New Opryland Pics Operation and Demolition

I just found a new site that has a section on the operation and demolition of Opryland USA.

You can see it here!

Opryland USA has been closed six years as of January 31st, 2003.

So many memories :(

An amusement park being replaced by a mall? How disgusting, the NERVE!@# *spits, shakes head and walks away grunting

Nice pics. You don't think that guy holds any ill will toward the Mills Corp. and Gaylord, do you? :)

I have to admit, they are the Wal Mart of the mall business. The interior of that mall looks exactly like the interior of Grapevine Mills in the Dallas area.

Nice pictures there. Brought back some memories.

Ashame... no pictures of Rock & Rollercoaster. :(. I'd like to have seen that ride before it went up at Great Escape as Canyon Blaster.

Wow that is really depressing....nice pics.

Yeah sad. I hope that site will post pics of the Carousel on the Lake featuring the rolling gondolas on the undulating track. It was really an amazing work of art in action!

Great site, it really did bring back alot of memories. Its quite interesting that this page came up, see im going to Opry Mills in 2 days. I was hoping to run by and see what is left of the park (Grizzly River Rampage). Does anyone know where the the best raft ride ever created is now (as to the location of the mall)? Also is there a path or somethin that will take me next to it so i can take some pictures. Any information will be great, as long as other things to see around opry mills.

Ive never saw it (since I live 3 hrs. from Nashville)-but apparently you just follow the path from the hotel to the mall and you can't miss them

If you look at the map and photos on that website, you'll easily figure out where the GRR is in relation to the mall.

I'm curious why there's one building left in the dirt, just in front of/below the GRR, at the very top of this picture
http://www.houstonthrills.com/brachphotography/series/defunct/opryland/oprydemo/oprydemo12.html
You can also see it towards the bottom of this one
http://www.houstonthrills.com/brachphotography/series/defunct/opryland/oprydemo/oprydemo17.html
Looking at the map, the only thing there is the chicken plantation??
http://www.houstonthrills.com/brachphotography/series/defunct/opryland/oprypast/oprypast38.html

Also what the heck is this?
http://www.houstonthrills.com/brachphotography/parks/01opryland/01opryland04.html
Is it the above building?

I only went once in the last few years so I don't remember their newer additions.

I believe that is the old Southern Living "Dream House" That used to be located at the front of the park.

Perhaps Opryland had some sort of contract with them and they could not just demolish it, so they moved it back there.

I was there yesterday. And its still amazing that the only thing left is the grizzly river rampage. Everything in the pics on that web site, is still what it looks like today. I would think that they would have demolished it and either used/sold the land for some actual use. The entire ride is fenced off with no treespassing signs.

Me and my girlfriend just walked around and, even though she never went to Opryland USA i told her many stories of the once was theme park from my childhood.

As for the building that is being discussed i dont know exactly what it used to be. But out in fron there is a sign that says "Gaylord University" (which made me think why does Gaylord use its name instead of the popular opryland name?). I looked inside and there were chairs and stuff. So if anyone knows more about the gaylord university, please tell

Hmmm...interesting raptor. The only thing about that house that confuses me is, he says thats where Chaos used to be, but really it isnt if you look at where chaos is on the map. Chaos was southwest of that house. But then again that map probably isnt drawn to scale, so maybe that is where chaos used to be.

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coaster-freak said:
I was there yesterday. And its still amazing that the only thing left is the grizzly river rampage. Everything in the pics on that web site, is still what it looks like today. I would think that they would have demolished it and either used/sold the land for some actual use. The entire ride is fenced off with no treespassing signs.

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It's kind of odd the way they ended up working out the land. Opry Mills is actually in the Opryland Parking Lott, and Opry Mills Parking is where Opryland use to be.

Evan stranger, on the original Opry Mills plans, parts of the park were supposed to be left intact minus the rides.

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coaster-freak said:

As for the building that is being discussed i dont know exactly what it used to be. But out in fron there is a sign that says "Gaylord University" (which made me think why does Gaylord use its name instead of the popular opryland name?). I looked inside and there were chairs and stuff. So if anyone knows more about the gaylord university, please tell

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That might be where they teach new employees or something. I'm almost sure it is the old Southern Living Dreamhouse, but as to why it's there I'm not sure.

Gaylord is trying to rid themselfs of the Opryland name. The new Florida hotel their building is not called Opryland Hotel but Gaylord Palms instead, and then of course they changed the original Opryland Hotel's name to "Gaylord Opryland Hotel". Then they sold their share in Opry Mills, and sold TNN to Viacom and changed it to SpikeTV.

Anyway, screw Gaylord Entertainment and all the crap they've pulled off in and around Nashville.

*** Edited 2/16/2004 5:48:46 AM UTC by Dukeis#1***

I never even heard of the Southern Living Dreamhouse. Was it what it sounds like? Sounds like another time they wasted money.
So are you saying that building that's at the back of the park in the demolition pics, was at the front when the park was open? Where up front? By the Gaslight Theater maybe? Looks like there's a lot of open space around it. Seems that would be only place that had that much space.
So is the building really now located where Chaos was? If so, they had to move it around at least twice, since in the other pics, it's not at Chaos's site.

stljason1, as I was just saying, in the demolition pics, where that building is is not where Chaos was. Chaos's location is fairly accurate on the map, but was actually a little more northeast (towards the northeast bend of GRR's track). Not sure if the pathway to Chaos was like that. I remember waiting in a line that came out Chaos's building and watching the GRR's rafts go by near that area.

My brother worked at Opryland's front gates and says there's a plaza booth or building, that was behind the cashier ticket booths, that is still there today.

Also (I've mentioned in the past) :) if you take some time and look at various pictures, you can see the mall actually extends quite a bit into where the park was, even about as far as where Hangman/Tin Lizzies were. The aerial photos that were on mapquest before they made it to pay only (I think were from '97) were helpful. If you draw a horizontal line from the Opry House across the park, the mall goes past this line. You can notice it when your at the mall too.

^One of the various corperate "partnership" deals they made, the Southern Living people built a model home for the "ideal southern family" at the front of the park. It was located originally behind the National Life/Gaylord Hospitality Center next to the Roy Acuff Museum. They charged you $5 to walk through it. I believe it only lasted one or two seasons-probably '94 or '95.

Anyway, TerraServerUSA has some really good satelite pictures of Opryland from March, 1997, just before the park opened for it's final season. You can see the Skycoaster in it's Lakeside re-location in that one. (One of the many "WTFs" they pulled over the years)

Chaos was right next to the convention wing of the hotel, as is shown here and here. So, like said above, the website is a little off on the actual ride location.

Alex's Place had two or three great ariel pictures of the park that would map out Chaos's location, but it, along with all of the Opryland stuff on it, has vanished.

A few of Opryland's old picnic shelters are also still there, and I think the hotel uses them occasionally.

Many (all?) of Alex's Place's pics ended up on the thrillhunter.com website mentioned in another thread (the others seem to be from from coastertown.com, and postcards), but it doesn't have the aerial view. I always thought those would be good pics to put on an Opryland website.

I always thought it was cool how you can easily see the white structure that held Wabash's corkscrew in the terraserver photo. You couldn't see that in mapquest's photo, so maybe the coasters were already gone. But the neat thing about the pics from mapquest is they were in color. The photos they used were Globe Xplorer's, but if you go to globexplorer.com now, the pics have been updated and are from 2000. However you can see there that the SL House is right where Chaos was. So the caption on the demolition pages was correct. The other photos showing the house below/left of GRR were obviously just a temporary location (as I said above about it being moved more than once).

I'm curious why you didn't like Skycoaster's second location?

It was right in the middle of everything. It really ruined the atmosphere of that area, and the large arch just didn't fit in with the trees and stuff.

Though you could say that area was gone when Old Mill Scream replaced the Eagle Lake Rafts. (Not that OMS was a bad idea. It was one of the few times Opryland was with the industry :))

I've always though the Skycoaster was moved to make room for future expansion, maybe a new ride or area for 1998. But, they decided to close the park instead.

Didn't Roy Acuff have a house on the property where he lived in his latter years? Just a wild guess but maybe that's a pic of his house.

If they were planning a new ride/area back there, it's best we never knew about it, else we'd be even more angry.

You know I'm not sure if I ever even rode the OMS. I never saw the thrill in it and thought it was a big waste of money. Apparantly many others didnt think the same way since I worked next to it occasionally and watched person after person stand on the bridge and get sprayed. Heck, I enjoyed the rafts. :)

If I remember, Roy Acuff's house was to the right of the Acuff Museum, which were just NNW of the Opryhouse.