A Whale of a Tale: Revisiting Seven Seas

Hosted by longtime Arlington journalist O.K. Carter and co hosted by historian and content creator Zack Wilson, the episode titled “A Whale of a Tale: Revisiting Seven Seas” explores how Arlington once tried to build a world class marine park complete with orcas, penguins and high diving stunt performers.

Transcript

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Welcome to the Arlington Archives. The podcast advanced deep into the stories that shaped the American dream. City one. Arlington, Texas As Arlington celebrates 150 years of history and progress, we're bringing you the voices and legacies that make this city a cornerstone of Texas and a proud part of America's story. I'm your host, OK Carter and the esteemed social media influencer and highly specialized historian. To my left is today's co-host, Zach Wilson. How are you doing, Zach? I'm doing great, sir. How about you? Not bad at all. Okay, so now, we're going to talk about you are, actually the first influencer that we've had on this show. Generally, we have some kind of historical expert, but then when we came to Seven Seas, it was there so briefly and, so and but you have created, as I understand it, Facebook site, about Seven Seas, which now makes you one of the world's greatest, remaining living experts on seven seas. So how did that interest developed for you? Yeah, it's, it's it started in a weird way. I grew up, really being interested in a lot of, theme parks and, going to Disneyland and, Disney World and, SeaWorld and, and so I started doing some local stuff, and then I had found out about seven Seas and, my parents remember, I remember them telling me about the big pirate ship. They used to still be at the Sheraton long after it was gone. And and so I started googling around, and, some of them created the Facebook group, and it had a lot of, former employees and cast members and stuff. And, and so through there, getting to meet people and just starting to do local history and going to, Arlington Library and the Fielder House Museum and yeah, unless you're at least 50 years old, you probably, and you're and you've been in Arlington a long time, you probably don't remember Seven Seas at all. But just to recap, it was a kind of a short lived but ambitious Arlington Marine Park, 1972 to 75 that the city later rebranded. It rebranded as Hawaii Kai for a final 1976 season before closing permanently. That ring a Bell with You? Yeah. Okay. Okay. Well, do you know how that got its start or why it got to start? Yeah. So as far as I know, Tom Vandergriff, he brought the Rangers into town. Correct. He had worked with Rangers when JR to bring six Flags in and start working with the Great Southwest Company. And then he also, I forget what the other big. Oh he brought the GM plants in. Oh, yeah. so he was like, well, what else can we do. in to Arlington and so he's like, well, one theme parks good. But what's what about a second, yeah. Second major attraction to compliment Six Flags over Texas, which then and now is the still the top paid tourist draw in Texas. So I think originally he his idea was, well, we'll get SeaWorld. And they said, no, we're just not interested. So the city partnered with the Great Southwest Corporation, which at the time was the operator Six Flags, to design and run the park. And, Arlington financed construction.$10 million bond election so far. Sound familiar? And then, and they had a voter, voter election for it, which passed, so, so so far, sir, 3 to 1, it was a yeah, yeah, it was very popular. You know, it's, it's probably, I'm getting ahead of us, but probably the only real bust that happened in the city's sort of entertainment history. So they broke ground for it in 1970. Were you born yet? No. Okay. So you become an expert on an something that you weren’t even around for. Fine. You never got to go to it because you weren't you weren't around at all. I was born in 2002. A good while after it was, closed. Gone a long, long forgotten, I think. Oh, I think all is left by the time you were born. Was the pearl diving pond or was it? Yeah, the pearl diving part, and I believe the Japanese pavilion, a couple random other Yeah. They sort of incorporated into it. Well, the trouble was that the great Southwest Corporation, at the time, which owned, Six Flags, started to begin to have financial troubles. And in fact, the parent company went bankrupt, no fault of service. Six Flags, because Six Flags was making, a lot of money, just not enough. And so what happened was that the Six Flags, which was going to manage the place and run it, just decided, well, we can't do it. We're just going to take a pass. Okay. So and that's kind of whenever. So the city ended up literally creating sort of a parks corporation, to manage the project. So as these things go, 10 million bucks is about what it cost. That wasn't what it ended up costing. But so anyway, it opens in 72, 75, just based on what you're what you studied and read. What do you recall? Well, so initially it was supposed to open in 71. And, that got pushback. There was a lot of, strikes happening. I think there was a big plumbing strike, and some other pushbacks, which, delays kept hitting. And so eventually, March 18th, 1972, the park opens to, I think 15,000 First week. Yeah. First week. And by the way, I was one of them. Oh, you were. Yeah, I was, yeah. I just started working at the newspaper in 1972, so, I was there the, the first week, but, mostly just doing covering media. Me. Yeah, it was, it was, quite a unique experience. So. Is your research showing you enough to recall what themes, the various plays and how many there were? Yeah. I it's it's sometimes a little it's seven, I think. Yeah. And so they were based on kind of different seas of the world and the Mediterranean and the Greek. I believe. Yeah. South Mediterranean, which was what, bottlenose dolphins. Yeah. And then what? Sea of Cortez. Yes. Yeah. Roller skating penguins. Yes. Fine pictures. I saw them, and also some baseball playing seals, by the way. Here's the thing. Interesting is that later is a park developed and a lot of people had already visited it. Then the idea was to get repeat businesses. But most of these marine parks are in areas where you have a lot of tourists coming in, which Arlington does, too. But, one of the realities of, training a penguin, for example, to, roller skate is that once you teach it, you roller skate, you sort of reach the limits of its intellectual capacity. And so, you can't do, too much, too much more to it. And then South Seas. You remember what that was about? Yeah, they they had a big of Polynesian cultural area with a Yeah, it's they had Indian Ocean. Yeah. Ocean. They had the Arctic, ocean as well, which had the dark ride, boat rides. Yeah. They're only there. Yeah. They, they did not want to compete, with Six Flags in terms of rides. So how many rides were there in the park? Just one. And I kind of went down to a cave I can't what was it called? I can't recall forget what it's called. I think it was, it's called like Arctic Tour or something. I can't, I can't remember what it was name of. Was that the section of the park that we, we talked about for had a killer whale. Nootka. Nootka, I think so. And, and that's the the whale was a lot smarter than it was because, it just kept learning and doing new tricks. You know what happened to it? Finally, when they closed the park down, She ended up getting moved to Canada. That's why you have a good. That's why you have. That's why you're doing the, website, I guess. Yeah. Killer whale Nuka of Japan. That was. What are the coins that there were in there? Yeah. Poison there. And the. Oh, that was, So was that where we had a live show of some kind? Was it? I can't remember what it was, but it it might have been dancers going under. they did have some underwater dancers. And that may have been in the, South Seas area, Yeah. It had, like, an underwater viewing. You can see it from above, but then you also had like a underground kind of covered seating area. You can look Yeah. You know, you were, they had. One restaurant. I mean, they had the usual things where you could stop and get hot dogs and and quick service and cheeseburgers and all that kind of stuff. But I think it was called the cave. And, it was, was the beer is it grotto is the right is is that the right pronunciation? higher end, a seafood restaurant. Yeah. And I you could even they had windows that either led to aquariums where you could see fish, and you could also look into the, Arctic boat. Right, as well. You can see Yeah. Yeah. There was one of the little section over there, had all kinds of, exotic birds in there. Yeah, yeah, I was looking forward to it. And one of the, you may have missed this when you were doing your research is that they wanted to have a kind of a, submarine or elevator that went down into the ponds, and you could see these different sea life things, but, it, they just couldn't figure out a way to pay it. Pay for it reasonably. And also, it was it's kind of a safety hazard. So you remember, how many fans they had that first season and was able to swim? Yeah, close to 500, I think for 75. For 80 like that. So, in terms of attendance, it's a big success. But, do you ever take the accounting courses? No, I have not. Yeah, well, I've only had a couple myself, but, despite all that, the 15,000 people and the big crowds, seven seas in his first year lost half $1 million, which, by the way, sounds kind of chicken free now, then, but back in the early 70s, that amounted to, I guess, real, real money particularly. They were hoping it would be a big, success. So, attendance and revenues just continued to lag. I don't know why really. I mean, it wasn't for lack of effort or for for lack of of advertising. All of it. So I just, I'm still mystified as to why it didn't, I mean, I can figures that that the cities just did not have the expertise, to do it. And it may have been that it could have also been like. Like we talking about like SeaWorld, like over the original one San Francisco, or San Diego. Yeah. And then, they had opened another one in Orlando. And so, like those are very big Yeah. There's, there's, I think there's a big one in San Antonio now. Yeah. That one came after Seven Seas I closed, but I think for people coming here and I don't remember what like ticket prices were and stuff, but I don't know either Seven Seas was more of like a half day park in my opinion, were a Six Flags. It was like a full day I know and you can come back the next day. Yeah. You're doing the rides. And so for a lot of people, I think that they may have thought they were getting more money's worth Yeah. For their but I know they would try to change up themes. I know I heard there's some great pictures of some chimpanzees dressed as directors smoking in like, a long cigarets and stuff, and, for some play, they tried going Paris themed for a while. I don't I don't recall that that you've done real research for it, but I don't have a suspect. They tried everything, and they they had these part corporation bonds, revenue. And then they, right about that time were getting the Texas Rangers as well. And I think they used some of that, to buy the TV and radio rights to the, Rangers. So they help Bob short make his. We'll do another story about that someday here. Someday. So by the time were to 1975 or so, we're about, I don't know, $30 million in the hole. And, and they gave it in 1976. They gave it one last try. You meant you, you know what that one was? that would have been, Hawaii Kai. It was, a very short lived, kind of Polynesian inspired, theme park. After. Because in 75, George Malay from Sea World was eventually brought over Yeah. and, he tried saving the park again, couldn't work, and ended up building the wet and wild across the street and and Yeah. Which had no animals whatsoever. You just. But it's an all day thing. It's like really going to a super swimming pool. Yeah. And it's it's also unlike Seven Seas, it's participated. If you go there, you're in the water wet, you're riding the waves and all of that kind of hurricane harbor. Now I guess, it is so and that has, is and has continued to be, a success. So I don't know if you were, if we made you the, if we were send you back in time or have you managed, seven Seas, what would you do differently? Oh, that's that's a hard thing. I don't know what I would do differently either. really hard. I think the location was both great and what may have led to its failure, because it was it's like an the perfect area for our the absolutely. Yeah, it's right there, right across the street. But maybe it was too close that people also had to make a choice. and I had to make a choice and stuff. Yeah. That's right. Yeah. But you know, you could say the same thing about Hurricane Harbor, except it hurricane Harbor is participative. You know, you didn't have to keep up with the prices of like, keeping up with the Yeah, because that was a big expense too. And I know whenever George Millay, when he took over, he had written in the contracts that he got to purchase the animals and and so that's where like he got Nootka and he eventually sold her for, I think, like $130,000 Okay, fine. And so then when you come to Hawaii, Kai, you only have dolphins, Yeah, yeah, he got rid of a lot of the high maintenance, critters. I think the roller skating penguins were going to. I don't know how long a penguin lives. So. And, I, I have a feeling you're having to train new roller skaters all the time. Yeah. So, he gives up. Does not make any money. I don't know how much money he lost, but. But, yeah, probably a lot. So they come to the end of it, close it down. There. And that probably is the end of your involvement. You know what happened next? Well, they opened, Hawaii Yeah. After a week, I, I know you're you're not the governmental guy. No, I don't entirely know. I know the Sheraton was Yeah, yeah. So what happened? We had a couple of city council people, and, again, I was covering the stuff at this time. And one of them with Martha Walker, that's actually deceased. Now, Jim here also no longer with us, and they, they sort of became a two person committee charged with salvaging, what could be salvaged from it. And they came up with the idea of the Sheraton Hotel. So most of it, most of the park was flattened, and is now parking lot, sort of the north 40, if you will. For a while. Was it the pearl diving pool or the Coral Sea pool? Was it was also the Sheraton pool? Yeah. I believe it was the Pearl diver for. Yeah. So that was actually the pool for, for a long time for the Sheraton. Yeah. And I think, yeah, the diving exhibitions that. Yeah. Caribbean Sea. He was part of that. Yeah. Okay. So the Sheraton Hotel, by the way, since you're, you're familiar with the article, but they literally are demolishing it finally this month. That's right. So for so you're going to have a $500 million, 500 plus room Americana by Loews Hotel, which I find to be, odd since the original whole Seven Seas project was 30 million bucks, and now we're spending 500 million on this summer. And they break ground for that this year. Yeah, I think this just very summer. So have you ever been up to the archives collection at UTA? I have, but I have not got to check out their seven seas stuff Yeah, they have probably the best collection. How many photos are on your site on the site a lot of people contribute to it and stuff and, I just help continue to add new things as I find them. But, there's, it goes back like a long time, even a little bit before me. And there's there's probably you probably have a lot of people who work there who sits there. Photos tell stories, have anecdotes. I, I've got to talk to some really. So they want to go to the your Facebook site. What what would it be. It's it's on it's, it's called Seven Seas and it will have the logo. Yeah. Of the park on it and stuff. And it's, it's the Facebook group and, it's free to join and people can post pictures. Share memories, and you can ask questions. Yeah. anybody remember the Pearl diver pool? And some of the divers will pop in and it's it's fun. So before I let you go, Zach, I find it kind of interesting is that this has nothing to do with seven seas, but you're also, something of an expert on a particular type of bar called, tiki bars. And you have a Facebook site on on that as well. You don't have a Facebook site. We are on Instagram. But we go by the Hiki Tiki on there and, and we, we chronicle a lot of our local journeys and, through the local bars, but also our yeah, I think Arlington has all of one tiki bar. Yes, they do. It's a fabulous one. Yeah, yeah. I'll have to go there someday. Yeah. Hang out with it. Listen, Zach. Thanks. I want to thank you, too, for listening to Arlington Archives. Thank you again, Zach, for coming by. It is hard to find any real expert, expertise about Seven Seas. Be sure to subscribe, rate, and share this podcast for more stories, historical photos, and ways to get involved and or like it's 150th anniversary, maybe get one of those swell signs. Visit Arlington150.com and follow at City of Arlington on social media. Until next time, let's keep honoring our past and pave the way for what's next. The story of Arlington is still, still being written and you are part of it. So long.