Wooden Roller coasters primarily use a very specific type of wood called Southern Yellow Pine (SYP) for their structure and track. Southern Yellow Pine has become the industry-standard wood used worldwide for most modern wooden roller coasters due to its density, strength, and pressure-treatment capabilities. For more than two decades, S.I. Storey Lumber Company in Armuchee, GA has specialized in high quality treated Southern Yellow Pine that has been used in roller coasters around the world. S.I Storey lumber is in use at many Six Flags parks, smaller local parks across the United States and even international parks like Walibi Belgium. Please note that of the coasters pictured in this article only Viper and Weerwolf are known for certain to have S.I. Storey lumber.

Founded in 1920 by Stella and Sike Storey, S.I. Storey Lumber Co., Inc. remains a wholly owned independent family business. Located in the mountains of Northwest Georgia in the twon of Armuchee, S.I. Storey is situated between Atlanta and Chattanooga Most people have probably never heard of Armuchee, Georgia, located in the Northwest corner of the state. The small community is off U.S. Route 27 and about an hour outside of metropolitan Atlanta with the closest major population center being 9 miles south in Rome, GA. S.I. Storey Lumber Company is located just off of U.S. Route 27 on Sike Storey Road (named after one of the founders) and there’s a good chance you’ll talk to one of his descendants with the last name Storey if you contact the company today.

One of the best examples of S.I. Storey’s work is at Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois where they provided all of the lumber used to construct The Viper coaster. Viper’s opened in 1995 and the overall layout is essentially a mirror image of the Coney Island Cyclone, but with a few tweaks in the profile of the lift hill and a a couple of turns. The unpainted structure of Viper is stunning and the ride is top notch, having ranked in the top 25 wood roller coasters in the world until 2003. Another great example is Weerwold at Walibi Belgium, showing the international reach of the company. S.I. Storey knows roller coasters and they have a webpage and sales dedicated to them as well as being involved in IAAPA.

A wooden roller coaster is a very unique structure that must withstand the elements being outdoors including rain and seasonal temperature swings. It must also withstand the weight of a train which weighs thousands of pounds moving throughout it at high speed with forces in all directions, both reliably and safely. Southern Yellow Pine is the deal material to be utilized for roller coasters for several reasons:

• Strength: The wood’s relatively high-density makes it strong enough to handle the structural loads of a wooden coaster.
• Abundance and Cost: SYP’s is readily available in the southern U.S., making it a cheap and reliable material for the thousands of feet of lumber required for coaster structures.
• Treatability: The wood responds well to pressure-treatment processes, which prevents rotting and decay. This is essential for outdoor, year-round amusement park environments.
• Structural Flexibility and Versatility: The wood is still relatively flexible which works well for the complex truss structures and allows wooden tracks to flex and “sway” slightly.

We’ve written in the past about the maintenance challenge a park often faces with a wooden roller coaster and the need to replace parts of the structure as it wears out, often costing hundreds of thousands of dollars a year. This is just a necessary evil of a traditional wood roller coaster, a thorn to the rose, but hopefully the use of high quality lumber keeps these costs at a minimum. In addition to the lumber for new construction S.I. Storey also provides wood for this retracting and regular repair work for coasters across the country and across the world. However, S.I. Storey Southern Yellow Pine isn’t just about roller coasters, as high quality lumber is needed for many outdoor theme park applications like fences, ride stations and boardwalks too. S.I. Storey’s work also stretches far beyond theme parks as their materials are used for decking, wood bridges, highway guardrails and you can even find their lumber in Independence Hall in Philadelphia!

The next time you ride a wooden coaster pay attention to the structure around you. The wood used to create it is an amazing engineering material providing both strength and flexibility to provide you a safe and enjoyable ride. A wood roller coaster is like a living organism with the near constant need for refreshing and repair of its structure, Once a wooden coaster has stood for a generation it probably contains a fraction of the original wood and many different shipments of new wood, making a wooden coaster almost immortal if properly maintained. All that wood came from somewhere and there’s a good chance at least some of it came from S.I. Storey in Armuchee, Georgia.

The industry may not be building as many wood coasters, only two wood coasters opened in 2025, and none are scheduled for 2026, but hopefully the ones we have will be maintained for generations to come with the help of companies like S.I. Storey. We, the theme park guests, also have a responsibility to be vocal and tell theme parks how much we love them, visit parks that have them (especially small family owned parks) and support organization such as American Coaster Enthusiasts (ACE) who have a preservation fund and grants to help keep them operating.