Trifter

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Undoubtedly, I am going to reveal my age here, but I was among the relatively few people who attended Six Flags Over Texas several days prior to its official opening in the sixties.  I was seventeen years old at the time.  My dad was responsible for taking care of the park’s ice concession.  Yes, that’s as in cold drinks or soft drinks; maybe sodas, depending on where you’re from.  The ice concession for the park also involved chilling its many water fountains with big blocks of ice, which were placed in nearby underground tanks.

Back then, I had never heard of Six Flags.  Everything about the park seemed like such a novel idea to me.  The ice seemed like a particularly good idea, though, since that particular spot in Arlington, Texas was certifiably among the hottest in Texas.  Even though there were some innovative rides at first, at least for the time, you didn’t have to look very far behind the scenes to be able to figure out how things actually worked.  It was a much simpler time, and it was also a very different time, in more ways than one.

The New Arlington Six Flags Over Texas; Skull Island, French River Boat and Casa Magnetica

I remember riding the new Swiss sky ride back and forth across the park several times that first day.  It wasn’t really open, of course, but they were testing the ride, and some press types, as well as vendor types, like me, seemed all too willing to volunteer as guinea pigs.  No one seemed to even consider the safety factor.  There was Skull Island, the French River Boat ride, the weirdly designed Casa Magnetica, where water appeared to roll uphill, and I am sure, many other early rides that survived the park’s early days just long enough to help finance its inevitable expansion.

The first adult admission tickets went for an astronomical $6.95, as I recall, and that was if you bought the all-inclusive ticket.  I tried to tell myself that the price wasn’t all that bad.  About the only nearby competition was the State Fairgrounds in Dallas.  Of course, the fair was just a seasonal event, so it didn’t mean much in terms of direct competition.  More than a few teens managed to easily spend well beyond a day’s pay on the fair’s midway games and rides, so as it turned out, Six Flags was probably a comparative bargain.  

Of course, Six Flags became wildly successful in fairly short order.  As those first rides quickly became passe, the park seemed to almost magically expand and quickly outgrew its original boundaries. Clearly, the amusement park was a money-maker from that first opening day.  Within just a few years, there was no longer the necessity for an outside vendor to provide ice for the thirsty park.  Six Flags installed their own ice making equipment on site just a few years after opening.

Growing Pains; When is Big, Big Enough?

Over the years almost everything about the park seemed to work exceedingly well.  New, clearly expensive, exotic rides were installed almost every year at the park.  In those boom times, sometimes several new rides every year crowded their way into the confines of the growing park.  The park was a dynamic whirlwind that seemed to change constantly.  Everything from souvenirs to tickets  seemed to steadily increase in price.  The quaint feel of the original park succumbed to a slicker, glossier feel that attracted an increasingly sophisticated clientele. 

It seemed as if the good times were destined to roll on and on forever.  I never, even  for a moment, considered that such a successful venture would possibly file for bankruptcy.  That thought was simply unthinkable.  Of course, that’s probably because I was trying to put a 1964 perspective on that notion.  Back then, after all, there was still actually a stigma attached to bankruptcy.  Bankruptcy was tantamount to and synonymous with failure.  It was an admission of defeat. 

New Parks and Stadiums Move In; What About the Future?

Other nearby competitor water parks and sports parks followed in fairly rapid succession over the years.  Just this month, the new Dallas Cowboys stadium, located in close proximity to the Six Flags park, hosted its first concert.  Now finding itself literally in the shadow of these newer, glitzier neighbors, Six Flags Over Texas still seems viable, but in some ways the venue has probably reached its maturity.  The big crowds still come on the weekends, but they are not quite as large as they once were.

Almost as suddenly as its upstart beginning in the sixties, the Six Flags corporate complex recently found itself in serious trouble with its creditors.  Somehow that didn’t really seem to matter that much.  After all, this wasn’t 1964, it was 2009.  That’s probably one reason why not many people are going to view the Six Flags bankruptcy filing as being anything much out of the ordinary.  In fact, at least for now, the Six Flags bankruptcy filing seems to be a quite ordinary fact of modern financial life.