Blog Post 6 - Expert Article Final Draft

 Fun Turned Fatal

Abandoned Amusement Parks Around the World & Why They Were Abandoned

From mysterious deaths, hauntings, and natural disasters, many theme parks have been left abandoned and unattainable to the public. While these parks have been lost, nothing has stopped people from exploring the remnants. To become an expert on the topic, I have examined various documentary videos and articles on these parks to determine the most interesting cases to highlight in this article.

Throughout the years various theme parks across the globe have opened and closed. While up and running theme parks receive lots of attention and media coverage, what happens to the parks that shut down? Why did the parks shut down to begin with? And what happens to the land once those parks are abandoned? 

Throughout this article, I will closely examine some of the eeriest abandoned parks in the world, diving into each one of their stories to answer these questions. Here are the parks that I will discuss in this article:

• River Country - Disney (Bay Lake, Florida)

• Lake Shawnee Amusement Park (Rock, West Virginia)

• Six Flags (New Orleans, Louisiana)

• Gulliver’s Kingdom (Near Mt. Fuji, Japan)

  
  

River Country - Disney (Bay Lake, Florida)

During the summer of 1976, River Country opened in Bay Lake, Florida. The park remained open until November of 2001, and was Disney World’s first water park to open. While the park had a longstanding run, the decision was made to close the park after multiple deaths occurred, drastically diminishing park attendance and profits. One would think that death would cause change or even questioning. However, Disney at one point denied blame for these tragedies and has still taken zero accountability to this day. The first death occurred in 1980 when a boy contracted a mysterious illness a day after visiting the park. This illness turned out to be a brain eating amoeba called amoebic meningoencephalitis. Something that the river country did in its water park to give the park a natural spring feel was use unchlorinated water from the neighboring body of water. To do so, Disney used a filtration system to keep the water clean. However, they did not account for the fact that during certain months and weather conditions,  amoeba and algae may thrive in natural water. The second and third tragedies occurred in 1982 and then seven years later in 1989 when teenage boys drowned and went unnoticed for minutes on end. While many blame the lifeguards on duty or lack of training of the employee’s, Disney did not think that anything needed to be done differently to protect the patron’s safety. Today, you can find many images online of what is left of the park that has since been overtaken by nature. While various plans to rebrand and reopen the park have been discussed, no plans have been set in motion. Instead, the park remains closed with music playing to ward off the urban explorers from trespassing the abandoned property. However, much of what we know about these abandoned parks can be accredited to those who dare to trespass.

Lake Shawnee Amusement Park (Rock, West Virginia)

This amusement park opened in 1926 for the surrounding communities, and later closed in 1966 due to multiple child deaths. Coincidence? Or does the site of this amusement park just so happen to be on top of a tribe’s burial ground. That’s right Lake Shawnee Amusement Park was built right on top of a piece of land with a very dark past. Throughout the time of its existence, two boys drowned and one girl was killed by a moving vehicle that backed into a functioning ride.  After three random acts of tragedy struck Lake Shawnee, people began to speculate if the park was haunted. As it turns out not only was this amusement park built on a burial ground, but that burial ground was used specifically for children. However, the owners who built the park were also unaware that the family that lived there before them was punished for buying the tribe’s stolen land. As a means of revenge the Shawnee tribe also killed three of the previous owners' children, who are now buried on the site as well. Once the park’s owner got wind of all of this, he decided to shut down as the public began to speculate if the park’s past was related to the recent child deaths that occurred. While the park is no longer functioning, the owners are currently using the spaces for giving haunted tours to the public.

Six Flags (New Orleans, Louisiana)

A natural disaster struck in 2005, when this park closed for good. Six Flags in New Orleans was a functional amusement park in Louisiana for about five years before it had to shut down. However, this choice wasn’t really made by anyone other than mother Earth. On August 23, 2025, Hurricane Katrina struck causing mass amounts of destruction and fatalities. This unfortunately includes this amusement park that was left almost completely under water. The park sat abandoned for about twenty years before any plans were set in motion. As of this year, the park is being demolished and now turned into The Bayou Phoenix, a multifunctional entertainment center and water park. 

Gulliver’s Kingdom (Near Mt. Fuji, Japan)

Located near Japan’s suicide forest as well as former headquarters of the Aum Shinrikyo cult, this park closed due to its low attendance and choice of location. While the park itself featured unique attractions such as a massive sculpture of Gulliver himself, these attractions were not enough to distract customers from its risky and eerie location. Therefore, the park remained open for four years having been opened in 1997 only to close in 2001. This park was later demolished in 2007 but the giant size Gulliver statue remains in its place for visitors to admire.

                                                                          Work Cited

Abandoned Southeast. “River Country.” Abandoned Southeast, 29 June 2020, abandonedsoutheast.com/2018/07/12/river-country/. 

“Ghost Trains and Forgotten Ferris Wheels: Abandoned Theme Parks.” The Guardian, Guardian News and Media, 7 Jan. 2015, www.theguardian.com/artanddesign/gallery/2015/jan/07/ghost-trains-and-forgotten-ferris-wheels-abandoned-theme-parks-in-pictures. 

“History.” Lake Shawnee, 27 Sept. 2022, www.wvlakeshawnee.com/faq/history/. 

Lake Shawnee Amusement Park - Atlas Obscura, www.atlasobscura.com/places/lake-shawnee-amusement-park. Accessed 1 Oct. 2025. 

Sanchez, Raymond. “Demolition Underway at New Orleans Six Flags Amusement Park Abandoned after Hurricane Katrina.” FOX Weather, Fox Weather, 29 Jan. 2025, www.foxweather.com/weather-news/new-orleans-six-flags-abandoned-hurricane-katrina-demolished. 

“The Bayou Phoenix Conceptual Master Plan and Presentation.” BAYOU PHOENIX, 4 Feb. 2025, bayouphoenix.com/. 

Themouselets. “My Visit to River Country, Disney’s Abandoned Water Park.” The Mouselets, 28 Jan. 2021, themouselets.com/river-country-disneys-abandoned-water-park.