, where the plaza meets the road with the mall beyond.

Here's the ride remains that I spoke of earlier.  If you look at the larger image you can trace the entire layout of the park's river rapids ride, known as Grizzly River Rampage.  The box in the upper right, near the parking lot, was the station and boat lift.  The journey then traced the rectangular layout, with the reservoir for the ride in the middle.  On the bottom of the photo the path seems to disappear, that's because there was a large tunnel boats floated through that is covered in plants.

Here's another view, showing about half the ride.  You can see the gigantic rock formations that lined the waterway's path, and if you look close you can clearly see the entrance to the tunnel on the right.

The remains of Grizzly stood for many years, with the busy hotel on one side and a bleak parking lot on the other... however if you head there today you won't be able to see much.

That's because a year or so ago the area was cleared out for new buildings associated with the hotel.  A large new building was already standing in this shot from Google, and the ride's totally gone. 

If you zoom in some you can still seen some rubble from where the ride's station once was, and even where some of the large faux rock formations were.  Above is an example, I added a couple red marks to help your eye compare the two images.

Here's a link to Bing's aerials for the former park.

From The Vault: Opryland 1996 Christmas Brochure

When Opryland was operating, the park and adjacent hotel kicked things up a notch when it came to Christmas.  This week, let's take a look back at exactly what they had going on for the 1996 holiday season.

The Opryland Themepark last operated in 1997, so this brochure being from one year earlier means it came near the end of the park's life.  With no rumors of closing on the horizon, I'm sure the holidays during 1996 were a happy time at the park.

The brochure unfolds to first give this preview section, complete with a huge colorful Christmas tree.  The events for the season were known collectively as "A Country Christmas," which was fitting considering the theme of the park and hotel.

Your eyes do not deceive you, the tree is back.  After you unfold the scan above this one, the same image appears with slightly more detailed information.  Here we can read about all the offerings of the celebrations, including numerous goings-on at the theme park, the famous Grand Ole Opry, and the Opryland Hotel.

This is the section that was devoted to covering the events that took place inside the Opryland Themepark.  The "winter wonderland" that was the park during the season featured "A Charles Dickens Christmas," "An Appalachian Christmas," and even a show for Santa, "A Gift for Santa."

The park also presented "A Christmas Carol," a show that has long signified the holiday for many.  There was also the "nation's largest outdoor Nativity scene," if that's your type of thing.

The rest of the resort area had plenty going on as well, including a display of over 1.8 million Christmas lights outside the hotel.  That's a lot of lights!  Everything was decorated to the nines for the event, and not surprisingly there were plenty of musical shows at the resort as well.  If you were running behind on your holiday gifts you could get caught up at the Art, Antique, and Craft Fair that had over 100 vendors.

While the theme park no longer stands, the hotel is still kicking along, having seen quite a few changes in the past few years.  As we all heard Dolly herself was interested in a snow/water park just around from where Opryland was, but that fell through in the end.  For now, Nashville remains Theme/Water/Snow park-free.