My father took my mom and her friends to a special, summertime event there in the late 50's or early 60's, to see Dick Clark, who was travelling that year with the American Idol of the day, one Edd "Kookie" Byrnes from a television show called "77 Sunset Strip." I can only imagine a parking lot full of DeSotos, Chevies and Studebakers packed onto that parking lot as throngs of beehived teen girls in bling-encrusted, horn-rimmed glasses gleefully descend upon that storied park during its hayday. It's just as much an echo as any 1980s trip I can remember. Long live Lesordsville!~

You'll need to imagine a powder blue convertible Bel Air in that crowd. My dad was there with his date and future wife.

It's funny that Midwestern lives often revolve around a man made phenomena, amusement parks, unlike the lives on the coast, that revolve around beaches. I love the ocean, don't get me wrong, but the love of amusement parks and growing up with them is something I love about Ohio.

NBC's Revolution filmed a few episodes at the former Hard Rock Park. Pretty weird looking, but I don't know if NBC did that, or if it already looked that bad.

I saw those episodes and wondered what park it was filmed at. I thought HRP was probably it. I thought it interesting because they were on their way to Philadelphia, and at the time of those episodes they would have been in Indiana or western Ohio (since it was before they got to Columbus). The only big parks I can think of in IN and Western OH would be HW and KI, and considering HW doesn't have a big steel coaster like was featured in the episode... hmm, which park would that represent in the story then?

Well, it appears that my estimate of what park that might represent was a little off. I was on NBC's website and they have an interactive map where you can trace the characters' progress across the Monroe Republic (http://www.nbc.com/revolution/exclusives/interactive-map/). So I was clicking around to find the amusement park episode, and it was set in Lowell, Indiana, in the NW portion of the state. No park there... And yes, I know it's fictional, but it's nice to try to draw parallels with real life.

truth be told I wouldn't be suprised to one day see Camden Park in Huntington WV on the list of creepy abonded parks...

Here's a list of ten abandoned parks that is quite interesting. Some are well known, but others I had never heard of before.

http://www.facts.fm/amusementparks/