Ghost Town in the Sky

Hi, I'm Holly and I'm Haley. Welcome to Mountain Mysteries Tales from Appalachia. All right, welcome back. Hi.

I have heard that rumor has it that we have figured out the whole What do you do? There's a light bulb. Just to worry. It's just random.

Randomly there's a loose light. It'll help us think. It'll turn on when our brains are functioning. Our cord there was going to knock it off and I could figure out the heck it was.

It's okay. You know we're not classy here. So I was saying we have figured out the whole debate. Remember in last episode we talked about would Haley have anybody part showing if she were seven inches under the ground.

So we figured it out and yes she would have boobs showing. Tautas would be out. Tautas would be out potentially other things. Maybe like the tip of your nose like it's just it's not so.

I don't like a toast would be too. Yeah, I wear a size nine size 10 shoe so I bet my toes would stick out. That's true. I bet so.

So yeah, now we know toes, tote, tote, out maybe nose maybe other features out. So no that is not sufficient enough to bury someone. No, so I'm just going to do it. And do know I did not find this out by trying to bury her.

No, we did get a measuring tape out and then I subsequently forgot said measuring tape. So we did some mathematical propagation. Like we were able to figure this out. Do you want to know how?

Sure. I'll tell you really fast. Okay, if on average a bra size from you know so your strap actually starts on your side and then goes wraps around your back. So if you know your front is half of that.

So if you're 36 inches you know and then half of that. It's like okay so that would be 18. 18. Ish?

Okay, what's half of 36? 18. But here's the thing that also doesn't make sense because if from your side to your back is 36 that wouldn't be half. It would have to be even less than half because you're counting your two sides.

Make up the 36. I don't think it's more than I do too. I do too. Sorry you all.

It's more than seven. Now it's hard. I'm sure. Yeah, that's probably not something we learned in school of like if you're measuring your boobs.

I don't think you learned in school if you were buried seven inches deep. Would your nips be hanging out? I don't think that's what they covered unless it's like a course we were teaching. Right.

Or maybe that's something at the body farm. Oh maybe. Yeah. Well email them and ask us this day.

What are we learning about this week? Is this about talk time? It's sure is it? Okay.

We are going to talk about a location this week because I really like location stories. So we're going to talk about ghost town in the sky. I have been there many times. I don't think I've ever been.

What? Well it closed in 2002. No it closed officially and oh seven or eight. Yeah but like the whole like all the rides and stuff and all that shut down in 2002.

No I went as a kid all the time. Yeah it was fun. You took a chairlift. My mom my mom almost fell off the chairlift.

Oh gosh. And I was holding on to her and she was like let me go. Because the man was trying to pull her to keep her from falling down the mountain. Yeah.

It was scary. That's awful. Yeah. So I went down by myself.

Oh gosh. So tell me about ghost town in the sky. Yeah so we are going to Maggie Valley in North Carolina which is near Wayne's. Yes it is west of Asheville.

West of your Wayne'sville area. Really beautiful. Yes it is really really pretty. So ghost town in the sky Maggie Valley North Carolina opened in 1961 and partially closed like we talked about in 2002.

So ghost town in the sky was famous for its Wild West theme. It had some live action shows and it sat on top of Buck Mountain which is a 4,600 foot elevation. Colleagues of mine we were just talking about this on Friday and I told them that one of the things I enjoyed they had this little saloon. It was like a saloon you know.

Yeah. And they had can-can girls who were live in a provocative way or anything like that. But you know to mimic the old west and I told my colleague I said I just always wanted to be one of those can-can girls. And she said well you know your your life is young.

Why don't you know towards the end of your career think about it. Yeah. So nothing is sexier than an 85 year old can-can girl. I'm here for it.

It's gonna be amazing. I like it. Yeah. So the name of ghost town in the sky actually changed to ghost town village in 2012.

So there's been some like kind of trying to reopen and redo and rebrand and re everything but it's not been super successful and we'll kind of talk about why. But 4,600 foot elevation that's pretty- look pretty up there. Pretty high goes down in the sky. Yeah that's for sure.

You can see for miles. It is very pretty too. It is. The whole area is just really pretty.

The most popular section was the Old West town with the saloons and the can-can dancers. And the whole gunfight they would do with a man up on the roof. It was cool. We're talking about that too because there's a whole kind of sinister side to that.

Oh yeah. It's gonna be fun. There was a jail and businesses quote unquote along Main Street and that was the site of hourly gunfights. I love the gunfights.

I love the gunfight. Rides included. Let's see. There was the red devil cliff hanger roller coaster.

Tilt-a-whirl. Gold rusher which I don't really know what that was. Sounds like a water ride maybe? No they didn't really have water rides.

I don't know what the gold rusher was. Sea dragon. Oh yeah that one will make you know what's up. Monster?

Yeah that was like the you know the ones that tilt a world. Oh yeah yeah. Mining town swing. I love that.

I like the big swings. It's the swings that go up really high and it makes you feel like you're going over the mountain. So slightly scary first but that was actually my favorite ride. Cool.

I'm a weirdo. The black widow scrambler. Another one of those nauseous ones. I can't do this.

Bumper cars. Love it. Dream catcher parrotrooper. I don't know.

There's a casino ride, a roundup ride, the little devil roller coaster. Yeah I read that with my brother. A merry-go-round and the silver bullet flume. No idea what that is.

I don't know that. I just thought they were kind of fun names. It really is. It's kind of true the vibe.

It was diverse in that you know they had some for like younger children like three four five and then they had it for older kids. Yeah it was pretty cool to bring a fam. I had similar coasters. It's pretty cool.

Yeah. So this unique theme park was created by R.B. Coburn and it was built for around a million dollars opening in May of 1961 which a million dollars in 1961 is a ton of money. A lot of money.

And just thinking how hard that would be to get all this equipment up that mountain. To do this. Yeah. So when it opened in May of 1961 it was huge success.

People loved it. At its peak there were more than 500,000 people visiting every season. While new rides were added through the 1990s, older rides you know kind of like they do as things get older they started breaking down. Yeah.

So there's a lot of you know rides out of order having to be redone. After visitors got stuck on the chairlift in 2002, Coburn decided to close the park and put it up for sale. Nothing is worse than being on the chairlift and being stuck on like somewhere in the middle of the mountain just dangling there. Like where do you go at that point?

You don't sit there. Because even if they brought like a fire truck or something up the mountain. And that would really be very difficult because there were only two options right to get up. You could either do the chairlift or you could do this little trolley train they had that went up the mountain.

That was kind of it. I mean I don't even remember and maybe they do but it's been a long time. If they had some kind of side thing to get cars up there. I do know that everybody parked at the bottom and chairlifted or little trolleyed it up.

That's crazy. Like that was the only those are the options. So I don't know what they would do. I don't know either.

That just sounds like though you know like well there's a fire or something up there and you have to get everybody down or like some type of emergency. Sure. Like there's a heart attack. Yeah like you can just say well he's close to death.

Let's put him over here on the chairlift. Strapping in. Strapping. No you're not strapped in on a chairlift.

No you just sit there and there's a bar right? There's a bar and that's it separating you from death. It's so scary. And like even in you know nowadays chairlifts aren't much better than that.

Like they're still just that. If you go skiing that's what it is. Because you have to get off quickly on and off fast. Because it doesn't stop.

It doesn't stop. No it doesn't stop for you. No you're they say good luck. Now I need to investigate how they got those folks off.

Right. So Ghost Town was sold and it reopened in May of 2007 after millions of dollars were spent on renovations. However this was during a pretty curly rough time for our economy here in the States. And there were things like high gas prices, inflation.

No one had jobs. There were no jobs available. We're kind of going through the same thing right now in our country except we do have jobs available. People just don't want to work.

They just don't pay anything. That's the problem. So you know I went to Ghost Town when they reopened in 2007 and it kind of was like a ghost town. Yeah.

There weren't a lot of people who were there. It wasn't busy like it used to be in the 90s and 80s. And it's just a whole different feel. Yeah.

Yeah. Part close again after the 2009 season. And this was actually due to a massive mud slide. Oh god.

In February 2010 and there were some more financial issues. So the season ended in 2009, February 2010. This massive mud slide hit and then there were some more financial issues with that. So we will talk about the mud slide now.

February 2010. And this thing apparently was like massive which is not uncommon for that area. Like we have rock slides in this area all the time. Like you're constantly getting alerts and I was like you know whatever interstate from the section of this section closed, rock slide.

And it takes them you know sometimes it's real quick. They can get it cleared and sometimes it's months of being rerouted to clear the side of the mountain that fell off. You pretty much. So you can get a car through there.

Actually the route I take to work they've had to put out like concrete barriers because the rocks fall off the mountain. So that kind of like bounced into the road. You know. I was just driving along.

You'll get by the side of the mountain. You're driving along and it'll just be like big boulders on the side of the road that have just fallen from the top of the mountain. You know in 1997 you wouldn't know this because you were crying in your diaper. There was a major rock slide on I-40 West and traffic was rerouted for I believe a year.

It was bad. It was like a whole side of the mountain onto the road. It was very very bad. Anyway that's not never here nor there.

But go ahead. Yes there was massive mud slide on that mountain after retaining walls on the property failed. So it sounds like they kind of cut into the mountain to make this place because you can't just I mean there's no flat spot on you have to go away to yeah keep put something that large up there. I'm shocked that they got away with this worth the you know a million dollars.

Like even in the 60s I would think this would cause more with all they would have to do the excavating and the flattening and all those you know major things you have to do. Yeah yeah but yeah so they had these retaining walls apparently they failed massive mud slide. There were no injuries thankfully. 40 homes had to be evacuated though and several were damaged.

So it sounds like it came all the way down the mountain to the you know. Ghost town you know sustains some damages but there's not really a lot out there about you know exactly how much damage. Maybe they didn't want to put that you know. Right yeah.

They were hoping to be open or something. Yeah after this incident of the local news announced that the park would reopen on Memorial Day weekend of 2010 but that you know did not happen. A month later a judge ruled to proceed with foreclosure and sell the property at auction. So well it's a sad bad time so they just couldn't you know couldn't recover.

Yeah all right ghost town then was sold in February 2012 at public auction to Alaska Presley who was a local business woman and longtime supporter of the park and she purchased the park for $1.5 million. Wow okay so think about it it was built in 1961 for a million dollars and then in 2012 sold for $1.5 million. Yeah that's sad. So it's like what all has happened up there.

Seems like a lot. Yeah for it to be you know not have gained that much in value. No no no. So new regulations though that obviously weren't around in the 60s required her to spend millions of dollars on labor costs and time lost due to state inspections.

So there were lots she was still having like obviously pay people over there even while they were going through state inspections and things like that to you know try to get their money. I am in the wrong field. I'm clearly the same. Public education.

Maybe if I am I'm well off I can create Hollywood not the one in California but like Dollywood but here and you know then I would be kind and give money back to others and and create a reading program for children. Nice. Dolly Parton does that. I know I thought that'd be great.

But I'm sure she wouldn't mind you you know piggybacking on her idea. I'm sure she's very sweet. She's very kind. We haven't talked in a while but Dolly if you're listening.

Hit us up. Okay so there were some other issues obviously that came about when trying to renovate this mountainside. So apparently the water was never shut off after the park closed. Okay they went through a mountain slide a mudslide which was like a mountain slide and they never shut off the damn water.

No so in 2010 so I think this is two years. So in 2010 it was four closed and you know they were like all right you gotta get out of here because it's in foreclosure. It wasn't sold until 2012 so for two years they hadn't shut off the main water. So if you know anything about if you live in any type of region where things freeze.

Oh my god. So even here I mean we're technically in the south but in the mountains it gets real real cold. Okay so there are times where we'll be on a freeze warning which means you need to go drip your faucets. So we have to go through the house and you have to or shut your water off completely which nobody wants to do because you want to be able to use your water.

But if your water is just stagnant and your pipes it'll freeze and cause your price of burst. Look at Texas it happens. And then you're talking a huge expense. Huge problem.

So here we have to drip our faucets. If you don't have like it's not insulated like inside your house you're probably going to be fine but like if you have a water running in your basement or garage that we have to drip the water in our garage every winter when it gets really cold. So our pipes don't freeze and burst because that's a nightmare. And ruin your floors and your whole house.

Yeah and like insulation falling from the ceiling. Exactly. Terrible. So insurance covers that.

Yeah. So that's kind of what was going on. Those old pipes were subject to the freeze and thaw cycles which just if it doesn't burst them it causes a lot of deterioration for the pipes so it's much more likely you're going to have a lot of leaks. Wells for private water so their drinking water was condemned because they were too close to potentially unacceptable objects which I don't really know what that would be but sounds like they didn't have the proper like zoning.

Well unacceptable objects almost sounds like more than your bathrooms. That's kind of what I'm thinking. I know when you're when you go through like a new build on a house or something you have to like have it like your water source has to be a certain amount away from like your septic and other things. Yes I do not like to.

You don't want those mix in. I don't want to drink poop. No thanks for the offer. You don't want those mix in.

So they ended up having to drill four new wells and they all failed except for one and they just didn't have enough output of water in the wells. Which I mean think about you're on a mountain so how far down are you having to drill to hit water pretty far. Yeah so that's crazy. How much are you paying for this?

Oh my gosh I can't imagine. So then they decided well we can't do the wells so we're going to try to hook up to city water which is a nightmare because you're going to have to go in and replace all of those pipes that have either burst or are so badly damaged that they're going to so a second you try to run water back through those things are going to explode. So that mean they would have to dig everything out and put a new pipe and put a new piping which it sounds like they did or started to do. If they have to run that down the mountain to connect to the city water at like street level.

Yeah that's a lot. I thought oh my gosh. All right in 2013 so it's not like they were still kind of running some parts of this amusement park that they could get away with. In 2013 the park was fined for $2,000 by the labor department after an actor was injured by shrapnel from a shotgun blast in the gunfight.

The staged gunfight investigators discovered the actors were actually using real 45 caliber revolvers and a real shotgun loaded with blanks instead of prop guns capable of only firing blanks. So instead of using those prop guns that they're supposed to use on like sets like movie sets and whatever they're just using real guns with blanks loaded because those prop guns won't you can't even put a real bullet in them. It just makes the noise and it looks real. Right you can't even load a bullet into the real if Haley and I were on some like some western set and she's like don't worry Holly I'll just go and get my 45.

It's just fire. It's kind of like it at a time. You'll be fine. And then that's the end of Ali.

Can't you see her running to me and she and I'm thinking you know as I'm slowly dying that she's she's worried about me and she goes what do we do about the pod? Oh this would be a good episode. Yeah yeah it would be for sure. So Robert Bradley was a gunfighter in question who was shot on the job so we're gonna talk a little bit about kind of like what went down because it's kind of crazy.

During the production Bradley is supposed to be one of what shot by an enemy carrying a shotgun and fall backwards. So they're doing whatever they're doing he's supposed to get the blasted and falls you know dramatically backwards and it's dead. Right kind of thing. Obviously in reality they fire the blank in his direction he acts, falls backwards.

It's fine. You know get very professional. Yeah but apparently this time something actually hit Bradley in the right thigh and it just missed his femoral artery which if you nick that thing you bleed out. Yeah you're done.

Yeah like it's that's not something you can just usually come back from. Bleeding out typically. You know from that and you know if he's having to be strapped to a chairlift we're taking down all this man. Just blood dripping all the way down like I don't know what you're gonna do.

For God's sake don't get blood on the chairlift we're trying to get visitors here. So this kind of I think speaks to how good of an actor Bradley was when he was shot he continued the thing like he fell back and he just kind of lied out of view until the show ended and his co-workers could call for help. Oh my god. So I feel like that's the definition of the show that's gone.

Absolutely. Like you've committed. You really did fully committed. For probably $20 an hour.

I appreciate that. Probably not even. No not even an actor at that time. 1850 maybe.

I mean that's impressive. 15. 1720. I don't know I'm just making some of that but yeah that's impressive.

I wouldn't give two craps. I would say stop. I've been shot. I've been shot but they probably think it's part of the crowd and they're like oh maybe shoot her again.

Oh you know. Jeez. She's alive. She's still alive.

Oh gosh. So they call for help. Obviously everyone is like this was a crazy freak accident. You know what the heck happened.

Bradley has repeatedly said that he didn't think this was an accident. What? So he does say that the gunfighter who shot him he's like I don't think it had anything to do. Like he didn't do it.

Like I trust this guy. Like he didn't load the gun or whatever. He has his own kind of ideas of what might have happened but obviously doesn't have any proof. The owner at this Alaska Pressley person stated that Bradley's statements that it could have been intentional are pretty much insane.

She's like it was a freak accident. Like nothing could have happened. She's like you know the only two options are it was that freak accident or it was self-inflicted. That Bradley loaded the gun.

Do we know who it was who loaded the gun? That's the thing. It's not really a it doesn't sound like it's a well documented like there's not like a check sheet of like who loaded what well and now I think it's one of those things that probably just somebody's like oh this needs to be done and just does it. But this asked you was everybody thinking that they were actually using prop guns.

Like who knew that they were using real gun like did everybody know they were using real gun? I think so. I think everybody was probably like oh yeah well we'll just use you know we have these guns and we'll put links in it. So if everybody knew then you got to think the person who owns it is liable.

Right. Because you're allowing this to happen. Well yeah and that's why they got sued for that $2,000 from the labor board. Which that's minimal.

Right it's not much. So whatever was in the the gun so whether it was a bullet or a strap or whatever was put in there it's still in Bradley's leg. Too dangerous to remove. Too dangerous to remove so I can't take it out and figure out you know what exactly what I think is probably a bullet obviously.

It's probably X-ray maybe. Yeah I mean they can look at it like an X-ray and see like hey there's something in there. But I mean when it comes out once it hits it kind of it's deformed it doesn't look exactly like it's supposed to. Um Bradley thinks that somebody could have loaded that gun intentionally and stated that there were people at the park that he was in some arguments with.

Really? So that's not always well. Maggie Valley police in a 2013 article said that it was an ongoing investigation but you know there's not a lot of follow-up right and a lot of evidence and it's just you know whatever. Maggie Valley police department investigation has moved in tandem with an inquiry by the NC department of labor.

Okay so they both kind of have these side-by-side investigations going on but it's more into the safety concerns at ghost town. Apparently the state received a complaint stating that no one trained in first aid was present at the park at the time of the injury and running water was not available for people to wash blood from Bradley's injury off of their hands. So most parks I mean if you've been to an amusement park or anything in the past you know 10-15 years they have those like little tents or little shacks that are like your first aid station where you have some gosh yeah like you have a medic that's sitting in there you know hoping they don't have to do a whole lot that day. Yeah CPR trained ready to go.

You've got an AD got a little trauma bag with you know some gals and some. You would think they would have that especially with this gun shooting and these and there's actually an actor who used to in the day get shot and they would fall off the roof. Yeah so it's like you don't have someone there just in case something were to go wrong or even like I said if someone had a heart attack right you're gonna want some medical folks around just to be able to attend to any kind of. Then you got blood all over you that you were holding pressure to the woman with your own bare hand and you're on your chair left going just like going down the mountain like really?

Yeah and then there's no running water so you can't like scrub off and we've all had to take bloodborne pathogens trading over here. Every year. Every year you work at any kind of field where you work with the public usually. Where's my PPE?

Bloodborne pathogens where they tell you how to put on your gloves how to take your gloves off and how to dispose of it. How to dispose of it until you don't lick the blood. I mean what do that listen? The one I just took it's pretty much like you know don't touch it and you're good.

I mean I think that's the the overwhelming theme is just don't put your bare hands on it. Yeah don't do that. No. So that was kind of an issue.

Kind of. That's a problem. As far as police were concerned the investigation was pretty hindered from the get-go. Bradley's injury came in as a medical call and not a police call so there were no officers that went to the scene and to talk to the spectators get witness statements and then there obviously were witnessed by tourists who are now like not in the area.

Right so you can't even track down who was there. Doctors at the hospital also threw away any flecks of material pulled from Bradley's wound meaning police could not examine it as evidence in their investigation. So even if there is a bullet lodged in Bradley's leg that fact alone is not enough to prove that a crime was committed. It seems unjust but at the same time if somebody comes in and it it seems like a freak accident why would you keep those biohazard things you would dispose of them because that's part of the protocol that's that bloodborne pathogens that we talk about you know getting rid of that excessive stuff you know I mean you wouldn't think like oh gosh I better you know bag and tag because this is a real crime scene you just think oh poor guy would have you know freak accident you know I mean right I mean he comes into the hospital and it's like oh you know accidentally shot as part of you know this show which I'm sure they all knew about had been there before knew about the the gunfight and they're like oh gosh that's crazy yeah we're cleaning this wound out we're not going to keep any metal flakings we find.

Exactly we don't need that right and they hadn't been told by the police to keep that so since the police weren't involved at that point. Right a year later in 2014 Alaska Presley listed the lower portion of the property and that includes the old west town for sale for $3 million of course. A Presley planned to redevelop the upper portion as a holy land replica theme park so I don't know what the vision was but well I think a holy land I don't necessarily think it's real right I'm not thinking on the side of a mountain theme park. I'm not thinking yeah oh there's the whaling wall.

Oh there's some roller coasters here in the holy land. Oh look there's a statue of Jesus. I just I just heard that you can can girls and cry. I had to be recraft just to cast it as an angel.

I don't know who's gonna play Jesus. They have to recast the cowboy who accidentally shot this one. That's true it's true but then you know I don't know and then just Jesus like come in you know like with a light behind him you know and you Jesus you know I mean how does this work I don't know it just sounds yeah excuse me if I offended anyone but it just sounds um somewhat sacrilegious I don't know and amuse like a religious amusement park. Holy land.

Holy land replica theme park. I um shockingly the listing was taken off the market a few months later due to no interest. I can't believe it. I'm so shocked.

I mean shocked um in an effort to deter vandalism which apparently was pretty pretty heavy up there. How do you vandal it? How do you get up there? No I think they hiked it.

Oh I don't know. I'm personally hired some security guards and placed some cameras on the mountain. In 2015 the park announced a rebranding. Oh god.

Two ghost town village. So I guess oh yes yes yes this was because they were not able to reopen any of the rides or roller coasters due to the cost of the repairs. So they're like well we can't do any of the like fun ride things so we can't really have it be a theme park amusement park so we have to kind of rebrand it as it's just an old west replica town. I mean would you have a lot of visitors now?

What's like what do you do? You walk around you watch this one little gunfight and even even that they may not even be allowed to do the gunfight. Right they don't have any medical people on the right. Right.

I mean okay in village almost makes it sound like they're gonna build a healthy development up there. Right so the park though it never reopened after it got shut down. Local news outlets stated it might be reopening in 2019 but that never happened. Today the park still remains closed.

However there is some work going on up there by a team of new investors hoping to restore the amusement park and one day reopen it. In August of 2021 one of the key people working on the redevelopment made a quote rare public speaking appearance. So it's kind of like Kush Hush up there right now. They explained the basic plans in front of the local chamber of commerce that involved an investment of up to two hundred million dollars whoa.

So which I mean makes sense for what all they're gonna probably have to do. There was supposed to be some more information coming out in early 2022 about what kind of timeline looked like but I hadn't able to find anything online to see about it. Actually reopening and I'm sure COVID stuff got in the way too so. Well and at what point do we just pull the plug and say you know the old west theme isn't gonna work anymore the clearly the holy land theme isn't gonna work.

When do we just cut our losses say we're done or even come up with an idea like let's just make this a community like let's you know build a road and this is a really nice community with a great view. I don't know. So they did put up kind of a like plan I guess for what it would look like but there's no real time on any of this so they have all these ideas. So the water and sewer issues are fixed.

Okay so they can do that. Good. The park's main street which was home to the red dog saloon the jail and several the cafes they're saying are gonna be gutted and completely redone. Ground four buildings will be home to shops and boutiques.

There may also be some brand name retail and dining outlets up there which I mean I think kind of takes away from the old west style. Are you saying that a target takes away from the old? You have seen the westerns with you know the big target and you know the dollar bins. I'm saying if I'm walking through an old west town and I turn a corner and there's an olive garden that might take me out of the...

You know what you don't love an Italian feast right there in Ghost Town? I guess that. You know what we are trying to bring some diversity to Ghost Town and you're stifling it. Stifling the idea that we need to have maybe a Popeyes?

Maybe. I mean chicken? Yeah but it's more like Louisiana style. Well exactly but I mean if we're going for random stuff then why not?

Maybe an Arby's? Cookout. Oh look cookout. I love a good cookout but definitely we'll make sure there's no Bojangles there because they can't do her stomach so we can handle the Bojangles.

No just I love it. I can't do it. It hates her. It does so.

So there will also be the second floor of some of these buildings will be sold or leased for residential use so you could live at Ghost Town. I mean which is kind of cool. I do think that's a really good selling point. Yeah at the base of the mountain there's going to be a new hotel and it will have a lodge-like style.

Behind the lodge will be some vacation rental cottages and there's no word yet on the original rides if they're coming back or if they're going to redo some stuff but there are rumors of a Ferris wheel. Hey we gotta love that. Pretty cool. Yeah there are so this kind of reminds me of there and in Tennessee, Pigeon Forge Tennessee there's a little place it's called the island which is not really an island but it's got that kind of like the shops on the bottom and some attractions.

They have this whole main drag that is just filled with shops and stores and yeah fun little things and then the upper parts there are some like apartments. I think they could make a go of this. I mean I think that that would be very successful. Right and it's gorgeous because no matter the season you know and traffic as far as to worst you have people who live there so you're continually making money.

You know what I'm saying? So I think this could be a good thing. I think so too. There is rumors though that the grounds are cursed because of all the issues that it's had which I mean but it didn't seem to have until later on so if the grounds were cursed it always would have been cursed.

Right and you know maybe it's just bad luck. Maybe bad luck but this is also this land is really close to and I'm sure one's was a part of the eastern man Cherokee. So this might be the revenge. Ooh I mean.

Which I mean that's a whole new element to this podcast. Yeah I'm not saying like I'm saying the goat like the no I'm not saying like the the Cherokee people are like a sabotage. No no no no no no no. I'm saying the spirits and the you know the land itself is like rejecting this.

Right you know just let our land be. Let it let this beautiful mountain escape just stay what it is and let's not keep trying to rebuild on it. Right it's clearly it's not working. Why are we still doing this?

Yeah or clearly it just could be like this was not no longer meant to be a theme park. Right. You have to re-envision something else. But I think it could be cool.

I think it could all be terrible and it could be cursed land and that's just kind of I mean just think about it. Haley you and I will get up on the chairlift right and we go up there we get our cookout we go to Target we watch a gun fight maybe Jesus will appear we don't know. Can't you see it I'm eating my cheese bites from the cookout and I'm like hey look at you there's can't can angels. Are they singing like oh like you know what is it?

Off in Maria or something. Oh that's delightful. It's beautiful but I don't see a full can performance. You know they just start you know getting it.

I like it. I like it too. I it's my goal. Yeah I think it's great.

I like it. Yeah. I'm a good childhood memory. Thank you.

Well that's kind of where it ends. So for you all who are listening have you ever been to this area? Have you ever been to Ghost Town? What were your experiences?

I can say you know my parents went in the 70s they always had a lot of fun they took us in the 80s and 90s. We always had a great time. I don't think I'd ever win. Well I mean you were probably five when they closed it that first time so yeah I liked it.

I thought it was really kind of cool and fun. I actually liked it better than Santa's Land which is also in the area. That's not an area. It was just really fun.

So good memories and I think that's what will stay with me versus you know hearing what it's become because it's really sad. Yeah I mean the creepy pictures up there I mean of all the abandoned buildings that like they're kind of being overtaken by the earth again. That's really cool. I talk about a ghost town.

It's just like it looks like a ghost town. It's pretty pretty awesome. We're sick people. All right.

So if you want to get ahold of us and let us know about your ghost town experiences or just what you think about what ghost town has become please send Haley an email at mountainmystries.appletchen at gmail.com. You can find us on Facebook at mountainmystries.tales from Appalachia. Find us on Instagram at mountainmystries.appletchen and last but not least if you want a little bit more Holly and Haley check us out on patreon at patreon.com slash mountainmystries. Haley do you have a special shout out?

I do. We're going to go to Sudirville, Tennessee. Hey, we're just talking about Dollywood. Mirabelle.

All right. Well, thank you all for listening. Haley, thank you for the story. It's great.

It's not a good time. It always is with you. All right. See you all next week.

Bye.