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Geauga Lake

Aurora, Ohio
Status: This is no longer open.

Description

Geauga Lake was a traditional amusement park that dates back to 1888. It has undergone numerous owners over its lifetime. During the late 1960s, the park was taken over by Funtime, Inc. In 1970, unused land owned by the park was leased to Sea World, creating the second Sea World park after the original San Diego park opened in the 1960s. The two parks were operated separately from each other under different ownership for four decades.

In 1996, Funtime sold Geauga Lake (along with Wyandot Lake in Columbus, OH and Darien Lake in New York) to Premier Parks. In 2000, after Premier Parks purchased the Six Flags chain of parks and renamed themselves "Six Flags", the park added four new coasters and renamed Geauga Lake to "Six Flags Ohio". One year later, they added the X-Flight flying coaster and purchased the adjoining Sea World Ohio park from Anheuser-Busch Theme Parks. They merged the two parks together as one and rebranded both as "Six Flags Worlds of Adventure". Unfortunately, merging the two parks together did not increase the attendance as Six Flags had hoped, and with huge cost overruns, had to sell the park to Cedar Fair in 2004. All of the animals from the former "Wildlife Side" of the park (the former Sea World) were moved or sold to other parks and zoos. The former Sea World site was basically razed and transformed into a new water park, Wildwater Kingdom in 2005.

Today, Geauga Lake has closed the ride side and will operate as a Water Park only in 2008.
-- Last edited by Bill Thelen

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