The Chris Voss Show - The Chris Voss Show Podcast – Freedomland U.S.A.: The Definitive History by Mike Virgintino

Episode Date: July 26, 2019

Freedomland U.S.A.: The Definitive History by Mike Virgintino

Hi folks, Chris Foss here from TheEchrisFossShow.com. Welcome to the podcast. We certainly appreciate you being with us today. Be sure to give us a like, hit that subscribe button to all the different iTunes, Google Play, Spotify, iHeartRadio, all those different places we have it, and be sure to refer to the show to your friends. We certainly appreciate that. Write us a few good reviews on there.

We certainly appreciate that as well. Today we have a very, very interesting person with some very, very interesting stories about the beginning of Disneyland, how things started out, the beginning of theme parks in America, and everything else. So Mike Virgentino is on the show today. He's a journals and marketing communications executive for corporations and nonprofits. He began his career in the newsrooms of new york city area radio stations he's also a historian and he has written a book called freedom land usa the definitive history it's published by theme park press and available on amazon ebay and other websites and he's going to tell the amazing story of how the creation of Freedomland USA, its origins, and where it went, and how it ended up is going to be pretty amazing.

In fact, you're going to be really surprised, especially if you like Disney's sort of background and stuff like that. And you love theme parks, but who doesn't? So we're going to bring him on the show and talk to him right now. All right. Well, hey, welcome to the show, Mike Virgentino. How are you doing, man? Thanks for coming on. Hi.

Hi, Chris. Thank you very much for having me. Yeah, this is a pretty interesting topic. You're going to be telling a story that I've never heard before. But first of all, give us a little bit more detail, information about yourself, what you did up to this point that kind of motivated you to write this story, et cetera, et cetera. Well, I'm a New Yorker by birth.

I was raised in the Bronx. And I started my career as a radio journalist. Went to college for journalism locally in the Bronx, and was a radio journalist at New York City radio stations as well as some suburban stations, and then gradually morphed into more the corporate world where I worked in marketing communications and public relations and worked with some big clients over the years, names that would be familiar to you, as well as on staff at some major corporations, again, Fortune 500 companies. And what I decided to do was go back to my roots, in a sense.

A lot of the things I had done in my work career, I always dovetailed to history. Clients have a history, the corporations I work for have a history, people have a history. But why I got so interested in all kinds of history goes right back to my upbringing in the Bronx, because I grew up immediately outside of a theme park called Freedom Land USA, and it was an American history theme park. And it never appeared before, and it likely never will be recreated again. And I decided about 10 years ago, as social media was really coming on board, I started a memory page on Facebook dedicated to Freedomland. And I figured there would be other baby boomers like myself who would remember the park and would join in.

And my memory page wasn't exactly, here's a picture, do you remember this attraction at the park? With my interest in history, I delved into who created the attraction, what were the pieces that went into it, who were some of the designers, what company manufactured it, how did people enjoy the attraction? And when the park closed, where, if anywhere, did that specific attraction go? So I was doing this, yeah, I was doing this for about eight years or so at the time, and in addition to Facebook, added Instagram, added Twitter, just to keep the memory of the park alive. And I was interviewed for a book that was being written by a journalist friend of mine. And he had an interesting take. He compared the similarities between Disneyland, Walt Disney World, the New York World's Fair,

and Freedomland. And he interviewed me for the Freedomland component of the book. And at that point, the publisher, which is Theme Park Press, said to him, do you have anyone to write a forward for the book or an introduction? And he immediately asked me. And I whipped it together. The author really enjoyed it. He said, you know, I got it right on target of what he was trying to express in the book.

And the publisher asked him, because the publisher loved it too, he said, how well does this guy know Freedomland? And he was told by my author friend, who was a journalist at the time, and he said, you know, he's like the historian, he's the guru. You think he's got a book in him? Well, of course, because my career background, journalist, public relations, marketing, sure, I can whip together a book, and pretty much I had started down that road with the Facebook page eight years earlier. Wow. So that's how the book came about,

and the funny thing is that once we put it to bed last November, all of a sudden I started finding out even more information about the park that Patton turned up during my initial research. And since the book came out at the end of January, I've been contacted by so many more people who said, I worked at the park, I've got a story for you, or you should know about this person. So right now I'm compiling park. I've got a story for you. Oh, wow. Or you should know about this person. So right now I'm compiling information. There will be a book, too, maybe a couple years down the road. But it's just been a fun adventure to relive, in a sense,

not only reliving a park that was in the Bronx in my neighborhood, but reliving my childhood. And there are probably a lot of people that you're in contact with and people that have memories of the park reliving their childhood. I mean, those are some of the moments at parks that you, you know, you remember for all your life, really. They're the kind of the top of your childhood fun. Yeah, that's correct.

Everyone says, wow, I had, you know, know i had uh i remember freedom land but i had really totally forgotten about it until i saw your facebook page or i heard about your book then all of a sudden all those memories rushed forward and it was mostly memories of kids and they could be anywhere from five years old. They could have been, you know, early teens. Kids who went to the park with their parents and they gave up those warm and fuzzy memories about childhood in the early 60s, you know, enjoying an entertainment venue, a theme park with mom and dad or aunt and uncle or cousins. And that comes through from a lot of people. A business colleague I know was walking through an airport about a month or so ago,

and he saw someone waiting at the gate reading my book. And he stopped in front of him. He says, I see you're reading the Freedomland book. And the fellow was about halfway through he says this is one of the best books i've read in a long time all my childhood memories are intertwined with that park and they're just all rushing forward so that's kind of the reaction i'm getting uh from everyone and the interesting thing about this story that i think most of our

listeners are going to really be interested in is how this ties into disney and its beginnings as well yes uh let's go into the the disneyland story a little bit we all know that uh walt disney uh and his brother roy who was the the business brains of the company, and Walt being the creative part of the business, had a very successful company that they had built up from the late 20s or early 30s. Well, Walt always had this idea of creating a theme park, a park that his daughters could enjoy, a park that any kids could enjoy with their parents.

Good, wholesome fun. So Roy had, I'm sorry, Walt had all this turning in his brain, and he and Roy go to a research company out there in California called the Stanford Research Institute. It was at that time affiliated with Stanford University. He said, I want to hire Stanford Research to help me put together the logistics, the concepts for this idea I have for a theme park well the team is assembled at Stanford research and put at the head of the team is a fellow by the name of Cornelius Vanderbilt Vanderbilt wood known as CV wood his close friends called him Woody now what he was in his early 30s at the time. He had previously worked

as an airplane manufacturer coming out of World War II, and so now he was working at Stanford Research and put in charge of the Disney concept for a theme park. They go through all the logistics, all the analytics of the day, even where the park is going to be situated, thinking how many people could walk through the park in a given day, what could the revenues be. The park's location, does the city have to build extra highways? Do we have to make sure there's an entrance and access ramps and exit ramps to the park? All this fed into the process to present to the Disney

Brothers. And to the extent that Woody even selected the land, which was an orange grove, that is now occupied by Disneyland. An orange city in California. Right. So all this concept is put together, and Roy and Walt decide to go forward and build the park. And they bring C.V. Wood on board as the general manager to take Walt's imagination and bring it to life. And technically, Woody becomes the first Disneyland employee. So they go through a number of highs and lows, as with the startup of any new creation.

Of course, Disney has backing him, all his Imagineers, all his good creative people to help bring this to life. Disney also has his national television show that he can promote and help generate interest in the park and also help generate financing for the park. So Woody is with the Disney brothers to build the park, and he stays with them until about a year after the park opened. The park opens in July 1955. Woody is there until almost mid-1956. But they had a love-hate relationship all along the way. At times Woody says,

Walt treats me like the son he never had. At other times, they're butting heads. And sometimes, in a good way, as all places of business, butt heads with the creative ideas and paths they want to follow. But the major difference is that Woody comes from Oklahoma and Texas. The Disney brothers come from the Midwest.

They come from Missouri. There's a slightly different dynamic there. New Yorkers would be very comfortable with Woody, who was a fast-talking, moving guy, let's get to the next subject at hand, let's just forge forward. Walt and Roy were laid back, as I said, they were Midwesterners, and they wanted to make sure everything was done exactly as they wanted it, didn't want to alienate anyone, didn't want to anger

anyone. So during this whole process, Woody is butting heads mostly with Walt Disney. Well, the story varies, and I don't think we'll ever get the true story. Walt finally had it with Woody, and he decides to fire him about a year after Disneyland opens. That's what some stories say. Other stories said Walt had Roy do the dirty work and fire Woody. Other stories say that Woody was getting wind of things were souring and decided to leave and start his own business. There are about 14 to 20 scenarios, another one being Walt kind of felt that Woody was

getting the idea of starting his own parks that would be in competition around the country with Disneyland, and he didn't like that also woody was getting a lot of publicity for his work and technically uh walt felt it was all my imagination woody just did the you know the the physical work the business so he didn or uh... that it was into the thought of woody may have been embezzling and i use that word in quotation marks uh... could it would he had one point had asked wall for a raise uh... as he was because he was doing magnificent working getting this park

built-in ready and walk in and walt said no we're all in this together no raises i'm not even because he was doing magnificent work in getting this park built and ready. And Walt said, no, we're all in this together. No raises. I'm not even taking a raise. So Woody came up with some plan that when he got companies to sponsor at Disneyland, there may have been a little kickback to him because he felt a little slighted he didn't get a raise. All of this is circumstantial. It's been floating out there for many years,

but we can't definitely prove most of it because once Woody left Disneyland and the Disney company, Woody was deep six at the company. You cannot find out anything about him. All the files have been buried somewhere in the company. For many years, especially when Walt and Roy were alive, they would not talk about Woody. They would not acknowledge him.

And only in recent years has the Disney company, because it's now under a different kind of ownership, have they acknowledged the work of C.V. Wood and acknowledging his proper staff, not only on Disneyland, but on the theme park industry. You know, I bet Donald Duck ate the paperwork. I bet that's what happened. He ate it.

He just ate it. It's very well-made. You know, it's somewhere if it still exists at all. Mickey ate it. Mickey and Donald Duck ate it. It sounds like something Goofy would do, actually. But, you know. That's probably right.

Hide the evidence i think ducks leach has been anything won't they i don't know all right so uh so i mean he he basically was the business brains the logistics laying down the layout choosing i mean he basically built disneyland walt went to you know and and this happens a lot of times with the creatives and business people you know business, they got to make the bottom line match, you know, creatives are running around going, let's spend $5 million to make something really cool. I don't know why I did that voice like Mickey. You did your Mickey voice there.

That was totally subconscious too, I didn't mean to do that, that's funny. Yeah, that's exactly right, because that's exactly how it happened. Walt would come up with all these ideas of, let's do this differently, let's work this in. And his brother Roy was saying, well, wait a minute, Walt, where are we getting the funding for that? We really don't have the money for that. Roy was the straight shooter of the business operation, and Walt was that creative out-of-the-box thinker. And Woody was in between them saying, well, I can do what Walt wants, and we can get the people, whether internally or we have to hire, or we have to

hire some vendors to do it. And Roy is saying, well, Woody, do you really have to do that? I don't know where the money is coming from. So he was kind of caught between the two brothers at that. This is pretty amazing. He was Disneyland's first employee, and that's pretty cool. Those of you who are listening right now, go to Amazon, eBay, or other websites. You can check out Freedomland USA, the definitive history published by Theme Park Press. This is pretty cool.

And so they had this falling out. So what happened to C.B. Wood then? Okay. Well, before we go to that, I want to mention another book to you. It's called Three Years in Wonderland by Todd James Pierce. mention another book to you um it's called three years in wonderland by todd james pierce and he goes into the complete story of cv wood and the disney brothers and that book only came out a

couple years ago and if anyone who's interested in the history of disneyland this is this is book of of pierce's is a must readread. But coming out of Disneyland, Woody sets up his own company called Marco Engineering. Now, Woody knows all the vendors. He knows all the companies that help make the attractions, all the companies that want to be sponsors. So he starts up his own company saying that, you know, I helped create Disneyland. I can create a park in your neck of the woods if that so interests you. Oh, yeah.

And that concept did interest a number of people for the following reason. Disneyland was in California. You have to remember, this is the late 1950s. How many families were going to be able to take their children, either from Chicago, New York, Dallas, and drive or fly all the way to California back in the late 1950s, early 1960s. Yes, Disneyland was going to draw people who came by car throughout California and maybe some of the neighboring states, but certainly my parents, with me growing up in the Bronx, were not taking a cross-country drive

and were not spending the money to get on an airplane to spend the week out in California at Disneyland. It was just unheard of. Back then, flight travel was pretty expensive, too. I always left the kids at home back then with, I don't know, the dogs. Right. I left them with the, I don't know, the dogs. Right. I left them with the butler. That's right. So investors and businessmen in various locations around the country

see this concept that Disney brought to life in California and said, why can't we have our own version of disneyland no it will not have mickey mouse donald duck and goofy but uh we can have our own theme parks based on the themes we want to create but use the same concept and have it in our city or in the suburb of a major city and draw people from this local area so and who better so who better than mr wood to take and do this uh so was this was disneyland the first real sort of theme park in america did he did he was that the first or was there anything before that that was the first no there, there was a Christmas theme park in the Midwest that had existed from the early 40s, if not earlier,

that really was considered a theme park. Disneyland and Walt Disney are considered the creators of the first modern theme park. Disneyland and Walt Disney are considered the creators of the first modern theme park. But technically, a theme park versus an amusement park, the amusements are things, attractions, and as we know them today, the coaster parks, that are not tied together with a thread of a common theme. So those are the amusement parks. The theme parks are the common themes, such as this Christmas park that was in the Midwest, such as Disneyland, which was based as a theme around the Disney characters and the Disney

motion pictures and TV show. So that's where you get a little difference between an amusement park versus a theme park. So they start coming to C.V. Wood. Can you build one in my area? And, of course, Woody, of course, knows how to do it. He knows a lot of the players to do it, especially the outside manufacturers. So he says, sure, why not? And his company, Marco Engineering, starts doing this. And in the process, pulls in with him a lot of people who worked on Disneyland, including a number of the Imagineers. And the first park he builds, or he creates, is Pleasure Island in Golden, Colorado.

And it had a partial Wild West theme triggering where it's located. The park starts building in 1957-58, opens in 1958, but is never fully completed and closes down in 1959. Now, this is not the fault of Woody, nor the failure of the other parks are the fault of Woody, because Woody and his team are coming in strictly to create a park and build a park but the management of each of the parks he he becomes involved in are handled by the local investors local companies local business people and if they don't run a park correctly, if they milk it dry, if they run it into the ground, well, a park isn't going to survive. Because what Woody does, he builds the park, gets it up and going. They cut the ribbon, have opening day.

He's now working on other projects. He may, in some of these parks, if not all of them, have a slight investment in the stock that's floated for each of these parks. He has investments, but he's not managing the day-to-day of the park once it opens. He's now moved on. That's a pretty good gig. You don't have to deal with the headache of running it. I should do that. I'm like, I'll help you start your business, and then I'm going to leave,

and then you can deal with the brain damage day-to-day. Then I'm going to leave, right? Right can deal with the brain damage day to day. Then I'm going to leave, right? Right. I just want to do the fun part. So the Golden Colorado Park is under the management of local business people there, and they can't make it survive. By that time, Woody has moved on to Wakefield, Massachusetts, which is a suburb of Boston, and he builds Pleasure Island up there.

And that park, again, has local owners, has local investors, and they make a go of it, but they've had several owners over their existence, and they last from 1959 to 1969. So they last an entire decade, but they had financial problems throughout. Boston. Yeah, that's the one that's just outside of Boston. So here, Woody created the one in Golden, Colorado. He creates the one in Boston.

And there's a common thread in here. There's a man by the name of William Zeckendorf. He is the real estate baron of the day. He had been working for a real estate company in new york since the nineteen early nineteen forties and then over the course of the years as the the two business partners uh... uh... became older uh...

they uh... they fell out the company to him, and he becomes this builder of hotels, strip malls, office buildings, and not only a developer and builder, but he takes on ownership of existing properties. So he's just all over the place in terms of all across the country owning real estate. And not only in the country, he even owns a considerable amount in Canada and other countries, other foreign countries. So he ends up owning this company he started working for called Web and Map. He was an investor in that Golden Colorado operation built by Woody. And if I called it, I don't remember when I introduced the Golden theme park.

If I called it Pleasure Island, I made a mistake. It was called Magic Mountain. Oh, there you go. But it was not the Magic Mountain we know today. It was the Magic Mountain in Golden, Colorado, 1958-1959. Pleasure Island was the one outside of Boston. Okay? Okay.

So now we're caught up. All right. I flip-flop the names. So did we just cross over then the origin of Magic Mountain? You said it changed, but that was kind of maybe the start of that? The Magic Mountain in Colorado has nothing to do other than having the same name as the one that exists. Oh, did they steal the name after they went out of business? The one in Colorado went out of business.

Yeah, but when they went and created the new Magic Mountain that's still alive today, did they just take that name and be like, hey, that's a great name, we should use it? It could be. Maybe the name was not trademarked or maybe the name was sold. I don't know the extent of why they selected that name. So, William Zeckendorf is an investor in Magic Mountain. He's also an investor in Pleasure Island. He says, Woody, come to New York.

I have this 400 acres in the Bronx, and we could put one of your parks for New York City right here in the Bronx. Oh, wow. New York City business people, but also a number of the business people who had invested and were managing Pleasure Island up in the Boston area. So coming down to the Bronx, we have 400 acres of vacant land. You're thinking now, 1960s, there were still parts of New York City that had not been built over. That's crazy to think of now when you see the skyline there. That's right. Now you're lucky if you find a little postage stamp green of a park somewhere throughout New York.

But the problem with this land, it was marshland. It was right on the water that would flow in from Long Island Sound into the Bronx area, and it had been marshland since the Native Americans inhabited the property 500, 600, 700 years ago. This is the same area, if you know the name from your history of Anne Hutchinson, she had escaped or had left Rhode Island in the 1500s because she wanted to practice the religion the way she wanted to. She and her family came down and settled in this same marshland area and co-inhabited with the Indians, but some problems arised,

and her little area was attacked by a tribe, and she and most of her family were wiped out. Oh, wow. Today we have in this same area, named after the Hutchinson River, and going along it, the Hutchinson River Parkway, for those who are familiar with that part of New York City. The land then becomes, during colonial times, and I'm talking in the 1700s, becomes a mill, because the millers are using the water to turn the millstones that comes in from the sound in the tides that come in and the tides that go back out. And this is an integral part of the story because the mill lasts after the Civil War to the late 1800s. The final abandoned building of the mill is destroyed by a storm in 1900.

And there's really nothing else you can do with this property. As you come out of World War II, there had been houses scattered about in the Bronx from the early 1900s, but as you come out of World War II, with all the veterans returning, tracts of land are being built up for housing, not just in the Bronx, but the other areas of the city that had not been built up at that time, such as Staten Island and Queens.

But you couldn't put anything on this 400 acres because it was marshland, with the water constantly rushing in and rushing out. So Zeckendorf comes into ownership of this land, and his philosophy was, I always rather own vacant land, no matter what kind of land it is, because what you can do with it, the opportunities are endless. I could always figure out something down the road. So Zeckendorf owns this property beginning in about 1951.

And again, they tried years before he owned it to put a small municipal airport there. Well, they tried several times. It failed for various reasons, including your building it on marshland, which is not a good place to land a plane, even a small plane at the time. And there were farms at that time still in the Bronx, down in that area, using to feed off of the water that was coming in. There was even a pickle factory, because you could grow, you know, with the water coming

in, the land was very fertile. So, Zeckendorf tells Woody, because he now knows Woody from Magic Mountain and Pleasure Island, he says, let's figure out a way to bring one of your parks to New York. So, Woody creates Freedomland, and they put Freedom Land on this vacant piece of property. And they had to do landfill. They had to bring up the grade of the property. What they end up doing, there's 400 acres. They use 85 acres for the attractions. Compare that to Disneyland, which is only 65 acres. So you can see the size. If you've been to Disneyland, you now see a park that's 20 acres larger than Disneyland.

And some of the rest of the acreage is used for maintenance buildings and for parking. So the park encompasses 205 of these acres out of the 400 that are on the property. So they have to build up the grade. I always thought it was funny. Here you are filling in some of the tributaries or so where the water would rush in and out. And another place you can get your digging back into creating and made waterways to use uh... to uh... have some of the park uh... aquatic uh... attractions function uh... and uh... so that they fill it up and they uh... uh... shape it

uh... at uh... in the shape of the continental united states because this park unlike from the other part of the other two parts would be built is going to be strictly american history and uh... they put shovels into the ground in august of nineteen fifty nine the park opens on father's day had to nineteen nineteen to unbelievable fanfare. They did so much publicity, so much marketing, so much advertising,

that on opening day, over 60,000 people showed up. That by 12 noon, disc jockeys on the local radio stations were telling people, do not go to Freedomland today. They're closing the gates because they can't accept any more people. Take another day to go. That's awesome. That's an incredible opening. It was a

huge success. And the reason why they had drummed up so much interest it again is because of all the advertising had done on television papers on radio they even created a jingle for the park and uh...

uh... recited for you uh... my singing voice is not the best but here it is mommy and daddy take my hand take me out to freedom or two ninety five is all you pay at Freedomland today. You'll see the Great Chicago Fire. Look out, the flames are getting higher. Battlefields and shady parks, you're right there on the spot. And in that jingle, they tell you a couple of the history attractions you're going to see. A recreation of the 1871 Great Fire in Chicago, as well as a battlefield.

The early 1960s was the time we were commemorating the centennial of the American Civil War. So they actually created a Civil War battlefield that you would be able to journey through. And I'll go into that description in a little while as we get into the attractions. So what you have is some of the key players, C.B. Wood building and creating, along with his Marco Engineering team, which includes some former Disney employees, William Zeckendorf, who owns the land. And what is interesting, when they do the groundbreaking in August 1959, the article appears the next day, and of course all the media is in the New York Times.

And the person who wrote the article for The Times is back then a cub reporter who later becomes a very famous author by the name of Gay Talese. That name may ring a bell with a lot of people of the books he has written. So what you did is you would now have a park with the opening day ribbon is cut by entertainer Pat Boone, his wife, and their four young girls. And the park has seven themed areas. You have one called Little Old New York, New York from the 1890s. You have Old Chicago from 1871, with the centerpiece being the Chicago Fire Recreation. You also have the Great Plains, where you have the fort from the west. area and in another area known as the old southwest you would have a lot of uh... uh... spontaneous shootouts occurring between

uh... billy the kid and and the marshall and and and many other uh... outlaws uh... you went to uh... from the great plains you went to san francisco it was san francisco of the early nineteen hundred because the centerpiece there was uh was the earthquake, the Great Earthquake, and they had a dock ride that commemorated the earthquake.

From San Francisco, you traveled to the old Southwest that I previously mentioned, and that had the Wild West Saloon and had various other attractions and again shootouts would occur spontaneously right outside the saloon as the crowd is gathering and then you would have from the old Southwest you would go into New Orleans Mardi Gras it was Mardi Gras all the time down there, and that's where you had the Civil War battlefield attraction located, along with other attractions. And then you moved from New Orleans, you moved to the only contemporary area of the park. It was called Satellite City.

And what they decided to do, it was very similar to what we know, what was in Disneyland of Tomorrowland. It really took advantage of what was in the news of the day, which was the space race with Russia. So you had that modern or contemporary section, and then you would go back into little old New York and you would exit and go to your cars. Some of the attractions you had in Little Old New York would be such things as antique cars.

We called them at the park the Horseless Carriage. They were early 1900 Cadillacs that you could actually drive yourself, unlike antique car rides you see today. This one did not have a guide rail, so you were within a roadbed that you couldn't get out of, but you had a little maneuverability recreated the old breweries of Manhattan and Brooklyn from the late 1800s, and this was sponsored by a popular New York City down by the Battery, the old part of New York City. So a lot of the streets were curved and winding. Macy's was a major sponsor, and they recreated their original first store in the park.

And they just didn't sell park souvenirs. They sold a number of items that you could buy at their main store in mid-Manhattan. You had, of course, the New York Harbor was recreated. They had recreated tugboats that were popular in the late 1800s in New York City that people could ride on, on a lake that was a man-made lake on the property. So that was a very popular attraction there, too, as well as all the shops. You had a glassblower shop. You had a shop that made posters and could put your face or your likeness on a poster.

You had street artists. You had a lot of the popular stores that were in New York at the time, a bakery. You had a very popular deli where you could get hot pastrami, you know, typical New York fare that you could get in little old New York. You then went into Chicago. You could either walk into Chicago or you could take the horse-drawn trolley that went from New York to Chicago and back again. But also in Chicago, you had the train that circled the park. And don't think of any train you see in an amusement park or theme park today. These were authentic steam engines from the late 1800s, early 1900s. And the coaches were all the size.

They were the original coaches that were used back then. Freedom Land spent a lot of money making sure things were authentic or as authentic as possible to give the flavor that you're enjoying and learning from American history. This is pretty amazing. about the engines they or in the entire trains uh they were leased every season and they were brought down from a a train attraction uh up in massachusetts and when they came and were put on the track they would have to be brought down uh each year sometimes by barges sometimes on flatbed trucks and then put onto the tracks and at the the end of the season, usually the beginning of October, they were brought back to Massachusetts. The engineers who were with these engines in Massachusetts could not drive them at Freedom Land. They could be in the cabin and could provide insight, mechanical information, know how to fix them, maintenance and all that, but they couldn't drive them because they were not members of the New York unions.

And unions played a big role at Freedomland in terms of jobs that you had there. So they had to use union members who knew how to drive trains to drive the Freedomland trains. And this is pretty amazing. This is pretty amazing. I'm looking at the photos actually right now on Google of the different maps and stuff, and they basically built the park to kind of look like a mini USA,

like the whole United States, this sort of layout of the United States was the layout of the park to kind of look like a mini USA, like the whole United States, this sort of layout of the United States was the layout of the park. Yeah, that's exactly correct. There is a photo I have found from 1959 where they've already filled in the land and now they're going to start the construction and you actually see the continental United States outlined in whatever, paint or chalk, from this aerial view right on the property. And they had a train that would go all the way around to all the different, like, main

segments of the United States that they put in there. Yeah, well, what you had was, the train had two stops. You could get on or get off at either Old Chicago or at the other end of the park, San Francisco. There was a third train station, which was really more there for cosmetic purposes. It was one room, and it looked more like a train switch house than it did a station. And the room inside was unfinished, and it was there as a prop because that's where the cowboy robbers would hang out. So as the train approached that area of the park, the robbers would come out of that little one-room station and board the train

so they could portray that they were robbing the passengers. And it looks like it had, oh, that's a SkyRide from somewhere else. It looks like it had one of those, oh, the water boats, the steamboats that they have in the south, I guess. The stern wheelers, yes. They were called Mississippi River boats guess. The stern wheelers, yes. They were called Mississippi River Boats. We had stern wheelers, and that was in the Chicago area, because what they did is they created their version of the Great Lakes.

It was from Chicago and to the top boundary of the park, which was considered the border with Canada. So they created the Great Lakes, and several attractions shared that same waterway. The Stern Wheelers, and there were two of them. One was called the American, one was called the Canadian. You had the New York Harbor tugboats. They shared the same waterway. They just came out of the New York Harbor tugboats, they shared the same waterway. They just came out of the New York dock. And then for a couple of seasons, you had Indian war canoes,

which were guided by a couple of Native Americans, and you could get maybe 15 to 19 guests of the park in there, and they could paddle their way around a man-made island and get some stories from actual Native Americans who were hired throughout the park to portray in the Indian village and other attractions that required Indians to be involved. They weren't necessarily character actors that were hired. They were actual Native Americans. Some from the Penobscot tribe came down every year from Maine,

and some with Brooklyn had a large Native American population, which a lot of people don't know about, because a lot of them put up the steel for the skyscrapers in Manhattan, and they ended up settling in Brooklyn. So a lot of them were employed by the park to fill these vaults. deal for the skyscrapers in Manhattan, and they ended up settling in Brooklyn. So a lot of them were employed by the park to fill these holes. Also in Chicago, as I had mentioned before, you had the recreation of the Chicago fire. Walking through Chicago would be Mrs. O'Leary and her cow. And I use the word Mrs. O'Leary, Mrs. very loosely,

because all the pictures I've seen from the park, there were two Mrs. O'Leary's, and they were both portrayed by men, and in all these pictures you could only see the 5 o'clock shadow. Maybe Mrs. O'Leary had a 5 o'clock shadow. Who knows? And maybe the reason was because the cow that they tugged along was a very large cow. Maybe they felt a man character actor could handle that cow and move that cow better than a woman. Maybe that's the reason Chicago burned. Mrs. O'Leary was just that ugly uh i'm seeing i'm and those of you those of you guys who are tuning in check out freedom land usa the definitive history published by theme park press it's available on amazon ebay

and other websites we're on with mike verino. He's the author of the book. I'm seeing Mike on the interwebs here. There was a UFO that was on the site? Like a built-up UFO? Yeah, that was in the Satellite City area. And we'll get to it as we go around the

park, and I'll explain what that was also. But running back to Chicago,ago mrs o'leary and the cow all of a sudden would disappear and about two minutes later the yell out of fire would occur and this building that was in the center of old chicago would catch on fire the flames if the if the wind was right that day that the flames could go 10 feet in the air. And the flames are coming out of the windows and coming out of the top of the building. And they would have the local fire department, which were actors, rushing with a genuine 1850 or so water pumper to come out there and pump water on the flames.

And they would get people from the park, the visitors to the park, to man the water pump. And every kid wanted to man that pump because it was just, you know, I'm fighting the Chicago fire. But if you were too short, you would shoot away like I was one time, because when the pump went up on one side, if your feet were going to leave the ground, that was dangerous. So they had to make sure your feet of all the kids stayed on the ground. So the fire would erupt at first every 15 minutes. Then they extended it over the years. So by the end of Freedomland, the fire was going maybe once every three hours. And the reason was the flames were fed by gas jets. So if you have the fire going off less often, you're saving money.

You're not spending so much money on the gas. The first season of Freedom Land, they spent $35,000 on the gas alone. For that attraction. That's a lot of gas. That is a lot of gas. Even for someone from the Bronx, that's a lot of gas.

So once you left Old Chicago and its various attractions, you moved into the Great Plains. This is where I said the fort was located. And you would have a shooting gallery in there for the guests. You would have other activities that would generate in a fort. They may have kids participating in soldier drills they would have uh... square dancing

uh... historic uh... attractions such as that and you will also have of course the shootouts the jail and you would have uh... all the sudden fights break out uh... fist fights as well as uh... gunfights between all the various character actors who portrayed good guys and bad guys. A lot of these actors were union members because they performed on Broadway.

They may have been in the ensemble and the various casts of Broadway shows, and they were doing this to supplement their incomes. And some of them were in named Broadway shows, including significant roles in those shows. But they did this as side jobs to work during those months. Also in The Great Plains, you had a barn and a farm with a petting zoo that was sponsored by Borden's. And it was known as

Elsie's Boudoir. Elsie the cow was at Freedomland. You would walk into the barn and you would walk into what seemed like Elsie's elaborate bedroom. It looked more like as if you had paid Elsie for her services. That's the way they set up the room, because you had red curtains, red lamps.

Elsie was supposedly relaxing in a brass bed. But really what it was, she was standing and the hay was brought up to like her hips. But it looked like she was reposing in the bed. And also her two calves would also be in there. And a lot of people, a lot of kids at the time have very fond memories of seeing Elsie the cow at Freedomland. Wow. Also in the Great Plains, you had stagecoach rides. And you would go through the Freedomland's recreation of the Lockies. And around the bend, you never know if you were going to be held up

by bushwhackers or desperados or even Native Americans. So you had to be careful when you were on those rides. An interesting story is that originally the stagecoaches, which were sponsored by American Express, had four horses, a team of four horses. But ten days into the first season of the park, the train whistle spooked a team of horses, and they got out of control, and one of the coaches tipped over,

and the ten people on board were injured, including several women and a young girl were injured very seriously, and they required to be sent to the hospital. So after that, they took the team down to two horses because they were easier to manage two horses versus four. And that's where we get the word teamsters from. They drove the team of horses, and the teamsters driving the stagecoach at Creamland were union members. So you would then go from there, you would go out to San Francisco of 1906. This included

the other train stop or the Santa Fe Railroad that ran through the park. You also had recreations of Fisherman's Wharf, the Barbary Coast, and San Francisco's Chinatown. Chongqing had a restaurant here at Freedom Land, one of the first restaurants they ever opened in the Chinatown section of the park. One of the main attractions was a dark ride called Earthquake, and it simulated the earthquake from the early 1900s. And it was one of the popular dark rides anywhere at the time in the country, and it was one of several that were created for Freedomland. Besides Earthquake, Freedomland had a buccaneer ride and a tornado ride in New Orleans, and we'll talk a little bit about that soon.

And it had in the old Southwest a mine cavern ride. We would go with the miners deep down, supposedly, into the earth to watch them dynamite, looking for iron ore and any of the other creatures that were inhabiting the underworld down there. And all of these were created by Arrow Development. Arrow was an up-and-coming company in the 1950s that Walt Disney hooked onto with the help of C.V. Wood, and they made a lot of the attractions at Disneyland. Well, Wood, when he started building his own park, knew the Arrow guys and started using them for his various parks. So they did the four dock rides at Freedomland, as well as a couple of other rides at the park.

One of them called Tilt the World, which very closely mimics the teacups at Disneyland. Oh, wow. You also had in San Francisco a water ride that went through the Lewis and Clark expedition. It was called the Northwest Fur Trapper ride. You got into bull boats, which were similar to the boats used by Lewis and Clark, and you went out into the wilderness to see Native American tribes. uh... native american uh... you know uh... tribes uh... you would see uh... settlers uh... you would see it

you would see skeleton uh... sound which was all the cowboys so uh... were actual skeletons uh... at the bar or uh... fishing and they even the horse that they had there was a skeleton and that this whichever company and i don't know which one it was that created the Skeleton Town, you would see it in other theme parks across the country at that time and into the 70s and 80s, including Cedar Point in Ohio had a very similar creation of Skeleton Town.

Oh, wow. So how long did Freedomland run for? Well, it lasted for five seasons. It opened in 1960, and it closed at the end of the season in 1964. So basically about five or six years, huh? Five years, five? Five years. Five seasons. Wow. And as we get into Satellite City,

I'll be telling you the story of what happened to Freedom Land by a close. You had also in the old Southwest, you had a sky ride. We called it the Tucson Mining Company or Bucket Ride. And it was created by a company from Europe called Von Roll. And they've created a lot of sky rides, trams around the world for more than 60, 70 years, including the Disneyland sky ride they created.

And you'll see them in a lot of parks here in the U.S. I think the San Diego Zoo has a Von Roll, as well as some of the great adventure parks. And what was interesting about the Freedomland Von Roll, it looked like it had four tables going back and forth to going in one direction to go in the other direction it actually was two cables that just went on a loop but when to the naked eye it looked like four cables and it was the first time four cables, in a sense, had been used in any park, at least in America. So Von Roll built it, but the actual ore buckets came from the 1958 Brussels World's Fair.

And they were purchased by the park and put there. As you move on to New Orleans, I mentioned earlier you had the Civil War attraction. They created a Civil War battlefield. You as a park guest would get into a wagon that was drawn by two horses or two mules. The wagon was a correspondence wagon that was flying a flag of truce, so you could go between the lines. And while you're going between the lines, the cannon is going off over you, the warring armies are firing over you, and you're actually hearing the booms. You're seeing the fire coming out of the muzzles, And you're seeing some of the figures actually moving. This was the beginning of audio animatronics that we know so well in Disney,

especially how they've done Pirates of the Caribbean and how everything moves in that attraction. Because Woody had worked at Disneyland,, Disney had been in the forefront of audio animatronics. Well, when Woody was building his parks, he was able to tap into that technology because he hired some of the Disney employees who had designed audio animatronics. A few years later, for those who were lucky enough to go to the New York World's Fair, and if you weren't, you may have heard this story, it was an attraction for the state of Illinois pavilion that featured a speech by Abraham Lincoln. And Lincoln actually stood up out of his chair.

And that was a wow moment in 1964. I remember seeing it as a kid and saying, wow, this robot is standing up. That was a Disney creation, and it was starting the advancement of audio animatronics. Oh, wow. So they had the Civil War ride because, as I had mentioned earlier, it was the centennial of the American Civil War. Oh, wow. would have had it just as an offshoot of little old New York, and they were going to have something about Bunker Hill. But because when they were cutting back expenses, they decided to keep the Civil War attraction because we were into the centennial commemoration.

Well, also in New Orleans, you had the Buccaneer ride, and very similar to Pir of the caribbean the story that i have heard is that a disney employee who's now working uh with marco engineering and woody had the plans or had worked on the original pirates of the caribbean concept for disney and had the ideas and the plans in his head and they they created, or had Arrow Development create this dark ride. Now, what's interesting is originally at Disneyland, Pirates of the Caribbean was going to be a walkthrough, sort of like a wax museum type of attraction. When Freedomland opens and creates this buccaneer ride, Walt Disney pulls

the concept for pirates. Freedomland has it on little cars that are on a track that goes through various rooms, and they had the pirates drinking, they had ships fighting. Primitive by today's standards, but it was very similar to what the early stages of Pirates of the Caribbean were. Well, once Freedomland closed, Walt Disney then went through with his pirate ride, and he decided what was originally a walk-through wax museum concept, he converted it to the boat ride we know today. Oh, wow.

Yeah. This part of the park also had an antique carousel. Anyone who knows their carousels knows that the Denzel family from Europe had come to America in the early part of the 1900s and had built many of the carousels that we see in Coney Island and elsewhere in the country. Well, Freedomland purchased a 1912 Denzel that was very unique. Most carousels are two to three rows and one platform. This carousel was four rows with two platforms. Two were on the lower platform, two rows were on the higher pigs, and other animals as well as horses. It was a very unique carousel, very historic.

I have never been able to find where Freedomland found it, but I know they purchased it back in 1959, 1960 for $3,500. Wow, that's how you go yeah that i i was an unbelievable price but again that was a lot of money for back that so you know it everything it seems to be relative uh... to the time and and place that you're at once you leave uh... new orleans you come into satellite city

the contemporary area and talk talk about that spaceship you see. That spaceship was sponsored by Braniff Airways. And you would go in and sit down, and the seats, actually, as the spaceship supposedly is taking off, the seats decompress to give you that feeling of lift into the air. And Braniff would show a film of all the places around the world that it traveled. And it would be like 360 degrees within the spaceship. But it was taken from the air. Branagh had gotten cameras hitched to a large plane, and you got the bird's-eye view of all the places in the world, as if you had lifted

off and you were now looking down onto the earth to all the places where Branagh traveled. Also used in this attraction, some indoor concerts and interviews with disc jockeys of the day. We know that Murray the K, who was a big, popular New York City disc jockey in the late 50s and 60s, hosted some performances in there of rock and roll talent of the day. We know Paul Anka was interviewed by one of the disc jockeys inside that spaceship. And what they did, in addition to the spaceship, they had a simulation of a blast-off bunker from Cape Canaveral. They had a lot of things involving NASA, so you could get the flavor of the space race. And by 1960, President Kennedy had made the declaration that we will get on the moon within a decade.

So they played off of this in this area of the park. In 1961, they were looking to get different people to the park. Yes, you got the families, you got the kids. You know, popular on television at the time were the Westerns and Daniel Boone. So you got all that history. But some of the older teenagers, as well as young adults, those in their mid-20s or so, once they went through the history portion, no, it didn't thrill them the second time around. So how do you attract other people to the park? So the second season, 1961, in this section of the park, Satellite City,

they put up a band shell called the Moon Bowl, appropriately named for the themed area of the park satellite city they put up a band shell called the moon bowl appropriately named for the themed area of the park and they uh put out the largest what they claimed was the world's largest outdoor dance floor and from that they started attracting all the big name talent i mentioned paul anchor already you had uh uh you had uh Frankie Valli and the Four Seasons. You had The Temptations. You had Little Stevie Wonder when he was 14 years old. You also had singers that would interest the older generation, let's say those who were 30 or 40.

You had Pat Boone. You had Jerry Vale. You had Pat Boone. You had Jerry Vale. You had Tony Bennett. You would do some of the swing bands. Harry James, Benny Goodman performed there. Count Basie, Duke Ellington. Singers included Stephen E. DeGorme,

Lena Horne, the Lennon sisters. And that was a way they could attract more people into the park in the succeeding seasons. They also had opened that same year in the San Francisco area an arena, and they called it the Hollywood Arena, where they could do live horsemanship shows, and they also would take a lot of the popular television kids shows that were seen in New York where kids could come in and see the hosts of these shows and The shows would be taped and they would air the following week on local television So that was some of the expansion of the park in succeeding years to get people

to return. Character actors, at least for the first three and a half seasons, were throughout the park. I mentioned the Cowboys to you before. You had pirates. You had pirates in the New Orleans section. You had in little old New York and old Chicago, turn of the century, turn of the 1900s.

Police officers kind of looked dressed like the Keystone Cops. You had old prospectors walking around in the old Southwest with their mules. Probably the most enjoyable and the most remembered character actor was the undertaker at Creole Plane. He was in the Wild West section, and he would take measurements when the gunfighters went down so he could get ready to dig the hole. He was dressed like an undertaker from the mid 1800s in his black suit, his black top hat. He would carry a shovel over his arm, and there would be a black bow tied to the shovel. And he would also give out his business card to all the kids he would want.

That's cute. His name was Digger O'Toole. Digger O'Toole. Digger O'Toole. And he really engaged a lot with the kids. And the stories, I remember him fondly. He would put on the mean face, but get some kids coming up to him and he would just melt. And the kids loved him.

And I have heard in writing the book from several of the character actors, that it was all an act. He was as wonderful offstage, so to speak, as he was in his character when he was portraying the Undertaker. He also came from Broadway. He was in several shows on Broadway, and he loved his role at Freedomland because he had said in an interview, I don't have lines to memorize, I don't have tape marking where I have to stand, I can improvise everything. And he was there for the entire run of the park.

That's awesome. So everyone, we're about an hour and 15 minutes in the show. If you haven't gotten a chance yet, check out Freedomland USA, the definitive history, public by Theme Park Press. It's available on Amazon, eBay, and other websites. We're talking with Mike Virgentino. So, Mike, let's wrap this up. Give us an idea of how this all turned out in the end,

and then they can catch most of these details in your book and check it out sure um well it didn't end well for freedom land as we said earlier it closed after the 1964 season only found out years later many years later uh that freedom land was not planned planned to last a very long time. Oh, wow. A lot of people today in New York say that the New York World's Fair was the final nail in the coffin for Freedomland and forced it to close. But I have, in my research, I found out to just be an urban myth. Because when Freedomland filed for bankruptcy in September

of 1964, their public announcement cited the New York World's Fair. They said, we cannot compete with the New York World's Fair. That was the public statement to cover their backsides. Because if you think of it, Freedom Land had existed for five seasons now. The New York World's Fair opened in 1964 and was going to close in September or October 1965. So the fair would have been gone after two years. Yeah. What I found out was an interview with the landowner, William Zeckendorf, about eight years after Freedomland closed. A person was asking him about his company. His company eventually went bankrupt at the same time Freedomland was declaring bankruptcy, but for different reasons.

And they asked him about Freedomland. And he said, oh, Freedomland was a whim that we got into for the land. Of course you know it was a placeholder for the land. And that got me thinking and doing the research. And the bottom line was there was plans to build the housing development that is currently on the property as early as the mid to late 1950s. But the politicians of New York City wanted it. The unions, the construction unions wanted it. Again, that union involvement with Freedomland.

The city planners wanted it because they knew that certain parts of the city were going to collapse as we went into the 1960s. And whether you're from New York City or not, you know the stories of in the 70s or the late 60s, 70s, when the South Bronx caught on fire and people were moving out of the city or trying to move out of the city. Well, the South Bronx, for an example, had been from the late 1800s, had been the melting pot. You had Jews, Italians, Irish, Germans. Well, that was starting to change after World War II. You had more African Americans moving into the South Bronx. You had more Puerto Ricans coming into the South Bronx. A lot of them moving up from Upper Manhattan.

Well, the people who were living there were longtime families, but when the guys came back from World War II and the Korean War, they didn't want to live in the same six-story walk-ups. These buildings didn't have elevators. They were built so long ago. They wanted their little Patrick Greens, so they were moving out to Queens, to Staten Island, or to the suburbs so they could have the house with the little white picket fence. The city planners, the politicians, had to figure out, how are we going to keep these people in the city?

So they started planning for massive apartment complexes. And the people who could not afford to leave the city to buy a house could be able to buy a cooperative apartment at maybe $1,000 a room for a two-bedroom apartment. But they could not build these 25- and 30-story buildings, and they did it in several places of the city, but they could not do it in the North Bronx because this was marshland. The Army Corps of Engineers would not permit them to build these massive structures on marshland because of the shifting tide. So they said to the landowner, William Zeckendorf, to the city planners, the politicians, we've got to do a 20-year study.

We drive pilings into the ground and check them every year or every two years to see if the tides are shifting these pilings. We're driving maybe 8, 10 feet into the ground. Well, city, the city planners, the politicians, even William Zeckendorf, the unions, they couldn't wait because they knew what was happening in the South Bronx and other parts of the city. They had to get these things built so people could move there, so they could keep many of the residents within the city limits. They were worried about the tax base fleeing the city. And the politicians and everyone else involved said, we can't wait. Someone twisted the arm of the Army Corps of Engineers.

Of course, they came back with a second plan, Plan B. We will give you variances to build these 25-, 30-story apartment buildings on the property if you put buildings on the property that are two to three stories tall, last for five years without foundation cracks, without wall cracks, buildings don't collapse. If after five years these buildings last intact, you'll get the variance to start building these apartment buildings. Well, along comes the idea for Freedomland. William Zeckendorf says, put it on my property. Freedomland lasts exactly five years the building of the mapping park as you know what that means treated disneyland but two to three stories tall

none of the building's had issues they purposely mismanaged freedom land that will uh... uh... cd what has uh. Wood in 1960 had moved on to other projects, so he was not involved in the management. There were really, we found out later, two sets of books showing the good attendance

and the made-up poor attendance, the good revenue and the made-up poor revenues, that they had to file for bankruptcy. And when they were in bankruptcy court, since they already had gotten there five years and knew they had the variances to build these buildings, in the bankruptcy court they were asked, well, what are your plans for the property? We're going to sell our assets, consolidate our liabilities,

and here are the plans for Co-op City, which houses approximately 15,000 apartments, 25,000 people. It's the largest cooperative housing project in the world. Wow. And that's what's sitting on that property, along with a shopping center where Freedomland once lived. Wow. And so it's probably more profitable in the long term to do that, maybe. I don't know. Well, it could have been, but they couldn't get the variances

until they convinced the Army Corps of Engineers to this plan B. What is interesting is that William Zeckendorf loved Freedomland. He was trying to figure out a way to make it exist in a consolidated park. Originally, the attractions were 85 acres. He was planning to consolidate it to 30 acres. But while at the time Freedomland was going toward bankruptcy, his own company was going toward bankruptcy, and he could not do this. There was a plan to move it to Florida brick by brick,

to move the entire park down to Dunedin, Florida, outside of Tampa. But as that idea exploded and the people down there started looking into it, they got wind that Walt Disney was looking in Florida for property that eventually would become Walt Disney World. Oh, wow. So the Freedom Land plan to pick it up and move it got nixed. Wow. It would have been interesting if they would have gotten down there first

because that's such a hub down there in Orlando now. That's right. But the local investors down in Florida were not going to battle with the Disney brothers. Awesome sauce. They couldn't battle with the Disney brothers. Awesome sauce. They couldn't battle with them. Yeah. So they just nixed the idea. So Freedomland sold off a lot of its attractions.

Some of them, I don't know where they went. Some of them went to other parks. The Earthquake Ride and the Buccaneer Ride spent another 25 years or so at the park in Cedar Point. They then got mothballed and pulled out, I'm going to say, in the late 1980s. Some attractions went up to a park in Lake George, New York. They have since been removed because, again, you're talking about attractions that were made in the early 60s. As parks morph into thrill rides, coasters, they pull out these other rides that were more popular in the 50s and 60s. Wow.

So very few remnants of Freedomland still exist around the country. That's interesting. And it sounds like it started between what C.B. Wood did at Disneyland. It started a whole, it seems like it started a whole sort of crush of other amusement parks around Six Flags, I guess, Storytown, Cedar Point, Pleasure Island. It started this whole sort of role of these parks around the nation. And one of Woody's part still exists six waves over texas in arlington was opened

the year after freedom land open and why does it exist the of the local investor and businessman uh... down in arlington what shop people people uh... put sharp people in control, and that park has been running for 60 years now,

and it's been a success. So it showed you that it was not Woody's concepts that failed. It was who are the local investors? Who are running the park? Because Woody was just coming in, designing and creating the parks, and then moving on. A couple other things that your listeners might know, they might have heard of the community of Lake Havasu in Arizona. That community had brought over the original London Bridge, had taken it down piece by piece and put it in Arizona. The man who did that was C. Wood.

Oh, wow. He's a real unknown, and he's contributed to so much stuff. He also was involved in the design of the Riverwalk down in San Antonio. So Wood had the talent, Wood had the expertise, Wood had good people working with him throughout the years. And writing this book, doing the Freedomland Facebook page is just getting his recognition that he belongs in America's theme park timeline. He was a significant contributor. And the industry, even though the Disney company doesn't recognize him, the industry does.

He's in the Industry Hall of Fame as an innovator and a creator. And he was acknowledged, unfortunately, after he had passed away. He was acknowledged in the 1990s, but he is there in their Hall of Fame now. So also with my book and the book I mentioned earlier in this talk, Three Years and One the Land, Woody is getting his recognition. That's awesome. That's awesome. And my audience, you can check it out. You can go to Amazon, eBay, or other websites.

Search for Freedomland USA, the definitive history. It's published by Theme Park Press. Are there some other websites you want to plug, Mike, before we go? Well, I would just say if you're on Facebook, the Facebook page is known as Freedomland USA, the world's largest entertainment center. just say if you're on facebook uh... the facebook pages known as freedom land u s a uh... the world's largest entertainment center we have over ten thousand people following us so common join the party if you never saw the park

it's part of the park history you will enjoy what we put there uh... and also you can find uh... the same things on twitter and instagram if you use that social media uh... other than that there's not much out there in in terms of uh... freedom land because it was so long ago if you're not a baby boomer you wouldn't remember it but it is not i've noticed that at uh... some of the public presentations are

that by uh... schedule a number of young people come because they're into theme park history. And for some reason, Freedomland has touched them and they want to learn more about it. So that's a good thing. That's awesome.

Well, thanks, Mike, for being on the show. We certainly appreciate it. And yeah, this has been really cool. And I'm sure your book goes into an incredible amount of detail on these things and brings back a lot of wonderful childhood memories for folks. Yes, it does. We have interviews with about 18 park employees.

We have memories from about 20 baby boomers who were kids and enjoyed the park. A lot of background stories, and a lot of people have told me as they're reading the book, about every page they turn, they go, wow, I didn't know that. I really delved into the nooks and crannies to find out information about Freedomland that wasn't publicly known. So it's an enjoyable read. Be sure to get the books, guys. Freedomland USA, The Definitive History, published by Theme Park Press,

available on Amazon, eBay, and other websites. thanks for being on the show mike we certainly appreciate it well thank you chris i've enjoyed it