Six Flags Great Adventure

 Six Flags Great Adventure is an amusement park located approximately 20 miles southeast of Trenton in Jackson, New Jersey. Owned and operated by Six Flags, the park complex is situated between New York City and Philadelphia and includes a water park named Hurricane Harbor. It first opened to the public as simply Great Adventure in 1974 under the direction of restaurateur Warner LeRoy. Six Flags acquired the park in 1977. The park is located right off of Interstate 195 and is along Monmouth Road (County Route 537).

In 2012, Six Flags combined its 160-acre (65 ha) Great Adventure with its 350-acre (140 ha) Wild Safari animal park to form Six Flags Great Adventure & Safari park. At 510 acres (210 ha), it is the second-largest theme park in the world following Disney's Animal Kingdom.

In 1972, entrepreneurial businessman Warner LeRoy developed concept plans for the Great Adventure entertainment complex, proposing seven parks be built within the complex: An amusement park, a safari park, a show park, a floral park, a sports complex, a shopping district, and a campground with beach/waterpark and stables. His proposal also included plans for hotels, which were connected to the parks and could be reached by boats, buses, a sky ride and/or a monorail. LeRoy wanted his parks to flow naturally through the forest and lakes, capitalizing on the back-to-nature movement of the era. He chose a property then owned by the Switlik family, in an area centrally located between the New York City and Philadelphia regions. The property on County Route 537 had easy access to the newly constructed Interstate 195, which connected central New Jersey to the New Jersey Turnpike (Interstate 95) and would eventually (in 1981) connect to the Garden State Parkway.

Since the park's opening, it has been served by in-house emergency services composing of the Fire Department (Ocean County Station 58) and Emergency Medical Service (Ocean County Squad 80).

LeRoy collaborated with Hardwicke Industries, who previously built safari parks in Canada and Europe. Together, they set out to open the seven parks in stages over a 5-year period. After a 4,500 invitation-only guest opening on June 30, 1974, the Great Adventure entertainment complex opened to the general public on July 1, 1974, at a price tag of $10 million. At the time of the opening, only the Enchanted Forest area and Safari park were operational, with elements from five of the other planned parks being used to create the Enchanted Forest.

The Enchanted Forest was designed and built to look bigger-than-life. A Big Balloon was a tethered hot-air balloon that loomed over the park's entrance and was the biggest of its kind in the world. The Log Flume was the longest log ride constructed in the world at that time and it was accompanied by a giant "Conestoga Wagon", an over-sized log cabin restaurant called "Best of the West" and a huge Western Fortress, in the park's Rootin' Tootin' Rip Roarin' section. The Giant Wheel (now Big Wheel), then the tallest Ferris wheel in the world, and the Freedom Fountain, then the largest spraying fountain in the world, were located on the opposite end of the park. One of the few smaller-than-real life attractions was an outdoor walk-through attraction called the Garden of Marvels. It used working G-scale (o-g scale) LGB trains and boats among models of American landmarks and 1/25-scale recreations of European castles.

Another view of Six Flags Great Adventure from the Big Wheel, looking northeast. From left to right, the coasters are Superman: Ultimate Flight, the now-defunct Great American Scream Machine, Kingda Ka, The now-defunct Rolling Thunder, El Toro, and Medusa.

This miniature village was an idea taken from LeRoy's proposed Over the Rainbow floral park. A tree filled with snakes, a carousel, antique cars, koi pond, children's playground (called Kiddie Kingdom), petting zoo (named Happy Feeling) and a restaurant named Gingerbread Fancy (now Granny's Country Kitchen) were also borrowed from the floral park concept to create a section of The Enchanted Forest. This section created the park's main midway named Dream Street.

Shoppe Lane was named after a proposed "shopping extravaganza" park, which LeRoy had designed for the property. It lent its large open squares, huge fountain (Main Street Fountain), street performers (clowns and stilt walkers) and shops to the Enchanted Forest. Fairy Tales was the name of a shop that opened with the park in one of the park's over-sized bazaar tents. It sold stuffed animals and toys, including Superman. Other influences from LeRoy's proposal would surface in the years to come.

Here is a local Business that supports the community 

 

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55 Schanck Rd Suite a-14, Freehold, NJ 07728

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