By Jacob Passy
"USA250: The Story of the World's Greatest Economy" is a yearlong WSJ series examining America's first 250 years. Read more about it from Editor in Chief Emma Tucker.
Walter and Cordelia Knott had a problem on their hands: Their fried-chicken restaurant was a massive success. Hungry diners would flock from around Southern California for a taste of their chicken dinners and boysenberry pies. Lines would stretch for blocks, drawing the ire of would-be customers.
Walter decided they needed to build attractions to occupy patrons' time while they waited. First came the rock garden. Then the displays of fluorescent minerals and antique music boxes. Next was the re-creation of a volcano.
By 1940, some two years after the restaurant first opened, the Knotts began work on the biggest addition to their entertainment complex yet: a re-creation of an abandoned pioneer town, inspired by the history of the Old West and Walter's own grandparents, who moved to California from Texas in a covered wagon in the late 1860s.
Ghost Town, as the attraction came to be known, ultimately formed the basis for Knott's Berry Farm, one of the oldest theme parks in the U.S.
Since they were introduced in the 19th century, America's amusement parks have acted as time capsules for the young country's cultural history. Many attractions at the parks are rooted in past eras, serving as reminders of past fashions and technologies. Some parks have morphed into historical landmarks in their own right, with multiple generations of families sharing in the experience.
"We're in the nostalgia business and have been since day one," says Ken Parks, corporate vice president of planning and design at Six Flags Entertainment, the parent company of dozens of theme parks across the country, including Knott's Berry Farm and Cedar Point in Ohio.
An amusing history
Like many aspects of American culture, today's theme parks have their roots across the pond. Europe was home to the first amusement parks, including famed locations such as Bakken, which opened in Denmark in 1583, and Prater Park in Austria, which made its debut in 1766. These parks themselves evolved from the public pleasure gardens and picnic grounds that were commonplace across Europe, as well as world's fairs that were known for their eye-catching architecture and cutting-edge technology.
With the advent of the electric streetcar, many trolley companies built parks as destinations for their new modes of transport. At first, these trolley parks were simply gardens and picnicking grounds, but in time other attractions and rides like roller coasters and Ferris wheels were added.
In their heyday in the early 1900s, there were thousands of these parks across the U.S., with major cities sometimes having several venues. Among the earliest of these was Lake Compounce in Bristol, Conn., which opened in 1846 and is the country's oldest continuously operating amusement park. Other early parks, including Coney Island in New York and Kennywood near Pittsburgh, have also remained open to this day.
"At the turn of the 20th century, rides were almost an afterthought at amusement parks," says Jim Futrell, historian at the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions, an industry trade organization. "If you look at some of the writings of how to operate a successful amusement park, they looked at things like the live entertainment and dancing, whereas rides were lumped in with other concessions."
Decades later, a new type of attraction, theme parks, exploded across the country. Like older amusement parks, these new destinations had rides and attractions, but were designed around a central theme, like Knott's Berry Farm or Santa Claus Land.
Theme parks flourished in the wake of World War II, driven by the country's economic prosperity and resulting baby boom. America's growing families needed more child-friendly entertainment.
Among these parks was one that would redefine the industry: Disney's first park, Disneyland. Walt Disney's father had worked on the 1893 Chicago World's Fair, and as a boy, Disney grew up going to Electric Park, an amusement park near his childhood home.
The new park pioneered technologies such as audio-animatronics and innovative roller-coaster rides, as well as theming: Visitors were meant to be transported to different places and live out the stories they knew from movies and television. (In time, theme-park attractions would themselves inspire popular movies like "Pirates of the Caribbean.")
Common frontiers
Walt Disney also had a fascination with U.S. history, and wanted the public to be able to experience that history much like they would a ride or attraction based on one of his own movies, says Leslie Iwerks, a filmmaker whose latest documentary, "Disneyland Handcrafted," tracks the creation of the park. (Iwerks's grandfather Ub co-created Mickey Mouse.)
"Whether it was steam trains, riverboats or Victorian towns, he wanted to keep these things alive in the consciousness of guests," Iwerks says.
Frontierland owes much to the Ghost Town created by Disney's contemporary and friend, Walter Knott, down to the rides at each park inspired by mine trains. The same is true for many other Western-themed throwback attractions that dot the theme-park map.
At Dollywood in Tennessee and its sister park, Silver Dollar City in Missouri, areas are dedicated to historic re-creations of America, such as Craftsman's Valley, featuring a model of a one-room schoolhouse and booths where people demonstrate trades like blacksmithing.
"USA250: The Story of the World's Greatest Economy" is a yearlong WSJ series examining America's first 250 years. Read more about it from Editor in Chief Emma Tucker.
In creating these attractions, rather than being spot-on re-creations of the past, parks tend to rely on people's preconceived notions regarding periods in American history, or what cultural anthropologist and theme-park researcher Scott A. Lukas calls culture sampling.
"You want to take a reference to history or to time, but you don't want to make it too specific," he says. Theme parks aren't meant to be museums, so historical attractions are designed to evoke emotions and a sense of nostalgia associated with the past.
Cultural battlefield
Theme-park operators face constant pressure to push the envelope with new and exciting attractions. Roller coasters must be taller, faster and more mind-boggling. New technologies, such as augmented-reality goggles, are used to bring videogames to life. Special effects need to be more jaw-dropping than ever before to justify the millions of dollars it takes to construct these experiences.
Nowadays, soon after a contemporary Hollywood blockbuster is released, people start speculating about when it might be immortalized as a theme-park ride. "They serve as one of the media platforms through which these companies distribute their franchises," says Florian Freitag, a professor of American studies at the University of Duisburg-Essen in Germany whose research has focused on theme parks.
Theme parks have also gone under the cultural microscope as sensitivities have changed. Six Flags has removed references to the Confederacy in recent decades, including the Confederate Battle Flag that used to fly at some of its parks' entrances. (The company's name is a reference to the six countries that have governed Texas, where the first park was located, including the Confederate States of America.)
Disney's Splash Mountain -- which was inspired by "Song of the South," a movie that many now consider problematic -- was replaced at Disneyland and Walt Disney World with a ride based on "The Princess and the Frog," the first Disney movie to feature a Black princess. Other Disney attractions, including Pirates of the Caribbean, the Jungle Cruise and Peter Pan's Flight, have been changed in recent years to remove controversial elements.
The strong sense of nostalgia many hold for the theme parks of their youth can produce blowback as parks expand and evolve. Fans will distribute petitions to prevent a beloved attraction from closing, and sit vigil when it does. To bid adieu to a Muppet-themed section of Disney's Hollywood Studios parks in Florida, some Kermit and Gonzo superfans organized a prom-inspired soiree at one of the area's restaurants.
Such passion reflects how theme parks have gone from referencing the past to becoming living landmarks in their own right. As other cultural touchstones like shopping malls and drive-in movie theaters have fallen by the wayside, theme parks have remained crucial places for shared experiences, says Sam Gennawey, an author who has written books on theme parks and their history.
"Every grandparent wants to take their grandchild to the park to see their eyes light up just like they remember their kids did before their kids got older and cynical," Gennawey says.
Jacob Passy is a Wall Street Journal reporter in New York. Email him at jacob.passy@wsj.com.
(END) Dow Jones Newswires
January 23, 2026 12:38 ET (17:38 GMT)
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