Six Flags Over Georgia is home to a historic carousel and when they say historic they mean it as it was actually added to the U.S. National Register of Historic Places in 1995 (NRHP reference number 94001639). The carousel is named the Riverview Carousel and takes its name from Riverview Park in Chicago, Illinois where it operated from 1908 to 1967. That makes the carousel over 100 years old! The carousel was built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company (PTC) and is one of only four 5-row carousels built by the company. The Riverview Carousel is one of only two surviving carousels still operating in that “5-wide” original configuration with the other one being the Prince Charming Regal Carousel at Magic Kingdom. The carousel opened at Six Flags Over Georgia for the 1972 season and has been a park staple for over 50 years. It now sits on “Carousel Hill” which is visible from many areas of the park.

Six Flags Over Georgia has its annual Fright Fest event going in full force. One of my favorite displays is located just inside the gate where they have tombstones that commemorate many of the former rides of the park. These grave markers have the name of the ride and the years they operated. Some of these had long lives at the park while others were short lived as they were part of the Six Flags ride rotation program. There are some Six Flags Over Georgia classics memorialized here including the park’s first launch coaster in Viper, its inverted boomerang in Deja Vu and the park’s first Intamin coaster Z-force. There are also some classic non-coaster rides Ike the Sky Buckets, the Wheelie a long with several more. It’s great to see theme parks and other businesses embrace their history and not try to erase it. I saw this in full force at the Ben & Jerry’s Ice Cream Tour where they had a permanent flavor graveyard. Many of these rides were someone’s favorite and although they no longer exist, the memories remain. Be sure to catch a glimpse of these as you enter Six Flags Over Georgia this fall.

The Comet at Great Escape (formerly Six Flags and now Enchanted Parks) is a relocation from a shuttered park in Canada called Crystal Beach. The ride has a fascinating history in that it was also known as the Comet at Crystal Beach at the time of its closure, but in the early 1900’st it was known as the infamous Crystal Beach Cyclone, considered one of the most violent and terrifying rides ever built. It had a “modern” metal support structure with wooden tracks which allowed for more aggressive elements than would normally be seen on a wooden coaster. The layout featured no straight sections of track (except through the station), non-stop banked turns and drops and a sharp turn near the ground with a 90-degree bank that would cause many riders to temporarily pass out. The ride had 4-5 G’s of force, which some rides actually exceed today, but with G-force it’s not just about intensity, but duration as well. The Crystal Beach Cyclone would operate for 20 years before being shuttered, but its structure gave birth to a new and less intense coaster called the Comet that would eventually move from Canada to Great Escape in New York.