Silver Dollar City Reveals $30 Million 2020 Expansion Including Mystic River Falls

© Silver Dollar City

Silver Dollar City is embarking on a massive, $30 million expansion over the next year that will include the debut of Mystic River Falls, a thrilling but family friendly river raft adventure.

The park will celebrate their 60th anniversary in 2020 and not only build the new water attraction ($23 million), but also create and all new themed area named Rivertown, complete with a new Rivertown Smokehouse restaurant ($4 million), but also expand Pumpkin Nights this fall ($2 million) and An Old Time Christmas this winter ($1.5 million).  The park's expansion over the next 12 months is the largest the park has ever done in one year during it's 60 years of operations.

© Silver Dollar City

Mystic River Falls is the focus of all these expansions, however, and is billed as having the "tallest drop in the Western hemisphere" on a ride of its type.  The ride features a thick backstory tying it to Marvel Cave and the exploration surrounding it, which is how the theme park got its start six decades ago.

The legend of Mystic River Falls blends "fact and fiction, legend and lore, to arrive at an attraction that celebrates the spirit of adventure that’s part of Ozark culture.  An underground body of water that seems to come from and go nowhere, Mystic River truly appears on the park’s historical maps as discovered and documented by botanist S. Fred Prince in the late 1800s, and to this day, flows in Marvel Cave."

"For the new ride, guests will be transported back to the 1880s in a storyline that revolves around a historically-based fictional character named Pearl Brazen, an intrepid explorer who’s eager to take them on a bold quest to find the headwaters of the river."

© Silver Dollar City

This fantastic aerial map of Mystic River Falls and the new Rivertown themed section shows off all that park guests have to look forward to.  The ride is being created by Silver Dollar City itself along with R.E.S., Barr Engineering and Herschend Family Entertainment Corporate Development.

The ride will feature some very unique features.  The rafts, of which there will be 18 and each will seat 8 guests, will go up a vertical elevator that stands 82 feet tall, taller than many roller coasters.  The elevator will have 4 different platforms that will "allow for scenic views, increase capacity and lessen wait time" and is the only of its kind in the world.  At the top they will float through 180 feet of channel that is 66 feet above the park, then soar down a 45 foot drop into a lagoon below.

The ride's layout includes many waterfalls, a hidden mine shaft and other scenic features, and stretches 2,100 feet.  The designed ride time is around 5 and a half minutes.

© Silver Dollar City

As we've seen since the park opened this year, Silver Dollar City is already hard at work on the ride's construction.  They released this great aerial view of the work so far, and you can easily make out some of the ride's layout here.  The park had to clear out a large area for Mystic River Falls, but has promised to plant at least two trees for each one removed during the construction phase.