‘To Build a Happy Place’

A little after 9 a.m. on May 10, 1975, 28-year-old Kings Dominion General Manager Dennis Speigel looked out at a mass of approximately 52,000 people, crushed elbow-to-elbow into an area designed to hold about one-third that many. At the front gate, which had been closed and locked to stop the influx, another frustrated crowd, estimated at 25,000 to 40,000, many wielding discount tickets from a wildly successful McDonald’s promotion, clamored to get in. Out on Interstate 95 and on Route 1, traffic was gridlocked northbound from Ashland and southbound from Carmel Church. State and county police had seen nothing like it.

With the full park scheduled to open at 10 a.m., Speigel wondered, how did this happen? It wasn’t even opening day — that was last weekend, May 3 and 4, with crowds numbering half this many. Was he about to be the first theme park manager in history to close a park before it even opened? Nervously, Speigel made a bold executive decision.

‘Park Plans in Hanover Kept Quiet’

—Richmond Times-Dispatch, Nov. 19, 1971

 Four years earlier, in November 1971, the Richmond Times-Dispatch had reported that a team from Taft Broadcasting was evaluating a parcel of land in Doswell to determine the feasibility of constructing a multimillion-dollar amusement park. Taft was a Cincinnati-based media company that owned radio and TV stations, as well as production companies such as Hanna-Barbera, the animation studio behind the Flintstones, Scooby-Doo, Yogi Bear and others. It was opening a flagship park called Kings Island north of Cincinnati to replace the aging and flood-prone Coney Island (named for but unrelated to New York’s famed amusement park).

In May 1972, Family Leisure Centers, a subsidiary of Taft and Kroger’s Top Value Enterprises, was tasked with developing the 700-acre tract into a $25 million family recreational complex. An early concept drawing shows an amusement park, a resort hotel, an 18-hole golf course and a shopping center. Like most concept plans, it displays the dream for the project; all but the park eventually fell by the wayside.

Speigel says Taft had hoped to find a location near Washington, D.C., to attract more visitors from the north, but there were benefits to constructing the park in Hanover County. “Land was cheap. I think we paid about $2,500 per acre,” he says of the vast tract, which included several small brick homes, a few stagnant ponds, a pig farm and two family cemeteries (both left undisturbed), one with a grave marker dated 1710. There were fewer zoning and environmental restrictions and easy access to I-95. The location also was strategically positioned within driving distance of both D.C. and Richmond, enabling Kings Dominion to attract visitors from two significant population centers.

Taft wasn’t the only company looking to build in Virginia — Busch Gardens Williamsburg, which became a prominent but friendly competitor for the Richmond and Tidewater markets, was under construction just 65 miles southeast on I-64. Roanoke’s Lakeside Amusement Park had purchased an enormous tract near Martinsville for a park called Sugartree that never got past the planning stage. The Marriott Corporation was also looking to build a park near Manassas to complement its existing parks in Chicago and Santa Clara, California, but wealthy horse-country neighbors who did not want an influx of tourists in their backyards thwarted those plans.

‘Thrills — and Spills — in the “Theme Park” Business’

—Fortune magazine, December 1977

The early 1970s marked a major cultural shift away from traditional amusement parks to what became known as theme parks. Pre-1970s amusement parks, such as Virginia’s Buckroe Beach, Lakeside and Ocean View, were primarily amalgams of rides, games and food stands, squeezed into urban corners and often with no unifying appeal. They were loud, garish, maybe even a little seedy, and solely focused on thrill and novelty rides.

Theme parks, in contrast, were immersive environments built around a central thematic concept, such as a geographical location or a culture. Every ride, building and even employee costume was part of a deliberately coherent aesthetic, with the goal of transporting visitors away from their day-to-day cares into a different, albeit manufactured, reality. Parks evolved into vacation destinations rather than Saturday diversions, and consumers wanted cleaner, safer and more family-friendly environments rather than traditional carnivals or boardwalk parks.

Disney World’s 1971 opening set the standard for theme parks as a controlled resort destination with multiple themed lands, hotels and transportation systems. Others followed — Six Flags and Busch Gardens parks started introducing themed elements and more extravagant landscaping. No more corn dogs and carny rides; this was serious business.

Taft Broadcasting and Family Leisure Centers play an often overlooked role in the development of the theme park industry. It was one of the first non-Disney corporations to make a calculated investment in themed entertainment on a national scale, building or managing several regional parks instead of one megapark. It was also one of the earliest companies to use its own intellectual property (Hanna-Barbera characters) in park design and theming.

‘Hi ho, hi ho, we really would like to go …’

—Early Kings Dominion jingle

In May 1972, Hanover County rezoned a portion of the Doswell tract from agricultural to business use. As grading and site preparation began, Taft announced the park’s name, Kings Dominion. Speigel admits he is no fan of the name. “I can say these things 50 years later, but it was a horrible name. With Kings Island, the ‘Kings’ came from Cincinnati’s Kings Mills, and we took ‘Island’ from Coney Island. Great name. But when we came to Virginia, we carried the ‘Kings’ forward, and we took the ‘Dominion’ from the Old Dominion.”

He points out that only the sign is visible from I-95, not the park itself. “Traveling tourists didn’t know it was a theme park,” he says. “[The name] Kings Dominion meant nothing to them.”

From 1973 until early 1975, employees and contractors worked feverishly to meet the proposed May 3, 1975, opening date. Debbie Smart, then the wife of rides maintenance supervisor Dale Figley and daughter-in-law of park construction director Jim Figley, recalls the treatment the Cincinnati transplants received from Hanover locals. “We were celebrities,” she says. “Dale got a speeding ticket in Ashland. When the police officer found out that he was with Kings Dominion, [the officer] was afraid he was going to get fired by his sergeant.”

To meet the schedule, Speigel, Jim Figley and his brother-in-law, Operations Manager Don Palmer, scoured parks in America, Switzerland, Germany and Italy looking for rides, ride parts and attractions. Figley went to Martinsville after the Sugartree project was canceled and purchased stacks of painted lumber intended for a triple racing roller coaster at a significantly reduced price; it was used in the Rebel Yell (now Racer 75).

Speigel recalls that they bought carousels from Mesker Park Zoo & Botanic Garden in Indiana, Roger Williams Park in Rhode Island, and Palisades Amusement Park in New Jersey. “We bought those things for like a hundred thousand bucks, which was nothing,” he says.

During this period, the park’s centerpiece — a 331-foot replica of the Eiffel Tower — was constructed to convey the park’s international theme and showcase the Taft park brand. Initially, the manufacturer, Intamin, proposed a full-size tower nearly 1,000 feet in height. However, after consideration, they proceeded with a scaled-down design almost identical to the one at Kings Island. The paint color, Eiffel Tower green, was used nowhere else in the park.

‘The Lions Are Coming’

—Commonwealth Magazine, March 1974

 In addition to the rides and attractions, a wildlife preserve called Lion Country Safari was located on the east side of Kings Dominion. “It was a joint operation with a South African firm that had three locations in the U.S.,” says Jack Yager, the Kings Dominion public relations manager from 1973 to 1982.

On April 27, 1974, Kings Dominion previewed LCS with a soft opening that included the preserve, a bird show, the Scooby-Doo roller coaster, the Elephant’s Trunk gift shop and the Hungry Hippo restaurant. A preview center showed a film titled “To Build a Happy Place,” which was shot at Kings Island. Virginia Gov. Mills Godwin attended the opening ceremonies and received a “beak kiss” from a parrot.

Because the animal preserve was, at the time, a drive-thru (no convertibles allowed), guests simply paid an entry fee and drove slowly around the grounds while listening to a cassette narration. This did not go well. According to Yager, cars overheated, lions scratched vehicles, and ostriches plucked at windshield wiper blades. Sometimes guests would stop and get out of their cars, thinking the animals were tame. “Everything that could go wrong did,” Yager recalls. By the grand opening in 1975, the drive-thru had been replaced with a monorail. According to Speigel, the park hosted about 680,000 guests during its preview season.

In addition to LCS and International Street, which featured not just the tower but European-style buildings offering merchandise, games and food service, the other themed areas included Old Virginia, where rides and shows recalled the history and geography of the commonwealth; Coney Island, a re-creation of the sights and sounds of the old amusement park era (renamed Candy Apple Grove in 1976); and a children’s area called The Happy Land of Hanna-Barbera. These areas were patterned to match the attractions at Kings Island.

‘70,000? 80,000? 90,000? … The Weekend That Was In Hanover County’

—Ashland’s The Herald-Progress, May 14, 1975

Following an expenditure of more than $50 million (exceeded only by the two Disney parks), Kings Dominion’s grand opening was scheduled for Memorial Day weekend 1975, just 10 days before the opening of Busch Gardens Williamsburg. The event was to include musical performances, a ribbon-cutting ceremony and hot-air balloon displays.

The park was open for trial runs on the weekends of May 3 and May 10. The first weekend was relatively uneventful. Then there was May 10.

Standing on International Street in front of 52,000 people, with thousands more in the parking lot, Speigel announced his executive decision. “We didn’t have any more capacity, and they really started getting rowdy and shaking the gates. We had to let them in. … We closed the parking lot and opened up the front gate, and we let many go in free.”

Employees actually went into the crowds, asking people to please go home and come back another day. At noon, the gates clanged shut for the day.

The park was a cash-only operation in 1975. “At the ticket booths, people would hand us the [$7.50 admission], and we would just drop it on the floor,” Yager says. “If we needed change, we would just reach down and grab bills. I remember Jim Copp, our finance director, opening the back door, using a box to just gather up the bills.”

Terrie Blanchard Cook was working that day at a food stand near the Shenandoah Lumber Co. log flume ride. “It was crazy,” she recalls. “Late-shift workers were unable to get to work. The walkways were filled with slow-moving swarms of people. A woman made her way to the front of the line at my stand, and when I asked for her order, she broke into tears. She said, ‘I thought I was standing in line for the restroom. I’ve been waiting for over an hour.’

“At the end of that day, loads of employees ripped off their uniforms, stating that they’d never be back,” she adds.

‘A Nerve-Shattering Disaster Movie That Hurtles Along …’

—Tagline from the 1977 movie “Rollercoaster” 

Attendance normalized after that chaotic weekend, aided by a gas crisis that indirectly benefited the park by keeping Virginians close to home, as well as the Busch Gardens premiere.

In 1976, Universal Pictures contacted Speigel and Yager about filming part of a motion picture called “Rollercoaster” at Kings Dominion. Skeptical of the film’s plot about an extortionist blowing up roller coasters, Speigel asked to see the script. He says he was stunned to see that ride operators were stereotyped as whiskey-swilling, bucktoothed bumpkins. He decided to cooperate if the park was paid $250,000 and he was allowed to edit the script. The 1977 film, which starred George Segal, Richard Widmark, Henry Fonda, Timothy Bottoms and Susan Strasberg, was tepidly received but made back its $9 million budget.

Kings Dominion continued to grow, adding a fourth coaster, the King Kobra, in 1977 and The Lost World, a 2-acre human-made mountain featuring a water ride, a mine train and a centrifuge ride, in 1979. A campground was built in 1978, but the hotel never materialized.

‘Betcha Can’t Do It All!’

—Kings Dominion tagline, 1981

 Attendance and discretionary spending dipped during the recession of the early 1980s, leading to delays in infrastructure improvements, such as parking lot repaving. However, another roller coaster, the Grizzly, was added in 1982, and the White Water Canyon river ride came along the following year. Taft acquired three more parks, bringing its total to five. Speigel left Kings Dominion to work for Taft, replaced by Lew Hooper and, in 1984, Wilson Flohr.

After cutting his teeth at Disney, Flohr bounced between Kings Island and another Taft property, Carowinds in North Carolina, before co-founding a new venture, Kings Entertainment Company, and buying Taft’s theme parks in 1983. “Taft was a broadcasting company,” Flohr says. “They were investing a lot of money in Kings Island and Kings Dominion, but Wall Street wasn’t recognizing it. So, they decided to sell.”

Under KECO and Flohr, Kings Dominion consistently upheld the philosophy that the guest was always right — an approach that may have chafed the guest services employees who had to manage complaints. Flohr remembers an incident where a guest’s car was taken from the parking lot. “I was told this guy got his car stolen,” he says. “He paid to get it in our parking lot, and we were supposed to take care of it. I said, ‘Well, we’ve got a group sales car here.’ So, we literally gave him that car. … We had to take care of the guest.”

‘Days of Thunder’

—Motion simulator ride added in 1993

KECO sold to Paramount in 1992, which was, in turn, purchased by Viacom in 1994. The parks were transferred to CBS and ultimately sold to Cedar Fair in 2006; the latter merged with Six Flags Entertainment Corporation in 2024.

The changes in ownership, including related intellectual properties, created challenges and opportunities for management. Some refer to the initial sale as the “Paramount purge” because numerous older rides, such as the Apple Turnover, the Old Dominion Line steam train and The Skyride, were removed. Lion Country Safari was shuttered in 1993 due to high operating costs, difficult federal regulations and a realignment of park priorities; all of the animals were safely relocated to other zoos and parks.

It’s always going to be about people.

—Bridgette Bywater, Kings Dominion General Manager, 2020-25

Hanna-Barbera Land, which had been expanded in 1990, was renamed KidZville. A “Days of Thunder” motion simulator and “The Outer Limits”: Flight of Fear launched coaster were added, as was a “Wayne’s World” area. Numerous other movie tie-ins have come and gone.

While the economic downturn of 2008 severely affected park attendance, it also inspired off-season attractions including Halloween Haunt and, later, WinterFest (on hiatus for 2025). Kings Dominion regained momentum with the installation in 2010 of a world-class steel coaster, Intimidator 305, and a rebranding of the kids’ area to Planet Snoopy. The park’s 40th anniversary saw the return of beloved attractions like the Singing Mushrooms and another expansion of the water park.

However, there was no silver lining to some heartbreaking incidents: Kings Dominion has experienced three accidental deaths and a gang-related stabbing.

And then there was the COVID-19 shutdown.

Bridgette Bywater, general manager of Kings Dominion from 2020 to 2025, says there were numerous challenges during and after the pandemic. Attendance plummeted in 2021 and is still recovering. Planned capital improvements, such as Tumbili, a 4D free-spin coaster, were delayed to control costs. Ride repair parts from European manufacturers have been difficult to find and get shipped.

Bywater credits Cedar Fair, Six Flags and Richard Zimmerman, president and CEO of the merged company, for the successful post-pandemic turnaround, which includes the 2025 debut of Rapterra, the tallest and longest launched wing coaster in America. “[During the pandemic,] we paid our full-time staff that entire time. … It really changed my whole viewpoint of how much the company meant to me,” she says. “It was a very tough decision for Cedar Fair to cover the salaries. But no one was laid off during COVID.”

‘Conquer the Skies’

—Rapterra tagline, 2024

What does Bywater anticipate for Kings Dominion over the next 50 years, now that it is part of Six Flags’ expansive network of 42 parks?

“It’s about acknowledging and wrapping our arms around our history as we’re stepping forward into our future,” she replies after some reflection. “We can’t just hold on to the past and be able to grow. I think we’ll continue to see how far they’ll push computer programming in the rides.

“But it’s always going to be about people. It’s about embracing technology but also being able to make the experience much more enjoyable and meaningful to guests who are on the attraction, whether it is a giant, beautiful roller coaster like Rapterra or even a small family ride that’s just accomplishing getting a grandma and grandson in together for a good time.”

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Kings Dominion Through the Decades

1975 

Kings Dominion opened to the public on May 3 with five themed areas: International Street, Old Virginia, Coney Island, The Happy Land of Hanna-Barbera and Lion Country Safari. Attractions included the Rebel Yell, Galaxie and Scooby-Doo roller coasters, Log Flume, a Steam Train, Sky Ride, and the Eiffel Tower. 

1977 

The King Kobra roller coaster debuted, featuring a 75-foot drop, and the movie “Rollercoaster” was filmed at the park.  

1979 

Lost World mountain opened, featuring three rides: Journey to Atlantis, Land of the Dooz and the Time Shaft. A year later, Haunted River would replace Journey to Atlantis. 

1982 

The park unveiled the Grizzly, a high-speed wooden roller coaster with an 87-foot drop. The Showplace, a 7,500-seat outdoor concert venue, also opened. 

1983 

White Water Canyon, a river adventure with six-person rafts, debuted. Another water ride, Diamond Falls, was added in 1985, and the Racing Rivers water slides opened in 1987. 

1986 

Shockwave, the first stand-up roller coaster on the East Coast, was introduced. 

1988 

Avalanche arrived — a bobsled-style family coaster with mountain-mimicking hills and valleys.

1991 

Kings Dominion introduced the Anaconda, a six-loop steel roller coaster and the first in the world to feature an underwater tunnel. 

1992 

Hurricane Reef, a 6-acre waterpark with 15 water attractions, debuted. 

1993 

The “Days of Thunder” racing simulator ride let guests experience the thrill of driving a race car.  

1994 

The Hurler, the park's fourth wooden roller coaster, opened in a new area styled after “Wayne’s World.” 

1996 

“The Outer Limits”: Flight of Fear premiered as the world’s first linear induction launch-style roller coaster, looping through total darkness. 

1998 

The world's fastest suspended roller coaster was introduced: Volcano, The Blast Coaster.

1999 

Hurricane Reef was rebranded as WaterWorks and expanded to 19 acres. More water slides were added the following year. 

2001 

HyperSonic XLC, the world's first compressed air launch roller coaster, was unveiled, and FearFest, a new annual event celebrating Halloween, began. 

2002 

The park’s 12th roller coaster, Ricochet, debuted with twists, turns and a 50-foot drop. 

2003 

Drop Zone Stunt Tower, the tallest drop tower ride in North America, premiered, plunging guests 27 stories at a speed of 72 miles per hour. 

2004-06 

Scooby-Doo’s Haunted Mansion opened as the first interactive family dark ride in the mid-Atlantic region. Two more themed experiences, Tomb Raider: Firefall (now The Crypt) and Italian Job: Turbo Coaster (now Backlot Stunt Coaster) soon followed. 

2008 

The Dominator debuted as the longest floorless roller coaster in the world, with one of the largest vertical loops. 

2010 

Intimidator 305 was unveiled as the biggest and fastest roller coaster on the East Coast.  

2014 

For its 40th anniversary, Kings Dominion brought back the Candy Apple Grove and the Singing Mushrooms, among other hits, and rebranded the Congo area as Safari Village in honor of Lion Country Safari.  

2015 

WaterWorks was rebranded as Soak City, and two new attractions were added: Hurricane Heights water slide complex and Splash Island family zone. 

2018 

Twisted Timbers, a hybrid roller coaster made from wood and steel, opened and the WinterFest holiday celebration debuted. Grand Carnivale, another off-season event, was introduced the following year. 

2022 

Tumbili was unveiled; it uses state-of-the-art magnetic technology to suspend riders on either side of the track as cars spin and tumble continuously.

2025  

Kings Dominion celebrates its 50th anniversary with the debut of Rapterra, the world’s tallest and longest launched wing coaster. 

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Dale Brumfield was a full-time employee at Kings Dominion from 1981 to 1999.