The Wild West-themed amusement park in Maggie Valley features rides and entertainment and is located on top of a mountain.
It came back to life briefly for the filming of the blockbuster movie The Hunger Games in 2011, serving as Katniss home of District 12. The Henry River mill village has been abandoned since the 1970s. Presley hopes to open Ghost Town for the July 4th weekend. Great news A ghost town near Asheville is coming back to life. Literally hundreds of towns not only died, they vanished. A few were farming communities that flourished for a time and mysteriously fell silent. Most were mining towns, where men lusted after the earth’s riches gold, silver, turquoise, copper, lead and coal. The work will continue on the pipes next week. But in the late 1800s, each had a moment of glory that blazed and died like a sudden flame. Coburn, who was originally from Virginia, but later moved to Maggie Valley NC. “Well the contract to put the water in is overdue, they hit rocks, solid rocks, and you can’t blast up here so we had to let them dig until they run around it,” Presley said. Ghost Town Maggie Valley (officially named Ghost Town in the Sky) was a very popular Western-themed mountaintop amusement park, located in Maggie Valley NC.
She said much of the money went to put in pipes to get water up to the park.Ĭrews reportedly had to stop their work when they hit rock in the mountain. Presley said she’s spent more than a half million dollars in the last year. Owner Alaska Presley said crews have run into a big issue installing a water line, which is causing the delayed opening.Īlong with problems installing new water lines, WLOS reported that an evacuation road partially washed out. WLOS-TV reported that the park had been planned for reopen on Friday, but park officials are now hoping for the 4th of July weekend. A landmark North Carolina amusement park is getting ready to reopen. Ashley, is located approximately 2 miles northwest of Lansing. Maggie Valley is a beautiful spot in the North Carolina mountains near the Blue Ridge Parkway. Please look at the time stamp on the story to see when it was last updated. Ghost Town in the Sky, aka Ghost Town Village, is a long-shuttered Wild West-themed amusement park that sits atop a mountain in Maggie Valley.
There was a company store, a blacksmith’s shop, a church, a school, a hotel, and numerous houses. Below is the Digital Heritage Moment as broadcast on the radio:Īs undeveloped land shrank in the East, the desire to preserve a wilderness experience intensified. Collection of Arnold and Tommy Sue Walker, Walnut Bottoms, NC. For a number of reasons, the park closed in 2009 and has not re-opened since. The park was a huge attraction during the 60s, 70s, and 80s with families visiting the area. Ghost Towns: A Digital Heritage Moment from Digital Heritage Org on Vimeo. Ghost Town in the Sky is currently a closed and historic Old-West themed amusement park, located in Maggie Valley NC. So when traveling in western North Carolina, keep your eyes open for ghost towns. Many logging towns, like Sunburst in Haywood County, followed that pattern when the timber boom burst after World War I. Other towns vanished when their economic reason for being disappeared. The region’s largest lake, Fontana, created in 1944 in Graham and Swain Counties, submerged several small communities, including Japan and Judson. Lake Glenville drowned the town of Glenville in Jackson County in 1941. Built before the founding of the United States. Some vanished when rivers were dammed, creating lakes for the generation of electricity. If youve ever walked along Carolina Beach, youve been within a few miles of one of North Carolinas oldest ghost towns.
They disappeared for a number of reasons. Western North Carolina has a number of its own lost towns. Ruins of Proctor, NC, Creative Image on Flickr by Scott Stewart