Does your Six Flags have fake histories?

August 13, 2014 5:43 AM

At a recent visit to my nearest Six Flags ("Fiesta Texas") I started to notice signs for fake histories of fake towns across the park. Is just a feature of my park, or do ones you've been to have them, too? If so, what are they?

I was really curious to know if they were somehow connected.

posted by bison to Society & Culture (8 answers total)

I think it's a relatively common part of stage-setting in a lot of parks. King's Island, for instance, used to have signs along the queue for The Beast, relating the "legend". I don't know if they're still there, though.
posted by Thorzdad at 5:49 AM on August 13, 2014

I'm not surprised they are there, but I've never seen these (or maybe just not noticed before.) Grew up going to Six Flags over Texas (Arlington) but it's been a while. Went to Great America (Chicagoland) a couple times this year and didn't see any "historical plaques."
Where in the park were they?
posted by missriss89 at 6:05 AM on August 13, 2014

The original Six Flags over Texas had pretensions to historicity, and did have signs at the entrance to each of the eponymous sections giving a brief description of how and when that flag came to be raised over Texas, but they were not fake, and not about "towns" so much as historical periods.
posted by ubiquity at 6:15 AM on August 13, 2014 [6 favorites]

It's not (exactly) a theme park, but the sprawling retirement community The Villages, an hour out of Orlando, also has a lot of fake "historical" plaques about their town squares through the ages.
posted by COBRA! at 7:19 AM on August 13, 2014

The Six Flags name is a reference to the 6 different soverign flags that have flown over Texas (Spain, France, Mexico, Republic of Texas, United States, and Confederate States), and the park was originally highlighting the history of Texas. I would bet the plaques are a holdover from that. Here is some more history.
posted by goggie at 7:35 AM on August 13, 2014

Fiesta, Texas in San Antonio is different from the original Six Flags over Texas in Arlington. It was originally a Texas-themed theme park and has homogenized over time.
posted by grouse at 8:14 AM on August 13, 2014

Response by poster: The two that I recall off the top of my head are at Crackaxle Canyon and Rockville. There is also one for a stage near the front entrance.

For Crackaxle Canyon, there is a large boulder with a plaque on it--akin to the "Texas Historical Society" ones you see across the state. It says that this particular boulder came off a mountain where they were blasting their way through the canyon. The boulder cracked the train tracks, and it gave rise to the name of "one of Texas's great towns".

Another is on a statue at Rockville for "JP Rock", a man holding a fiddle, right in front of Rockville High. It talks about Rock's love of music (duh) and how he founded a musical competition. The plaque here says it was established in 1940. (Fiesta Texas, FYI, was created in 1992.) - Pictured here

The plaque for the stage is on the base of a very elaborate statue of a Folklorico dancer. The plaque gives the dancer's history and how she danced on this stage. - Pictured here

I like that these give a sense of place, but it's so elaborate, that I wondered if they do this everywhere.
posted by bison at 9:18 AM on August 13, 2014

Best answer: Right, that was the conceit of the place, there were originally four theme sections: Crackaxle Canyon, Los Festivales, Spassburg, and Rockville. Six Flags didn't design Fiesta Texas this way, they just bought it later. They (Six Flags) weren't responsible for it here, so they can't do it everywhere.
posted by grouse at 9:54 AM on August 13, 2014 [1 favorite]