In a large box of slides, I found this group of photos from a defunct amusement park in Ocala, Florida - Six Gun Territory! There isn't a lot of information about this park on Wikipedia. The short version says Six Gun Territory was a Western-themed theme park in Ocala, Florida, United States. It opened on February 2, 1963 and closed on January 1, 1984. The rest of the article is about the Southern Railway & Six Gun, a narrow gauge heritage railroad that doesn't even appear in any of my slides (sadly).
The first three scans show a typical amusement park shootout. People love to watch men gunning each other down! It looks like that man up on the balcony might be narrating the events. Clearly that little girl with the turquoise cowboy hat is one of the desperados, ready for a fight!
What? It's over? I expected more protracted agony, maybe some screaming. I admit to feeling a little disappointed. Where's Sam Peckinpauh when you need him? By the way, these slides are undated, and I guesstimated that they are from the 1970s, but perhaps they are from the 1980s?
Hmmm, perhaps this one should have been posted before that last one, since the puff of smoke from a six-shooter is still hanging in the air. Or was the boy with the green shirt smoking a cigar? The kid with the yellow shirt was biting his nails in suspense! The lifeless body of the bad man will soon be buried in Boot Hill.
Next, a mother and son pose with a static "photo op" display, a wagon pulled by two glassy-eyed longhorn cattle. The livestock is not attached the wagon in any way, instead they pull the wagon using psychokinesis. Just like in the Old West.
I was very happy that this photo of the modest Merry-Go-Round was in the bunch, since it helped me to ID the location. I wonder if it was the boy's birthday? He's now wearing a magnificent feathered Indian headdress.
Going around and around in circles never gets old! Especially when you are riding your genuine Honda motorcycle.
Or how about a dune buggy with four steering wheels? The fire engine looks pretty good too, maybe mom will let us ride twice.
And finally, Six Gun Territory had Native Americans performing tribal dances, beneath a roofed pavilion due (presumably) to frequent rain showers.
I hope you have enjoyed your visit to Six Gun Territory!
14 comments:
Major-
I'm fascinated by all the natural gas 'street lights' seen in the 1st three images. (I wonder if Amanda Blake was scooping-up cones in Miss. Kitty's Ice Cream Parlor-??)
I think that pair of longhorn cattle have been staring into the eyes of Dr. Diablo for an extended length of time and are now thoroughly under his spell.
Thanks, Major.
There's a lot of short shorts in these pics! And a lot of stripey socks! '70s? '80s? I don't know either. Kind of a neat western town they built.
♫ "You got yer dead...guy...in the middle of the road. Stinkin' to hi-i-i-igh heaven!" ♫♩
In the second and third pics we can see that wagon with the brown tarp. I betcha some guy got hisself shot up there on that there balcony and took a tumble onto that cushy tarp.
Psychokinetic longhorns were very much in demand in the great Western Migration. Seems strange you don't read about it much these days. One of those facts that got lost to history. Why did they feel the need to make the nostrils and mouths of the cattle bright red? Maybe that was a characteristic of psychokinetic longhorns?
That "magnificent feathered Indian headdress" the boy is wearing is made from gen-u-ine turkey feathers plucked from gen-u-ine red and blue turkeys! I notice all the horses are white with black manes. I guess that does make for a unified look.
I'm wondering what that fenced off area is behind our Honda rider. It's got a big rocky-looking spiral tower with steps on it. I don't think this was a spiral slide; maybe a regular slide that we can't see from this angle?
Somehow, the roofed pavilion and wooden bleachers make the dance circle look contrived and not authentic at all. Disney did it right!
Fun pictures of a long-gone park. A very 'Anything Goes' Saturday. Thanks, Major.
I get a strong Knott's Berry Farm vibe from the first three pics. I think the body lying in the street is also present in that first photo. We can just see a smidgen of it on the far right.
The livestock is not attached the wagon in any way, instead they pull the wagon using psychokinesis.
The one on the left is named "Carrie" and the one on the right is "Whitey." Their mother had told them that if they took that job, "They're all gonna laugh at you!"
I have a pinback button from this park, which a friend brought me back from a trip to Florida (and WDW) in 1978 or '79. I can't remember if he described this place to me or not. I think he was more eager to tell me all about WDW. What a shame that smaller parks like this (and Marco Polo Park and Circus World) couldn't compete with Disney.
Thanks, Major!
I remember seeing signs and pamphlets for this place but had completely forgotten about it. It has a “Knott’s Berry Farm meets St. Augustine and Cedar Point’s Kiddieland” sort of vibe to it. I realize that’s oddly specific, but I work hard all day farming cubes and don’t get out much. Please pray for me.
By the third photo, a plaid-shirted kid has wandered into the foreground wearing a really nice cowboy hat. I mean really nice. I’ll bet that cost a pretty penny. I could never have afforded something like that; all of my pennies are worn and oxidized.
I have fond memories of riding identical rides at Cedar Point’s Kiddieland in the early ‘70s. The vehicles are all equipped with horns that make a very specific, buzzer-like sound when pressed. I can hear it in my head even now, mostly drowning out the voices urging me to spray paint my neighbor’s cat.
Thanks, Major, for this excursion into the romantic past of Ocala, the Horse Capital of the World!
The ride with the Honda motorcycle was probably manufactured by San Antonio Roller Works. These “umbrella” rides were commonly manufactured by Hampton Amusements, but other companies made similar ones. I think they even had the same buzzers Chuck mentions, which I’m sure ride operators heard in their sleep.
In the background is a W.F. Mangels pony cart ride and a Herschell Little Dipper coaster. Interestingly, the online Roller Coaster Database omits this ride.
I have no idea who made the ride with the mini dune buggy, but it was probably of European make. I wish I could ID that badge on the front.
Shootouts in the street used to be so rare that they were staged for entertainment. Now you just go to Chicago or some other major city.
Major, I’m thinking these are right on the cusp of late 70’s - early 80’s. The yellow shirt looks 70s, but the ladies hair seems 80’s. I don’t know.
Little known fact, after taming those longhorns, you could select their destination by twisting their horns, thus giving rise to the term “steering”.
Which leads me to the dune buggies with four steering wheels. Each steering wheel was attached to one of the drive wheels so if at least one driver got it right, the vehicle divided by four and then didn’t wreck.
Andrew! Good to hear from you. Hope all is well!
Thank you Major!
JG
Your Disneylands and your Universalses are great and all, but these smaller local parks have a really special place in my heart. Sad to see so many of them struggle and close over the years. I have two friends from two completely different friend groups, who both played the sheriff in the Wild West show at Fantasy Island in Buffalo, NY at different times, years apart. (Another local park that closed for decades, briefly reopened under a different name, and then closed again.)
Those longhorns look like they came straight out of the "ghost herd in the sky!"
I'm with JG on the hair and fashion - very transitional between the late 70's/early 80s. The merry-go-round boy is adorable; look at him, pretending he's Dennis Hopper! And the Native dancers' costumes are gorgeous. This is a great Saturday day trip!
Nanook, it IS a bit weird that they would use the name “Miss Kitty” for the ice cream parlor. If “Gunsmoke” was done airing, maybe nobody cared? I’m unfamiliar with Dr. Diablo, but he sounds like a nice fellow.
JB, how many people would get the “dead skunk” reference today? Only those of us who lived through the 70s! I’m sure you’re right about that tarp, what happened to the days when stuntmen would fall onto cinder blocks like real men? I also thought the bright red of the cattle’s nostrils and mouths was very weird, sort of sinister, as if they were vampire cattle. The headdress was not made from ordinary turkey feathers, at Six Gun Territory, they only used endangered North American Spotted Owl. Nothing but the best! No idea about the spiral tower. I’ve noticed that most western parks were not very convincing, but they achieved the minimum effect, enough so that visitors knew what was supposed to be going on.
TokyoMagic!, I was going to ask if Knott’s ever did gunfights, and then remembered that OF COURSE they did the train robbery/gunfight in Calico Square. With the dead guys carted off in a wheel barrow. “Whitey”? I don’t trust him! Cool that you have a pinback button from Six Gun Territory, that’s a nice souvenir that your friend brought you.
Chuck, one of the things that seems so odd in these photos is the very green woods around it. Not “old west” at all! Of course Knott’s had its share of eucalyptus trees, but somehow it worked. Maybe I’m just being hypocritical! Nope, that’s not it, I am just and true. That kid’s nice cowboy hat looks too big for his noggin, maybe he’ll grow into it. Better than outgrowing an expensive hat in two years. Hey, you spray paint your neighbor’s cat too??
Andrew, there you are! Thank you for the info about the Honda ride. I feel sorry for any employee who has to hear any noise over and over, and that includes the folks at stores who have to hear “Jingle Bell Rock” for the ten-thousandth time in December. I assume they just tune it out. It’s so cool that you can ID these rides just by looking! Funny that the Dune Buggy ride might have been made in Europe, I think of dune buggies as being an American phenomenon. Maybe I’m wrong!
JG, I actually wonder, if you watch westerns it seems like there were shootouts every day in the old days. Were they common? Or is that entirely a movie/TV trope? The more I look at these photos, the more I’m thinking they are from the 1980s, but it is hard to be sure. That dune buggy ride sounds as “fun” as the Millennium Falcon ride at Disneyland (in other words, not that fun).
Melissa, you are right, those small parks were vital for kids who weren’t lucky enough to live near one of the biggies, or who didn’t have parents who would take them to Disneyland or Disney World once a year. I certainly enjoyed some of the smaller parks I got to go to as a kid. It really is a shame that so many of them struggle, or have closed over the decades. Maybe you and JG are right, these are from the late 70s or early 80s. Ugly fashions, if you ask me!
These pics evoke memories of Wild West City in NJ, surprisingly still operating.They didn't have those car rides, though. I did see them at a travelling carnival this year. Same steering wheels at all seats, same fiberglass bodies with the metallic flake colors.
Those ride cars are pretty elaborate...those were not cheap to produce, and the Honda's look pretty authentic. I always wondered about these "round and round" rides...and what psychological attraction to just "moving" under something else's power other than your own is all about. I will say that when I'm on my tractor, I have the same type of "feeling"...it's very calming...and perhaps it's not so much the movement, it's the movement from not being contained...like enclosed....but I'll say when I had my convertible I did not have the same sense of calm: it was more the road dirt and rocks being thrust onto me from the 405, or the 101.....and exhaust...like being on Autopia when someone breaks down...back to Florida...and how Florida it is...that sandy soil and the trees are very Floridian...Florida has it's merits...and it's downfalls: I suppose like any state. When I was younger it was kind of fun to hang out in Ft. Lauderdale like "Where the boys are"....and recently when I was working down there, I avoided that area like the plague....although I do enjoy a drive by the sea early in the morning when no ones up yet. The retro looking "curvy wall" is very old school Florida...and the drive over to "The Floridian" Restaurant...there isn't much "old" in Florida, but what they do have is kind of cool....I've never spent time in Ocala, but I like that it IS the horse capital of the world...and there's an interesting history. They also have 5 Walmarts, and Ocala is home of the neighborhood "Jumbolair"...."An aviation community" where an actor has his jets and family. What do they call "Plane Guys?"....I know there's motor heads, but is it "Jet Head?".....well: we all have our obsessions, and when they meet cash: well: suddenly there's a runway in your backyard. Silver Springs seems to the be home of some familiar movie locations...what was Rebel Without a Cause doing there? Would have to look it up. Tarzan makes sense however. OK...rabbit hole done...thanks Major!
Major-
"I’m unfamiliar with Dr. Diablo, but he sounds like a nice fellow."
I haven't the vaguest idea if he is a nice fella or no, [it's doubtful] although you can kinda judge for yourself, with a quick glance HERE, at around the 2:08 mark. It's from the 1993 film Matinee, directed by Joe Dante - starring John Goodman, Cathy Moriarty, Simon Fenton, Omri Katz, and Robert Picardo.
The film is a big fav for a number of reasons including this "trailer, within-the-film" for Mant!, that we only see in bits and pieces as the raison d'être for the climactic scenes of the film itself. Not only a wonderful guilty pleasure, but a well-crafted [and acted] homage to B-movies, William Castle, the 1962 Cuban Missile Crisis and a period for film exhibition that is sorely-missed and not-likely capable of ever being repeated - regrettably.
^ One of my favorites, too!
@ Bu-
"Silver Springs seems to be the home of some familiar movie locations...what was Rebel Without a Cause doing there?"
In three words: It was lost-! In spite of what Silver Springs State Park's own web site says along with IMDb's often, un-vetted "factoids", any scene(s) that might have been shot there for Rebel... clearly never made it to the official release.
I was going to ask if Knott’s ever did gunfights, and then remembered that OF COURSE they did the train robbery/gunfight in Calico Square. With the dead guys carted off in a wheel barrow.
Major, not only did they do the gunfight in Calico Square, but they use to do them in the middle of Main St. and Market St. And then the Wagon Camp (with the covered wagons in a circle) used to have the Wild West Stunt Show, which featured some stunt fighting, some of which used guns. I have been informed by a friend that Knott's has stopped all gunfight shows. I get the reason why, but it's really too bad that as a society, we have become so crummy that we can't even have fake gunfights in a show. Again, I get it. It's just all TOO real now. Sad!
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