cookiecrispwizard
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I started by watching Toad's RCT3 series, he's not really on here at all or in the RCT community at all but he has played a lot of creative games as we all do. Then I started watching ShadowwolfTD5000 (who is now TheLoneSculler on YouTube) play RCT3 and build some great parks, and through him I discovered Silvarret and the rest is history. (this is all when I was like 9 or 10, I've watched roller coaster/RCT stuff since I was like 5 or 6 and some of it includes your stuff to whoever might be reading this who was active around 2010-2014) I got on ShyGuy's forums, lying about my age like most children on the internet, but I never really posted. I was not good at RollerCoaster Tycoon until I was actually in high school and didn't have the brain of a child. It's also when I decided to start seriously posting RCT3 stuff. My only real projects I've ever posted are eaglewood if anyone remembers it, and lake mcclain on here. I was sad to see SGW go to be honest. Reading about everyone's parks and seeing their photos (that are now lost to history or down because their website deleted them) is how I actually managed to figure out what custom scenery was and how to use it properly. By the way if reading this made any of you feel old, I'll make it worse. Now I'm almost twenty. -
(Archive of Michael Thompson, Lake McClain Daily Post) COMING IN 1989 "FACE YOUR GREATEST FEARS ON THE RIDE OF YOUR LIFE" Sunday, August 14, 1988 - Written by Norris J. Watters Lake McClain, OH - President and CEO of the YCN Corporation Michael Thompson made a surprise announcement on Sunday when he announced a new roller coaster coming to Lake McClain Amusement Park in 1989, called the Erie River Monster. The coaster, from manufacturer Arrow Dynamics that previously built Ted Lasso's Electric Roller Ride that opened in 1980, will be the first coaster at Lake McClain Park to go upside down, with two interlocking loops similar to the iconic Loch Ness Monster at Busch Gardens - The Old Country in Williamsburg, Virginia, ending in a collection of turns and a corkscrew loop. Thompson said, "Arrow Dynamics has been a great partner to us, always there when we needed parts for maintenance and willing to do upkeep on Lasso for us whenever we needed it. We here at Lake McClain and furthermore, the YCN Corporation trust Arrow Dynamics. We've been making better money than expected off of Sasquatch's opening along with the new Backwoods family area behind it that we decided to be aggressive with an expansion on the east side of the park. In the last quarter of 1988 earnings at Lake McClain went up around 7.5% from last year, along with an attendance boost of around 150,000 that helped us finish out strong after a minor dip in attendance in 1988. But there's nothing to be worried about, we're prioritizing the park's growth to facilitate becoming the family fun capital of Ohio we know we can be." The end of Thompson's statement to me makes enough sense, as the YCN company has repeatedly stated that they won't try to compete directly with Sandusky's Cedar Point for guests out of state, rather they would compete in-state between Geauga Lake in Aurora and Kings Island in Cincinnati to be a regional power in the state, and so far, the strategy has worked. The Erie River Monster coaster is expected to open to the public on Memorial Day weekend in May when the park holds its opening ceremonies for the 1989 summer season. ----------------------
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I've been away for about a month in Michigan, but fear not, Lake McClain shall return soon!
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Four years into Michael Thompson and the YCN Corporation’s deal with the township, Lake McClain Amusement Park was ripe with expansion, as only $5 million dollars was spent of the $15 million dollars earmarked specifically to expand Lake McClain when it reopened with Sasquatch as the park’s star coaster. Attendance for the reopening exceeded expectations as 1 million walked through the gates over the expected 950,000 for the small regional park that had lost name recognition when it closed as Great Adventure Park back in 1982. In 1988 the park opened up a new area behind the Sasquatch coaster, called the Backwoods. The park had dropped the “[Blank] Midway” moniker from its area names and instead went mostly arealess like most regional parks. As such, the Backwoods could be marketed as the first loosely-themed area of Lake McClain, and it proved to be popular. Key to this expansion were three new flat rides installed in the area: Kite Fight, a kite themed scrambling attraction, similar to Mister Twister but different in that guests lay on their stomachs in kite themed vehicles while the ride spins them around, Ranger, an Intamin Ranger that acted similar to a pirate ship, yet themed to a U.S. Space Shuttle that trained a secret group of space cadets, and the Old Mill Wheel, a ferris wheel replacement themed to a water wheel on the shore of Sasquatch Creek. ——————————————— The following is from the private photo album and diary of Michael Thompson, CEO and Park President, Lake McClain. Generously provided for archival to the Lake McClain Historical Society. In 1988 the YCN Corporation was proud to have made it through our first season of operation at Lake McClain, successfully rescuing the park from being an afterthought in the state of Ohio. We went back and forth on what exactly we should add in 1988. Some of our group thought that we needed to overhaul the old entrance, but others knew we needed to expand the park out east so that the park would be able to bring something new to guests consistently and curb overcrowding issues. Another ride we thought of relocating or replacing was Eagle, but it was decided against for being the only major looping roller coaster in the park, and for its reliability so far. In the end, nothing in the entrance square was touched for this year, but look out for the future. One of our most crowded (and also successful) areas is the Adventure Gardens cafeteria, many guests come here to take a break or get some food. Due to this it brings in sizeable profits for us. We’ve thought of bringing in some local vendors too as a contribution to the community and a sign of goodwill towards the city. Our most popular attraction by far the past two years has been Sasquatch. This coaster has put us on the map for Ohio coaster enthusiasts, who enjoy an intense ride with strong airtime, especially on the mid-ride drop off the hill and into the final out and back layout before the brakes. Our investment of $2.5 million USD will pay itself off by the end of this year if all goes well. Here you can see Sasquatch going down it’s first drop. Our new addition for 1988 is the Backwoods themed area. We purchased three new rides to add to the park, Kite Fight, Ranger, and Old Mill Wheel, and added in a new major dining experience in the Backwoods Barbecue that sits on the shores of Sasquatch Creek. Kite Fight is a scrambler attraction where guests lay on their stomachs in kite themed vehicles. Ranger is a standard Intamin Ranger, and Old Mill Wheel is just a relocated Ferris Wheel. The backstage area and creekside dining area of the Backwoods BBQ. Two of our best family attractions are Ted Lasso’s Electric Roller Ride and Erie River Falls. They’re also expensive to operate, but they generate the most attendance, so they always manage to break even, especially during peak season around Independence Day. The park map for 1988.
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Oh, cool. I already have Imgur. Originally I was going to post from Imgur but I decided against it because posting from ParkCrafters was easier. Probably just be a little more difficult now. I’ll have an update out by Tuesday then.
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So, I have a problem, all of my photos that I size down to try and fit the megabyte limit end up being too big. Unfortunately this means I can't post more on ParkCrafters until I figure this out or try to size down my photos even more. The park is up to the year 1989 already, and I really want to continue posting on here, hopefully this can be fixed somehow or the megabyte limit increased. For now, I'll post what I have on the r/rct subreddit.
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Lake McClain Amusement Park held it's Grand Re-Opening Ceremonies on July 4, 1987 after about 2 months of being softly re-opened to the public. YCN Amusements, which had filed for Chapter 11 Bankruptcy protection in the aftermath of the Six Flags lawsuit, re-emerged from bankruptcy as the YCN Corporation, headed by the man who will take you through the history of the park from this report forward, CEO Michael Thompson. To expound further on the park's 5 year shutdown, YCN Amusements had opened 3 other amusement parks around the United States in the lead-up to their showdown with Six Flags in 1981-82, and they simply could not afford to keep the park open on the budget they had, and yet had no potential buyers lined up. Six Flags would not even touch the park when the prospect of buying it came up in negotiations. Finally, as YCN Corporation emerged out of bankruptcy, Michael Thompson and the Lake McClain Land Development Company bought 50% of YCN's shares, and Thompson became CEO of the newly reorganized corporation. ----------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Private photo album of Michael Thompson, graciously granted to Lake McClain Historical Society for archiving This year has been a pleasant year for the new YCN Corporation and our flagship park, the new Lake McClain Amusement Park in Lake McClain Township, Ohio. I decided as President of the McClain Land Development Company that it was in our best interests to buy up a controlling stake in the YCN Corporation to save them from going completely bankrupt, and give them a much needed cash infusion of around $200 million USD to keep all four YCN parks open and add something new to every single park, along with reopening the flagship Lake McClain. You can see in the last few pictures we've given the entrance to the park a complete overhaul, and added in 3 new flat rides for the season. The Great Swings and the Carousel were both added to the entrance in place of the last Carousel, and the spot of the Scrambler. We also gave the launched looping coaster Eagle a new coat of paint for the new reopening. We also reopened the Food Court and let in local vendors, and of course put Mister Twister, a Scrambler, in the old spot of the Flying Trapeze. But, our biggest new addition was the $10 million dollar Dinn Corporation wooden roller coaster called Sasquatch, themed to a legendary cryptid running around the woods of Ohio. Here you can see the coaster's 78 foot first drop into a high speed, high G-force turnaround and up into the first hill. Then the coaster carries rides out and back into the woods twice before returning to the station. I'm told the last big drop off Sasquatch Hill in the middle of the ride gives an intense pop of air time to riders. A train crests over the lift and into the hands of the Sasquatch. We also were proud to re-open the staple Arrow family coaster Ted Lasso's Electric Roller Ride, bit of a wordy name in my opinion but you can't fix what's not broken, it's top three in popularity among park guests. And finally, probably the most popular ride in the park was Erie River Falls. It's such an expensive ride to operate yet it brings in the most of our clients, the general public. Forty-eight percent of respondents in our park surveys this season said they thought Erie River Falls was the best attraction in the park. ------------------------------------------------------------------ End update.
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Worry not Wolfpaw! More story on the way soon (probably today or tomorrow)!
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Great Adventure Park - 1985 - Abandoned 1982 was the last season of operation for Great Adventure Park. YCN was forced to close the park in order to pay back massive legal fees from fighting Six Flags over copyright infringement of the Great Adventure name. YCN Amusements settled the case with Six Flags, though, coming to an agreement to pay a fee of $1 million USD with the option to sell the majority of their flat rides to Six Flags to cover the fee. By 1985, the park was near completely abandoned. There are no words to convey the massive loss the state of Ohio suffered by losing another theme park, yet YCN Amusements was quietly still active around the property, mostly cutting down overgrowth and doing cheap maintenance. By their agreement with Six Flags, they could not operate rides at the park for a period of 1 year. In 1984, rumblings of a new development were going around the state of Ohio. YCN Amusements had been in negotiations with Lake McClain Township to operate its rides as a part of routine maintenance, but nothing was concrete until 1985. By 1985, with the Six Flags settlement out of the way, YCN Amusements had an agreement with Lake McClain Township that they would be able to operate the rides inside the park for 3 years without having to refile permits, and the city relaxed zoning regulations on the land the park sat on for an unknown reason, rumored to be a new coaster by the enthusiasts in the area. This piece of land, outside current park borders but still park property, had been in development in 1981 but the park was forced to shut down it's development of the land when YCN Amusements was sued by Six Flags. The park would have to cut down the overgrowth but the land was still OKed by the city for development on a new addition to the park in the next 3 years. Here you can see that the overgrowth extended out to the parking lots, which were fenced and chained up except for a back entrance for YCN staff and maintenance crews.
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Great Adventure Park - 1982 - A Change is Gonna Come... A tight budget was the result of heavy legal fees (and fines) that YCN Amusements had to pay to Six Flags Great Adventure and the Six Flags Company in 1982-83 over the name of Great Adventure, as YCN Amusements was sued for copyright infringement by Six Flags in a massive court battle that nearly bankrupted the park. For now though, the park was still operating, yet on a shoestring budget. Money was still spent on the park, but major changes would be coming to Great Adventure in the near future. The park chose cheaper upgrades to make, with the first visible enhancements made to the park's alpine-themed entrance. Once you entered the park, you could forget about the woes of owing Six Flags and a bunch of lawyers and law firms millions of dollars in fees and fines. The first casualty in the years of trials and terrors was the Ferris Wheel. It was sold to another, still unknown park. Put in its place was a sitting area extension off of McClain Grill's seating area. Eagle operated only when the park was at a higher capacity, this was taken during peak season in July around Independence Day, 1982. Great Adventure was not willing to sacrifice the highest capacity rides in the park, Ted Lasso's Electric Roller Ride or Erie River Falls, to budget cuts or seasonal operations. Ticket prices increased this season to make up for losses incurred from operating two of the most expensive rides in the park, over 1.2 million guests attended in 1982, down two percent from last year's attendance numbers. Sunshine Plaza on the Lowcountry Midway received enhancements, mostly on its roof. It was still the most popular area of the park, even with the new addition on the east side of the park. Erie River Falls was the most ridden attraction of the 1982 season, seeing its highest ridership in July with temperatures in the 80s and 90s all summer (yes, I actually researched 1982 temperatures in Ohio for this.) Behold, the new addition for 1982 was a new food court, done cheap and dirty, along with some chairswings called Flying Trapeze. (shown below) The Flying Trapeze was popular with families and kids, rated as a mildly thrilling ride by the green color of the queue line. Getting to the ride on the new Mini Midway required guests to cross the tracks of the McClain Railway. Here you can see an overview of the main square of the park in 1982. Despite attendance numbers still going strong in 1982, the closure of rides and shifting of operation schedules, along with the shoestring budget for FY 1982 left a looming air of uncertainty around the park. Rumors swarmed around the park and conversations could be heard everywhere about the park's steep legal battle with Six Flags, and the huge costs it took to keep the park open while fighting in courtrooms over the park's future. Will the park close? Will the rides be removed? Who knows? The 1982 Park Map for Great Adventure Park.
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Thanks, wolfpaw. I always appreciate feedback on the park.
