Sinclair Theme Parks

Sinclair Theme Parks were a formerly operating theme park company owned by television broadcasting company, Sinclair Broadcasting Group. During the company's existence it operated 9 theme parks. Most formerly operating Sinclair Theme Parks are now operated by Six Flags, Inc. (with some exceptions)

Foundation
Soon after visiting Kings Island in Mason, Ohio in 1981, Chesapeake Broadcasting (now Sinclair Broadcasting) founder Julian Smith was impressed on how Taft Broadcasting (another broadcasting company) had the advances to run a full functioning theme park. So, Julian alongside his nephew David Leonard Smith would establish Smith Family Theme Parks as a company to handle their amusement park ventures. The first they owned was Baltimore's Great Acres, which they got from Westinghouse. Later in 1984, the company created two new theme parks, Pittland in North Huntingdon, Pennsylvania (a suburb of Pittsburgh) and Ohioland in Chillicothe, Ohio.

Changes and Buyouts
In 1985, the company would change its name to Sinclair Amusement Group. The next year, it would renamed itself again this time to Sinclair Theme Parks. On July 21, 1986, it would purchase Field Communications II's cluster of theme parks which include Field's Lakes of Adventure, Fieldland Detroit, Fieldland Boston, and Hawaiian Islands Theme Park. In 1988, Sinclair Theme Parks bought the struggling DF Park from The Mills Corporation (they would eventually acquire Carwardine Parks) who wanted to focus more on the adjacent DF Mills. Finally in 1990, they bought the CBS network's only theme park CBS Universe.

Closure
In 1994, Sinclair announced plans to sell all of its theme parks to Premier Parks, the acquisition was approved on June 23, 1995 and completed on August 5, 1995. Premier Parks would merge with Six Flags in 1998, with the sole remaining company gaining the Six Flags name. As of now, Six Flags owns most of the former Sinclair parks.