Adventure Acres (LHF492, RCTFan2002)

Adventure Acres is a theme park located in Billings, Montana that first opened in May 1973.

History
The park was first announced in 1970 by Gary Norton, who would later go on to open Silverwood Theme Park in Idaho, after he purchased 200 acres in Billings, Montana, and founded his own company: Acres Amusements. Initially, the park was planned to have an opening date of July 1972, however, groundbreaking didn't start until January of 1971, and construction of the park went on later than expected, lasting nearly two whole years and pushing the opening date back as a result. Finally, the park officially opened on May 14th, 1973, featuring a main street with several shops, several thrill rides, and one rollercoaster - an S.D.C. Galaxi coaster promptly named "Galaxi".

In the park's first few years, it saw little expansion, only seeing the main street get expanded a bit with some new carnival games and a new railroad ride - the Adventure Acres Express. At the time it only had one station, and brought guests all the way around the entire park. In 1978, the park got it's first major new expansion, in the form of Double Corkscrew, an Arrow looping coaster that, layout-wise, was a clone of Corkscrew at Cedar Point. It immediately became one of the park's most popular attractions. The following year, the park continued to expand with the addition of a new area, the Woodlands. It featured a few shops, an eatery, and an Arrow log flume aptly named Woodland Splashdown. At the time it opened, it was known as the world's tallest log flume.

In 1980, the park debuted it's next ride. The Haymaker, a HUSS Troika, spun guests round and round while lifting them in the air. 1981 saw the next major coaster: The Corn Coaster. The ride, built by National Amusement Devices, is a 120 foot tall wooden coaster that sends guests at speeds up to 60 mph. Unfortunately, this and other investments left Acres Amusements deep in the red. To make things worse, on July 19th, 1981, the Corn Popper, a Hrubetz Round-Up ride that opened with the park, suddenly caught fire during operation. The ride was stopped mid-cycle and evacuated, with up to a dozen people being sent to the hospital for minor injuries, including first-degree burns. Ultimately, the Corn Popper was removed and scrapped due to it's damaged condition, and due to the heavy financial damages caused by this incident, Gary Norton sold off Adventure Acres to Funtime Inc.

The first new addition of the Funtime administration came in 1982. Hurricane, a Huss Rainbow, opened in the space formerly occupied by the Corn Popper. The ride hoisted riders in the air and sent them back down to the ground while tilting them side to side. 1983 saw the next new coaster - Wipeout, the first ever Vekoma Boomerang. The coaster sent riders through 3 inversions as well as forwards and backwards drops. In 1985, the park expanded even further with the addition of it's first children's area, Lil' Acres. The kiddie area featured five new kiddie rides as well as the park's first kiddie coaster, Lil' Acres Trailblazer, a B.A. Schiff kiddie coaster similar to the former "Mini-Comet" coaster at Hersheypark. Galaxi was also removed at the end of the 1985 season due to waning popularity, and replaced with yet another major investment. Shakedown, an Arrow looping coaster, opened in 1986. The ride was the first coaster to feature 6 inversions, including two vertical loops, a batwing, a corkscrew, and the first ever Dive Loop. Needless to say, it was very popular when it opened.

In 1987, the park expanded a little bit near Lil' Acres, adding a Huss Condor named The Falcon, an eatery (relocated from the main street as it's old spot was replaced with a new building), and a second station for Adventure Acres Express. Now the train would serve as the park's main transportation ride, rather than just purely being scenic. In 1988, the park celebrated it's 15th anniversary with an all-new parade event starting on May 14th (to honor the day the park initially opened) and lasting until Labor Day, and also saw some park improvements and touch-ups occur. No new rides opened, but at the end of 1988, a big plot of land was cleared in the Woodlands area. In 1989, The Great Race, an Intamin double roller coaster, much like the SBNO Vertigorama coaster in Argentina, opened. It is currently the only Intamin double roller coaster in North America and the only one operating. It also has a few brief interacting elements with Woodland Splashdown (now Lou's Hurricane Falls). Also, due to waning popularity and becoming increasingly redundant with the nearby Shakedown coaster, Double Corkscrew closed at the end of the 1989 season and was put into storage.

Double Corkscrew's replacement, Adventure Falls, opened in 1990. It was a Hopkins Shoot-the-Chutes ride, bringing riders 50 feet up in the air before plunging them back down into the water, causing them to get promptly soaked. In 1991, two new thrill rides opened: Sky Flyer, a very creatively named Vekoma Sky Flyer, was built right behind Adventure Falls on some of the spare land left from Double Corkscrew's removal, while Buzzsaw, the very first Huss Top Spin in North America, opened up in the Woodlands area. In 1992, River County Run, an Intamin river rapids ride, opened near The Falcon in yet another small expansion, with Adventure Acres Express being retracked and rerouted during the 1991-92 offseason to make room for the new ride. The Haymaker was also removed in the middle of the 1992 season and relocated to Six Flags South Dakota, to make room for 1993's new attraction - SkyNado, a B&M inverted coaster with a custom layout featuring 7 inversions - a vertical loop, an immelmann, barrel roll, a cobra roll, and two corkscrews. At the time, it was the world's tallest inverted coaster, at 132 ft high, and had the most inversions on an invert (later becoming tied with Montu and Banshee).

1994 was an off-season, focusing mainly on park improvements - the biggest one was Shakedown's dive loop getting a retrack due to multiple complaints of roughness, and new trains from Vekoma being added. Some land was also cleared in the main street area of the park, causing some speculation about a possible expansion of the area. Those rumors were proved false though, when, in 1995, The High Dive, the park's first upcharge attraction, opened in the main street area, making it the only ride in that area. A 110-ft tall Skycoaster ride built by Ride Entertainment Group, it allowed riders to simulate the experience of flying for $5 per person (the price has gone up since).

Premier Parks also bought out Funtime Inc. that year, purchasing all of their parks, including Adventure Acres. They didn't hesitate to start building the park's next coaster, and in 1996, Nightmare at Phantom Cave opened. It was an Intamin indoor family coaster, similar of that to Dragon at La Ronde or Skull Mountain at Six Flags Great Adventure, but had more downtime and maintenance issues than either coaster. Lil' Acres was also converted into Popeye's Seaport that same season, with Lil' Acres Trailblazer being replaced with Popeye's Seaport Chase, a Vekoma junior coaster. Wipeout also got a repaint and was renamed Boomerang: Coast to Coaster.

In Summer of 1996, Premier Parks announced their plans to remove some of the older and/or less popular rides in the park in order to make room for new rides. Just weeks later, The Falcon was unexpectedly dismantled and put into storage, with it's old ride pad being reused for 1997's addition - Hellevator, an absolutely massive 180 ft tall Intamin Giant Drop Tower. It immediately became the tallest ride in the park upon opening and was a smash hit with the public. Sky Flyer was also removed that year and, unlike The Falcon, it was relocated to Elitch Gardens for spare parts for their own Sky Flyer, Western Round-Up. In 1998, Time Warp, the world's first Chance Rides Double Inverter, opened on Sky Flyer's old spot, though suffered from heavy downtime and issues due to being a prototype. Chaos, a Chance Chaos ride, also opened that year. In 1999, Mind Eraser, North America's very first spinning coaster, opened. A Mack Rides spinning coaster, it was, layout-wise, similar, but not identical, to Euro Mir at Europa Park in Germany - however, it featured a very unique elevator lift instead of a spiral lift, and the cars spun freely.

In late 1999, due to Premier Parks purchasing Six Flags earlier that year, the latter began to announce their plans for converting Adventure Acres into a Six Flags park starting in 2000. These plans included renaming Adventure Acres to "Six Flags Over Montana", repainting and renaming SkyNado as "Batman: The Ride", converting Popeye's Seaport into Looney Tunes Seaport, and, most exciting of all, adding a Superman-themed hypercoaster to the park called "Superman: Ride of Steel"; to that end, they closed Shakedown midway through the season to add Ride of Steel. They even began advertising the park as "Six Flags Over Montana" starting Fall of 1999. However, in December of 1999, a very shocking offer came in, by none other than the park's original owner, Gary Norton himself. Having built himself back up from Adventure Acres' initial failure in the early 80s, he decided he wanted to take a second chance with the park and offered to buy it for $70 million. Six Flags accepted the offer and, in 2000, Adventure Acres (and Shakedown) reopened under Gary Norton's ownership again - no Six Flags theme in sight. The Superman hypercoaster that was planned for the park was instead built at Six Flags New England, opening in May of that year.

Although the park received no new rides or serious changes that year (save Popeye's Seaport becoming Lil' Acres again), Gary Norton promised that the park would see massive changes in the next couple years, and would receive TWO new coasters in 2001 to compensate for Six Flags' plans w/the park being canceled. 2001 indeed saw a lot of changes come to the park - Trembler, a CCI wooden coaster, and Launch!, an S&S Thrust Air coaster, both opened that year, and while Trembler received great acclaim from guests and coaster critics alike, Launch! was criticized for suffering from the same issues as HyperSonic XLC at Kings Dominion, which also opened that year. 2001 also saw two former rides come back to the park - The Falcon was taken out of storage and rebuilt in a new spot in the park, as was The Haymaker, which had been brought back to the park from Six Flags South Dakota (it was renamed Triple Tornado upon reopening). Garfield also became the park mascot that year, just like its sister park in Silverwood, and the Popeye coaster (which'd been renamed The New Lil' Acres Trailblazer in 2000) was renamed Garfield's Feline Frenzy. Time Warp closed that year due to being extremely unreliable and unpopular, and was put in storage for several years before being ultimately scrapped in 2007. It was replaced in 2002 with Freak Out, a KMG Afterburner ride.

In July of 2002, Buzzsaw was closed permanently (and later relocated to Six Flags South Dakota as Twister, where it ran until 2022) and Mind Eraser was closed due to downtime, but Gary Norton confirmed that the ride would not be removed and would instead get a refurbishment before reopening in 2003. Indeed, in 2003, Mind Eraser reopened, albeit with a complete repaint of the track and cars, and more importantly, a regular lift hill replacing the coaster's old elevator lift, which was the main source of it's downtime. The park also celebrated it's 30th anniversary that year with the debut of an all-new park parade event, and The Tumbler, a Chance Rides Rotor relocated from Six Flags Great America that'd been kept in storage since 2001. It'd been reassembled in Buzzsaw's old spot and even given a refurbishment by Chance Rides themselves. In 2004, Whitewater Acres, the biggest investment in the park's history, opened next to the park itself. It was a waterpark that, just like Boulder Beach Water Park at Silverwood, featured a wave pool, lazy river, kid's play area, and a tube slide complex upon opening.

In 2005, Wild Swing, an S&S Screaming Swing, opened. It was the first ride model of it's kind in the US to feature more than 8 riders per cycle (32 in this case, just like the newer models). Shakedown also closed at the end of the 2005 season due to being extremely rough. 2006 saw Launch! recieve a complete overhaul, including a new launch system, new trains, an increased top speed (from 82 to 85 mph) and a new name: Railgun. At the end of the year, pieces of the Salt Lake Bobsleds coaster from Six Flags South Dakota appeared in the parking lot. On July 29, 2006, the park announced Rocky Ridge, a new area built in a forest near the park for 2007 (Shakedown's spot being left aside for a major new coaster to open after Rocky Ridge). The land included three rides - Rocky Mountain Run, the relocated Salt Lake Bobsleds, Landslide, a HUSS Breakdance, and Tornado Terror, a Sally Corporation dark ride. 2007 also saw Blackbeard's Revenge, a HUSS Pirate Ship located next to Adventure Falls, in such a position that the splash from Adventure Falls would soak the pirate ship.

2008 saw Splashdown Summit, a new trapdoor slide in Whitewater Acres. The Shakedown area was finally used for Amazing Animals, an animal show, in 2009. However, 2009 also saw the removal of Hurricane, the park's Huss Rainbow - the attraction had been forced to abruptly shut down following the 2008 Liseberg incident, and after remaining SBNO, the ride was scrapped at the end of the 2009 season.

In 2010, Revolution, a Premier Rides family coaster, was built over the former spot of the Hurricane ride. With a similar layout to Round About at the now defunct Freestyle Music Park in South Carolina, this coaster was unique as instead of a regular lift hill or even a launch, this coaster had a Ferris wheel lift which slowly spun around to bring it's riders up to the top of the first drop. It opened to great acclaim from both families and adrenaline junkies. Phantom Cave (the renamed Nightmare at Phantom Cave) also closed at the end of the 2010 season due to its increasing downtime and maintenance issues. The coaster was put in storage while the building that the ride was in was torn down. The ride would be replaced in 2011 with an S&S El Loco simply called El Loco. Relocated from Forest Frontiers, the coaster was originally the world's very first El Loco coaster to open. However, before it opened it also received a complete refurbishment from S&S to prevent the same issues w/the ride at Forest Frontiers from happening again.

In 2012, 2 defunct rides from Woodfall Park, a Cedar Fair park in Iowa, were set up after being in storage since 2009. The rides were Elevator Shaft, the first ever Intamin First-Gen Freefall, and Dodgems, which is in the name. The park also got 2 other defunct rides: Floorspin, a Chance Rotor, and one side of Woodfall's Silver Mine Log Flume attraction. However, since the park already had a Rotor and a log flume, they were sent to other independent parks. Elevator Shaft's name stayed as it was, but Dodgems was renamed Smash'em! Crash'em! Bash'em! and put near Revolution. At the end of the 2012 season, 2 rides closed for good: The Acres Skyride and The Corn Coaster. The Skyride was taken down immediately, and over the off season pieces of red I-Box track were spotted in the parking lot...

In 2013, Unleashed, an RMC wood/steel conversion of The Corn Coaster, opened to unanimous acclaim from critics and guests alike. Some modifications done to the coaster during the conversion included the lift hill being extended 30 ft and 2 inversions being added to the ride - a barrel roll and a zero-g stall (basically a barrel roll but it exits the same way it entered). It immediately became the most popular coaster in the park when it opened. Sadly, 2013 was also the final year for Adventure Falls. 2014 saw Acres Skyride FINALLY get replaced. A Mondial Rollover, named Tahiti Twist, replaced the south station, while Woodland Splashdown was heavily retracked and rethemed into Lou's Hurricane Falls, taking over the north station plot and the former Adventure Falls plot. 2015 saw Ultra Loop, a Larson Super Loop located near Tornado Terror.

On October 29th, 2015, Amazing Animals closed for good and SkyNado also closed for a retheme. This was to make way for 2016's major addition: Adventure Isle. Primordium, a Vekoma Bermuda Blitz, replaced Amazing Animals. Three major flat rides - Hurricane, a Zamperla Air Race reusing the name of the park's former HUSS Rainbow, Temple Twister, a Zamperla Windshear, and Lightning Launch, a Funtime Slingshot - were added. SkyNado was repainted and renamed to Bloodhawk as part of the major addition. In 2017, Sky Flyer returned to the park. Elitch Gardens had passed on the ride's parts, and after returning it to Adventure Acres in 2000, it had remained in storage since.

In 2018, Whitewater Acres finally got new attractions, in the form of a small waterpark expansion that consisted of a whole new area with a small eatery and several new water attractions: in particular, they were a ProSlide ProBowl named Hydro Hurricane, a ProSlide multi-lane racing mat slide (similar to Breakers Edge at Hersheypark) named Avalanche Falls, and a ProSlide Rocket water coaster named Splash Dragster. The High Dive, the park's upcharge Skycoaster attraction located in the main street area, was closed and scrapped at the end of the 2018 season to make room for a new private catering pavilion that'd open in 2019. The pavilion would only be open to people who reserved it in advance for parties and such. 2019 also saw the addition of Hyper Drive to the Adventure Isle area, which was the very first Zamperla Giga Discovery in the world to stand over 200 feet tall at it's opening, causing it to become known the world's largest pendulum thrill ride.