Back to the Park Where Summers Began: Six Flags Over Texas

"Arlington Archives" kicks off its newest episode with a spirited exploration of Arlington’s most famous thrill destination: Six Flags Over Texas. Host OK Carter, a longtime local historian known for bringing the city’s past to life, welcomes media veteran Steve Pyburn for a conversation rich with firsthand memories, behind‑the‑scenes insight and a look at how the park helped shape Arlington’s identity.

Transcript

SPEAKER_00 0:08

Welcome to the Arlington Archives, the podcast that dives deep into the stories that shape the American Dream City. 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, O.K. Carter, and the esteemed social influencer. To my left here, the highly specialized historian, is today's co-host, Steve Pyrrhon. Though Pyburn is a nationally known marketing expert in the arena of streaming TV, he's also an authority on another subject near and dear to Arlington's heart and brand, Six Flags Over Texas Amusement Park. He owns the world's largest collection of Six Flags memorabilia, public or private, and is a go-to social media authority when the topic is the Arlington Six Flags. In fact, he's working on both a book about Six Flags history and the creation of a Six Flags Museum. Welcome to the Arlington Archives, Steve. Well, thanks for having me. You are certainly welcome. Listen, before we get started here, I noticed that just before we did this podcast that Six Flags Over Texas opened the new Tormenta Raisin Rage and Run roller coaster.

SPEAKER_01 1:23

Yes, yes.

SPEAKER_00 1:24

309 feet tall, 4,200 feet long, cost 45 million dollars, which by the way, the original whole part cost 10 million bucks. That's correct. That's correct. I love roller coasters, but I'm not sure that uh I'm gonna catch that thing because I it looks like it's almost a sheer vertical drop. Right, right, I think it's a lot of 290 feet.

SPEAKER_01 1:47

My problem is the five or six G's that go with it, too.

SPEAKER_00 1:50

I know. We're not we're sure how old and aging hard it's gonna take it anymore.

SPEAKER_01 1:54

Too much.

SPEAKER_00 1:55

Okay, Steve, before we get into the little history of six flags, tell me a little bit about your collection. I know you have got this giant collection of pretty strange stuff, and you're working towards having a museum eventually.

SPEAKER_01 2:08

Right, right. Well, you know, it uh goes from the small stuff like papers, you know, uh slides, films, and uh different parts from rides now. I have a river boat from LaSalle's Adventure. Uh I rode that. Yeah, and the Astro Luft car. Uh Road That. Yeah, anywhere from some of the puppets that were in the theater to some of the shows that were in uh the costumes that were in the shows. It would take me the rest of the show to kind of list off everything stuff.

SPEAKER_00 2:41

Some of those people who uh some of those people who performed at Six Flags are pretty well became pretty well known national and uh and regional uh celebrities themselves. Okay, so let's go back. Yeah, Betty Buckley. Yeah, Betty Buckley. Others that have been there, you know. I used to go to TCU with a couple of them.

SPEAKER_01 2:55

Big rumor for John Denver worked there, but he couldn't make the show, so he ended up working on the ride.

SPEAKER_00 3:01

Oh man, he couldn't sing well enough, I'm sure.

SPEAKER_01 3:03

I guess not. That's what they say.

SPEAKER_00 3:05

Okay, let's back up a little bit here. So what we have here is uh around in the uh in the mid-1950s, we have a Dallas developer, land speculator named Angus Wynne. Jr. Junior. Angus Wynn Jr. And uh and he but there's an Angus Wynn Freeway in Arlington even here today. Yes, so uh he began to accumulate tracts of land, including the old what was left, the old Wagner Ranch, some dairy property, dairy farms. The Wagner Ranch uh really was the biggest part of it. Yeah, I think it's more isn't it but being more than 10,000 acres?

SPEAKER_01 3:41

Uh at least something like that. They achieved some more. And then they got bought a dairy farm, okay, that was owned by the Watson family, who has a big history in Arlington as well. They did, as a Watson, as a Watson relative as well. Yeah. Yeah. And uh so they got that too, and that kind of you know, uh also the old Arlington Downs racetrack was in that.

SPEAKER_00 4:04

Yeah, all part of that. Yeah. Okay, so um so Angus Jr. established the Great Southwest Corporation in 1956 to develop this gigantic new industrial district in Oregon, Great Southwest Industrial District, and he became its president. Uh uh that just the Wagner ranch was 2,500 acres, so you he he bought four times that map to build this industrial district. And they began, he had several investors, I think Rockefellers and some others.

SPEAKER_01 4:37

Rockefeller was in there. Uh Amon Carter Sr. was in there.

SPEAKER_00 4:41

A lot of big bucks people in the part of that.

SPEAKER_01 4:44

Yeah, and uh uh his uh uh uncle was when uh Toddy Lee Wynn, I think is his name. He's pretty well known, too. Yeah, he was in one of those little sports franchises called the uh Dallas Cowboys.

SPEAKER_00 4:57

Gotcha. So they they have a history of this sort of stuff. So as I understand it, um they acquired the land, they were sort of land-rich and cash poor, they built two or three industrial warehouses, and then they promptly just ran out of cash. And and uh you I've heard versions of this story, but Tom Vandegriff, the uh our former mayor, told me that he was actually present at the meeting where Angus called in a group of local leaders to talk about his financial problems there and maybe some of them would have a solution. And I've I've since then I've I've I've had two or three people take credit for it, but one of them came up with the idea why don't you open it something like uh Disneyland?

SPEAKER_01 5:43

Right, right. Well, I heard that Tom Vandergriff was because he had gone to school in Anaheim. He's one of the three that takes credit for Disneyland was. Yeah, he likes that whole Anaheim vibe with it. I thought that was a great dream, and of course, he was a big baseball guy, and the Anaheim Angels were there. So his uh vision was to kind of emulate uh Anaheim a little bit.

SPEAKER_00 6:07

Angus, as I understand it again, this is Tom telling me the story. Yeah, uh, did you ever get a chance to talk to meet Tom Vandergraft?

SPEAKER_01 6:14

Uh yes I did. He's a great guy.

SPEAKER_00 6:16

He must have been pretty old by the time you got around to the well, not really, you know.

SPEAKER_01 6:19

Uh that's a whole nother story. We don't want to get into that.

SPEAKER_00 6:22

We're gonna get into that. But anyway, so uh they they suggested we'll give Tom credit for coming up with the idea. Although he told me later, he says that of all the great visions that we had for Arlington, becoming a Mecca for uh recreational park, you know, amusement park was not one of them. So Angus said, well, okay. And he actually goes to Disneyland, visits the facility, really likes it. What he doesn't like, though, is that you pay to get in, and then you pay to get on the rides. And he didn't think that was quite cricket. So he came back with the idea of uh of a temporary park that uh would we call Six Flags Over Texas, named after the various uh flags of different nations.

SPEAKER_01 7:10

Well, you want to hear the story about the name?

SPEAKER_00 7:12

I do.

SPEAKER_01 7:13

Okay, first of all, it was gonna be under Six Flags, Six Flags under Six Flags. Well, well, even before that was gonna be great Southwestland. Yeah. And then they went, ah, you know, that's then and then they say, well, let's let's do this theme park and then make it under Six Flags. But his wife sat there and stood up to the meeting and said, there isn't anything under Six Flags, okay? It's always gonna be over. So that's she got the credit for over Six Flags over taxes.

SPEAKER_00 7:41

It wasn't too bad an idea. So the idea originally is it would just be a temporary thing. They would make raise some money, and uh in three or four years they would shut her down uh and use the property for other development. But it what happened was that it was uh sort of an explosive phenomenon. By the way, 1957, the year they opened the park, and and six uh is is also the year that the turnpike came through.

SPEAKER_01 8:10

So when I was gonna mention that too. That's a big factor. That's a big factor.

SPEAKER_00 8:14

Because uh Wynn wants he wants very good highway uh access. Texas Turnpike is now uh 30.

SPEAKER_01 8:22

It was, but it wasn't it wasn't until 61, August 61, that the part actually opened. Yeah. And they would hope to get on to the beginning of the summer, but it dragged on to the end. So they didn't even really have a full season. But it was so successful, just in that short amount of time.

SPEAKER_00 8:39

No, their first their first day they had not quite 9,000 people?

SPEAKER_01 8:43

Something like that. They had a soft opening before for the press, but uh yeah, you know, it's uh it took off and it's been going strong since.

SPEAKER_00 8:54

Uh a fraction of what the even with inflation, a fraction of what this new roller coaster costs. So uh it was by the way, admission was two dollars and seventy-five cents for adults, two twenty-five for children, I think parking was fifty cents. Uh uh I don't know what it is now, but it's gonna say well back to what you're talking about.

SPEAKER_01 9:14

The ticket price was he had the first idea to have a combined ticket price. And so, unlike some of the other places where you go to the fair, you'd play for each ride, you got an all-inclusive ticket. So they were uh the park credited for the first all-inclusive ticket. And not only that, they had an option where if you didn't want to ride any of the rides, you could just go in the park and enjoy the beautiful scenery. And for you know, the older folks watch the acts. Yeah, grandma could come along and watch and just sit on the flowers, yeah. You know, enjoy the flowers and uh and all the live animals, and there were a lot of live animals.

SPEAKER_00 9:53

Yeah, they had sort of an expected attendance the first 45 days, what they hoped would be a good attendance. But what happened was no matter what their expectations were, they far, far exceeded it. So all of a sudden, Angus is looking at what was intended as a temporary revenue generator into a permanent attraction.

SPEAKER_01 10:16

Yes, yes. Uh it even grew where they cloned two other parks, six sags over uh Georgia and Six Flags over Mid America.

SPEAKER_00 10:24

Yeah, is is is that are the three now or there more than that?

SPEAKER_01 10:26

Those are the three original parks.

SPEAKER_00 10:28

Yeah, I got you. Well, I don't know. It's uh um so I think in retrospect, I'd seen things where Angus is talking about kind of combining commerce and industrial development with uh with recreational real estate when uh which is kind of Yeah, you did, you know, I think the I think the original plans.

SPEAKER_01 10:47

Well, they built a bowling alley next door, and his uh uh his uh cousin, I think, owned that. And they had plans of having a golf course and a shooting around around the lake. There were some other things too they had on there, but you know, they uh the park got so big it overshadowed all that other stuff.

SPEAKER_00 11:04

I know. It's uh it turned out to be not not an isolated entertainment venture, it just ended up being really the strategic engine that um that drove the whole Great Southwest industrial district.

SPEAKER_01 11:18

Yeah, well that's an interesting point I'd like to bring out because these guys really did their homework about it, and they were very meticulous about the entire situation. In fact, Angus sent several of his people over to work at Disneyland for a while. Yeah. So they worked there for six months and they came back, and so they had a very good idea of what how uh uh Disney ran their operation, and a lot of the rides were emulated from the exact same rides at Disney. In fact, if you look at early pictures of both parks, you can see they almost look the same.

SPEAKER_00 11:49

Why, you know, why reinvent yourself? Uh you uh you yourself actually worked there, did you not? This is how you develop your first interest in the park?

SPEAKER_01 11:58

Yes, yes. I worked there for five years. I worked there from 74 to 79, and that's really where I got my love for the park. What did you do? What did you do for them? Uh I worked on the riverboat ride, and I was foreman of the antique cars, and I was uh foreman of the railroad. And then I went into food service, and then I was manager of the ice cream carts, and uh and so long story, but I got in there from uh working at the state fair for and they had little fruit juice containers. I worked there for a season, and then they started introducing them with the fruit juice, they had little straws and everything. I know. And then I went in and my last uh go-around, I was uh uh uh manager of the Mexican restaurant, Casa de los Banderos.

SPEAKER_00 12:42

Well, you had you had a really varied thing. So by the time you left, you knew the thing inside. Didn't they didn't seven C's run out of people one time and they were so desperate for help that you had you end up going over there still wearing your uniform?

SPEAKER_01 12:59

At that time they were uh Six Flags Incorporated was managing seven C's, and so they were having short on uh problems and they, you know, were at the time clock putting the bite on everybody, you know. And so I said, sure, why not? You know, something to do. Went over there and I worked over there at Seven C's a couple of times, wearing my Six Flags uniform.

SPEAKER_00 13:19

Not bad. Well, you know, uh Six Flags is a it is a huge success story, but for Arlington, it's really transformational. I know you are, I know, uh an expert on branding and on uh streaming, TV, advertising, and so forth. And uh I I don't know, even today, if you ask people, well, when you think of Arlington, what do you think of? And sometimes now they'll say Cowboys or sometimes they'll say they'll say uh Texas Rangers, but uh as often as not, uh they'll say Six Flags.

SPEAKER_01 14:02

Yes, I I agree with it 100%, 100 percent. In fact, if you think about it, there's been millions of people that have been rolled through their it's 65 anniversary this year, okay? That's right. So you take let's say a million, two million uh each year, that's over a hundred million at least. And uh I from my Facebook group on uh Six Flags History, they uh talk about it all the time. The memories that they made have you know gone through the years and now they're taking in their kids, they've taken their kids, they're taking in their grandkids, and so it's become an institution.

SPEAKER_00 14:39

I know. I see um all kinds of even today I see mothers that uh buy their kid a season pass at at Six Flags. And uh there's no telling how many times those kids drop off their my now my parents never had the kind of budget to to uh let me go to Six Flags and dine and whine, but if you think about that turnpike going by there, and everybody that goes by and they're seeing the rides and they're seeing the stuff, and it's really like a giant billboard. But for so many people that are going through Arnhem, that's all they see. They're going from one place to another.

SPEAKER_01 15:19

When they first opened the shockwave, it had such an effect people were stopping on the turnpike to look at that ride, okay? And it caused a humongous problem that they had to put up a sign, don't stop on the turnpike.

SPEAKER_00 15:33

They uh they for a while they had a huge inflated gorilla up on the oil derek, kind of King Kong like. And I saw the same thing happen there, people literally stopping. This is not good to stop on an interstate highway, even off the road to do it well.

SPEAKER_01 15:50

You know, the Six Flags experience is totally immersive, and that's what they founders saw that it before. It's not just the rides, it's the sights, the sounds, the smells, and the people and their memories, they will talk about that. And each thing hits them anywhere from you know, and the taste, the pink thing, okay? Everybody knows the pink thing.

SPEAKER_00 16:08

I I know. I for some reason I remember the pink thing. Uh you know, I guess you kind of a pink ice creamy different thing. Yeah. Well, you know, when it's 100 degrees like it is now, you know, a pink thing goes pretty good. I guess so. So what made you uh you finally I had a friend by the way who worked at Six Flags so long. I think he ended up being the train engineer that finally in his early 30s, they finally told him, you know, guys, sorry. It's for younger employees. You need to move on. He was teaching school every summer he'd come back and and work at Six Flags. That's how evidently the experience is so addictive to be there that you see that in your Facebook site has thousands of of subscribers and people constantly adding to it and putting photos and uh memories and so forth on it. So it's really kind of uh like I say, transformational for the entire city. In 1960, uh according to the census that year, uh Arlington's population was forty nine thousand. Six flags opened the the next year, and it and besides being a business success, it um it really gives the town an entire new identity. And I it's I wouldn't say you blame that entirely for the huge growth that Arlington took off from the but it's definitely one of those things is all of a sudden everybody, pretty much everybody in Texas knows about Six Flags, and they know about Arlington being the place where Six Flags.

SPEAKER_01 17:42

Yes, they built it as the entertainment capital of the world. That was one of their big advertising slogans. And it you talk about population it being $40,000. At one time, uh one day when I worked when Casey and the Sunshine was there, they had 50,000 people crammed in that park. And it was it was just unbelievable. I know.

SPEAKER_00 18:03

I I was gonna go, they had to they're gonna have to.

SPEAKER_01 18:05

Everybody had to work double shifts, and uh it was uh it was amazing that we got through all that.

SPEAKER_00 18:11

They had to uh they uh they scheduled the beach boys once. So I told my wife, hey, she says, uh I said, let's go see the beach boys. I always want to see the guys, and she says, They're old news, they're washed up. And so many people showed up for the Beach Boys that they had to move the concert out into the parking lot. You know, tens and tens of thousands of people showed up. So uh I'm I did point out to her, I don't think they're quite washed up yet. Because there were a lot of nostalgia that's out in there. I don't know the you you mentioned some of the people who've worked there over the years.

SPEAKER_01 18:49

But uh Right, I've known people that have worked there 50 years. 50? Yes, yes. So I didn't know they didn't even let you hang around that long. Part of what uh uh Angus Wynne Jr. preached was the the people and how they treated it. But you know, the when you were in a when you worked there and they called them guests, uh they called them guest uh for the people that attended, and you when you worked there, you were host or hostess, and that's what you felt like. You were always on stage, is what they called it, and uh you were there to entertain the people. And so it got into your blood for a lot of people, and I think it was one of my hardest decisions of my life was to leave the park.

SPEAKER_00 19:27

Did you think about maybe going into the amusement park business as a as a manager, maybe uh move up or well, you know, I'm gotten under my years, and and there are people that did that.

SPEAKER_01 19:40

There are people that that that started had their start there. Uh one guy named John Hardman, he was a puppeteer and started as doing Argyll the Snake, you know. Well, he did Punch and Juni, but then he did Argyle the Snake, and this guy was did insults to people, kind of the Don Rickles of everybody. And so he got so big that he ended up doing the puppet show there, and then he had pretty soon he had puppet shows all over the country. So yeah.

SPEAKER_00 20:06

It's been a springboard for a lot of people's um careers and in related sort of things. So you got a favorite memory too of your of your Six Flags experience?

SPEAKER_01 20:18

That would be hard. I mean, I have so many memories of that part that uh uh but I think the the biggest memory that I have was be uh just the joy I saw on everybody's faces, you know, especially the small kids. And uh, you know, I from being on the riverboat ride and the cannon growing off and the kids would grab my legs, they were so scared, hiding down, but you know, trying to hide it from the Spanish attack.

SPEAKER_00 20:46

I forgot about the um the cannon, you know. Right, right. And I I you know I haven't I really haven't been to Six Flags in a long time.

SPEAKER_01 20:54

Right. Not not only that, you had the cannons going off one part of the park, and the other part you had a m a volcano and it would explode about every five minutes.

SPEAKER_00 21:03

You got the monorail going through stuff. And then in the lat really in the last 20 years, they really got into this roller coaster business. It seemed like every couple of three, four, or five years we replaced the old roller coaster with a new.

SPEAKER_01 21:16

They pretty much have kept every roller coaster they have. That's one thing about it. But they still have a lot of the historic rides, like I have the railroad, which are uh came from uh two uh steam engines and on a Louisiana plantation. And they don't own those, they just lease them still. Is that right? But they refurbish them.

SPEAKER_00 21:36

There's a that there's a that's a Texas historical site, by the way, that railroad is there.

SPEAKER_01 21:40

It is, it is, and these things still shoot steam like the old days when everybody, you know, has converted them and to uh to other means now. But uh I love the way other you sm you can get set in the back and smell the steam. And then you have the uh the log ride, the L aceleradero, it's still there. It was one of the first log rooms in the Country, you have the runaway mine train, the first roller coaster. Yeah. And uh, you know, they have the cave ride, and even they imitated Walt, but Walt Disney kind of snuck into the park one time later on and said, I no pictures, no pictures. And uh they did a big tour of that and he looked around like that and saw all the things that were going on, and soon enough Disneyland had Splash Mountain, which is very similar to that. And then they they some people say that that the pirates of the Caribbean came from the from the Speed Lipper's Cave. So, you know, uh it's kind of I always think it's kind of ironic that uh I guess the master learned something from Yeah, they came up with other stuff, but I I suspect they borrowed a lot of they see another great idea.

SPEAKER_00 22:47

If something doesn't work here, then they'll try another one. What was the one with the where you came down the water thing and at the end of it there's this giant wave that goes? That's that's the log front. I I remember you we used to go stand above it at the end of the ride, and and if you're so hot, and as it comes to an end, it hits a wave and the wave goes up about ten feet and soaks you on the bridge.

SPEAKER_01 23:09

They have a newer version of that. That's uh they had Splash, you know, Splash Mountain. Then they have Aquaman now, which is a bigger version of that. I know.

SPEAKER_00 23:17

You know, everything has to get bigger and better. They they they also seem to have gone to a lot of cartoon characters over the years that become more and more themed, but they they keep switching. They don't they don't wear anything out. Yeah, they're not doing Mickey Mouse.

SPEAKER_01 23:33

They had a uh uh a Spanish conquistador that would take you on a mule train ride, and they had they even had goat carts pulling kids around, okay? I forgot about the goat cart. Uh uh uh someone told me that everything was fine until the goats took off with the kicks and they couldn't get them back. Stampede, huh? They had buffaloes in the park. Uh they had longhorns, and they even grew some uh crops like uh corn that they used in the park and watermelons. They had a watermelon patch, and it got so popular that they couldn't even supply it, so they had to bring outside watermelons.

SPEAKER_00 24:09

Yeah. In fact, I used to have a couple of free friends that were nothing, but they were the medic team just for medical emergencies there, which you're gonna have that many people, down tens of thousands of people uh on a day. Then uh there's always a few, it gets too hot, gets too cold.

SPEAKER_01 24:25

It always got hot. We had a lot of people that uh the heat got to them. But you know, Six Flags pioneered uh outdoor air conditioning. They spent lots and lots of money.

SPEAKER_00 24:35

I had for first there were air conditioning. You would go and stand places and and the air conditioner would cool you down.

SPEAKER_01 24:41

You know, the the waiting lines, they were kind of buildings, but they had opened, but they had air conditioning in there, and then they had they had uh covered walkways and it was air conditioned. So uh they weren't pairing it, they pioneered that. They pioneered uh ambient lighting using different lighting colors and trees. I mean, there were a lot of firsts that uh that park did.

SPEAKER_00 25:04

Well, you know, uh we're getting near a wrap-up time here, but um over the years well, I'm back up to when Angus, as good a businessman as he was, he came into some financial difficulties in some other business endeavors, ended up, I think, around 69 divesting himself of uh of uh six flags. And since then it's had maybe five or six other corporate owners. Which had a lot of different different ones and a different kind of a checkered financial history. But I think the fact that even today that they're willing to spend 45 million bucks for one new ride tells you how much of a great investment that they think it is. So we won't go over all that history of things that happened there, but you know what you've said today has been really useful about how the park got started and what a role it's played in Arnikan. You want to make a future projection about what's gonna happen to Six Flags? Because some people are not thinking the I think it's gonna get Amusement Parks is that great. You don't agree with that.

SPEAKER_01 26:12

It'll continue to get better, and uh they've got some fine folks over there working on it, and uh it's looking better than it's ever were. You know, it's an old girl, okay? Yeah, yeah, but as long as they keep being a few years, there are a lot of original buildings there that they've they've refurbished and stuff. It's uh it has a little bit of difficulty because it's in kind of a floodplain. I mean it was built in the swamps, okay? Yes, Johnson Creek was right through it. That's an the biggest challenge of Six Flags now is dealing with uh the flooded area.

SPEAKER_00 26:41

Yeah. I I think the city's working on that. There's a if you go upstream a little bit, there's a lake or two and some other things. So uh working that stuff up, can't afford to let anything go wrong with that. Listen, Steve, thanks so much for being here. You got any closing thoughts about Six Flags?

SPEAKER_01 26:57

No, well, that uh you know it that would be hard for me if you mean to say. I'd keep talking and you'd have to turn the lights off. Okay. So uh I'll always love that park. It's it'll be a part of me forever, and I think anybody that worked there will tell you the same thing, and a lot of people that went there uh when they were kids.

SPEAKER_00 27:15

Yeah, me included. Okay, listen, thanks for listening to Arlington Archives. I want to thank you too, Steve. I I've I learned a few things I didn't know. Be sure to subscribe to this podcast, rate, and share it. For more stories, historical photos, and ways to get involved in Arlington's 150th anniversary. Visit Arnican150.com and follow at City of Arnickan on social media. Until next time, let's keep on here on our past and pay the way for what's next. The story of Arnikan is still being written, and you are part of it. So long. Thank you again, Steve. You're welcome.