Just southwest of Indianapolis, in Morgan county, over 500 acres of land just went on the market. Located right off Interstate-70 outside of Mooresville, it's only about a twenty-five minute drive from downtown Indianapolis. Residents of Mooresville have heard rumors that an unknown company will be purchasing the land for sale, and a nearby campground to build an amusement park. We do not have any proof of this rumor, but we will be following this story as it progresses.

Last September we told you about land for sale in Morgan county near Mooresville. Earlier this week a company known as "Extainment Co." purchased the 500 acre plot of land. Extainment Co. has yet to make an announcement, but they did say to us that the land is for an amusement park. They also said they plan on making an official announcement next month.

Extainment Company, who recently bought a 500+ acre plot of land near Mooresville off I-70 announced a press released about the planned amusement park. We are not allowed to copy the announcement onto the paper, but they said land clearing has already begun and they expect the amusement park to open in summer of 1976. The large park has yet to be given a name, but they did say they plan on opening it with three roller coasters, one being a world record breaker! They also released some photos taken of the site.

The amusement park will be located in in this area.

A campground named "Indiana Adventures Campground" was also purchased by the park, they plan on keeping it open throughout the construction of the park and when the park opens.

The construction site contains many lakes.

A farm was also bought with the purchase, and is unknown weather it'll stay.

Entercitement and their planned park that ultimately never happened.

Have Fun

Paul

If you drive along I-70 on the southside of town, you may notice a mysterious new structure hidden behind some trees. This mega-structure is actually a world record breaking roller coaster! At the "American Adventures" amusement park in Mooresville, workers have been very busy constructing the large park which is expected to open Spring 1976. Possibly the most exciting, eye-popping attraction at the park is the wooden roller coaster that is yet to have a name being built. It's actually going to be the world's tallest and fastest roller coaster on planet earth! The colossus coaster is being built by the legendary John Allen, who also built "The Racer" at Kings Island, two years ago.

We interviewed the park and we asked exactly how tall the roller coaster is... Park officials said that the coaster is going to stand over 115' tall! It will drop you about 110' at an incredible steep degree. The speed has yet to be determined but is expected to go over 55mph! We also asked the park what other thrill rides they have planned for the park. Park officials said that a steel looping roller coaster is expected to open with the park, along with log flume, a soaring spin ride, and a smaller roller coaster for the children. They also said they already have plans for later seasons as far as 1980! American Adventure's will be one of the largest amusement parks in the whole world.

Record-shattering roller coaster

Us here at American Adventures will be sending out these "Funstruction Guides" for the next year until the park opens in spring of 1976! Our first update is letting you guys know that the world's tallest and fastest roller coaster- Cannonball, is close to being finished. All of the track and structure is in place, but we still have to finish landscaping, the station and queue line, and test the ride to make sure it's ready! Here are some photographs for you!

American Adventures entrance area, with the train station and Cannonball in the background

The huge Cannonball

It is over 110' tall!

It also reaches speeds of over 55mph!

All while close to the water!

Nearby Cannonball is the train ride

As of now, just three of the five bridges are built.

Welcome to the second update in the Funstruction Guide! Since Cannonball is the biggest ride at the park, we started building it first! We are also building another big ride which you will see later. Now that we got the biggest roller coaster done, we started the second and also started making buildings throughout the park. We are going to focus on the part of the park with all the buildings together near the entrance, which doesn't have a name as of now. We aren't done, but we are getting close!

As soon as you walk in American Adventures, you see classic American architecture.

The first building will be the largest gift shop at the park.

This is the 'lobby' of it, notice the foliage, chandelier, and American Bicentinnial poster?

The other side of the store is the actual gift shop. We have a skylight in here!

The other side of this area includes these buildings.

The blue building which is an Emporium looks like this on the inside. It's pretty plain, but we haven't gotten this building finished yet.

The yellow and brick building is a restaurant- Indiana Dining Hall. This photo shows the waiting area at the front.

And this is the seating area.

And here is a sneak peak at what is to come up in the next Funstruction Guide update!

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American Adventures Funstruction Guide 3, May 30, 1975
Welcome back! We just sent out a guide two weeks ago, but we thought we would send out another! All we have gotten done (that we can show you) is a new building in the entrance area, and worked on an interior of another. Let us show you some photos!

This is what we will be focusing on this update

Emporium's interior has gotten wall paper and more items to sell

Here are some new shelves

Next door is another gift shop, this one if for kids

Many toys, and clothes

Staff is training very early!

One last look, I think it looks very nice

Here is what we call 'The Post Office'

It's actually the building that holds all the important stuff like Guest Relations, and all that kind of stuff

We already have employees working

Might not be as tall as Cannonball but boy does this one look scary!

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American Adventures Funstruction Guide 4, June 30, 1975
It's now officially summer, you know what that means? It's time to go camping! Indiana Adventures Camp Ground located right next to the park is now open. It'll be open until September when it'll close for the winter and reopen with a new name in Memorial Day weekend 1976. Although we are excited the camp ground is in full swing, we are MORE excited too announce that the park's signature steel coaster is testing! We aren't going to release the name just quite now, but we will share some photographs!

At Indiana Adventures Camp Ground you can rent your own tepee!

Or one of our 3 different sized tents

On the other side of the camp's lake is this huge steel roller coaster!

It's 100' tall!

The ride is full of many twists and turns

It is also a 'terrain coaster' meaning the track navigates it's way close to the ground, and if there is a slope on the ground, the track will follow it!

But the most notorious thing about this coaster is it's two 'loops'. Yep, this is the not only the first modern coaster to have an 'inversion' but it's the first to have two! The park has two record breaking roller coasters that are sure to be a hit!

Near the end of the ride your make your way through the helix, and than enter the ride's grand finale which we will keep a secret!

American Adventures Funsctruction Guide 5, July 4, 1975
Just one year from today America will be celebrated it's 200th. birthday also known as the American Bicentennial! Another thing about this time of the year is the extreme heat! Well I know one way I'll be chilling out next year! The log flume at American Adventures! Of course that is not what it's going to be named, but that is what we are calling it for now. In case you were unaware, a log flume is a ride similar to a roller coaster. There is a trench made of steel and it's filled up with water. You slowly float down the trench until the trench drops. Well now days just about every park has one, an we think ours is one of the best! Ours will have a mine shaft theme to it, so riders will feel like they are on an adventure across the hills in a mine town. Lets take a look!

This is the splash area, which includes the queue line, station, and ride

The log floats out of the station and up hill one. You never get too high off the ground because of the terrain

From ontop of the hill you get a bird's eye view of the camp ground next door

After a few turns you go down a small drop, and go right past this active mine

You climb the second and final lift hill which is themed...

Make a few turns...

And than you drop down the big hill!

Makes a pretty big splash!

As you can tell by the sign, it's still a construction zone, so there is more to come with the log flume, so stay tuned!

American Adventure's Funstruction Guide 6, July 20, 1975
This is just a small update, but I felt it was good enough to post. We do have lights at the park, but most are just for construction as of now. We have installed some throughout the park, but don't turn them on. We decided to turn on all the lights (well some) in Appalachia. We think the lights add alot to the ride experience, and atmosphere, and we want to hear what you think!

The log flume has a mysterious red and green lightning kit

Most of the random theming throughout the ride is lit up green

We were thinking about having this red

The lift hill looks pretty intimidating if you ask me!

My favorite of the lights, the station! We tried our best to make it look as abandoned as possible with it still looking good. Also notice the fake dead tree?

We also constructed the iconic tower for Appalachia which is still not fully finished being themed. Expect more soon!

Lastly, I thought you'd all like a photo showing the flume's layout from atop the tower

American Adventures Funstruction Guide 7, August 19, 1975
It's been a while since the last update! Well we have gotten a good amount of stuff done since last month. We are just about done with 'Liberty Square' which is the entrance plaza, and we are nearing completion of the biggest area, 'Appalachia'. In Appalachia we still have to do a little landscaping and more theme, finish a car ride and add a restroom. After we finish this area we will move on to the Fair Grounds which is where Cannonball is. Lastly we will work on the kids area of the park and which should be all done before May of 1976.

Approaching the newest ride, you walk in a very scenic area

The new ride manufactured by HUSS will be one of the most thrilling rides in the park, thanks for reading this small but informative update!

American Adventures Funstruction Guide 8, March 26, 1976.
Wow, we haven't updated in over 6 months! We have just about completed the park. Just this previous weekend, we had our employee preview day. All of the employees at the park and their family and friends got to visit the park. All rides were open, but the shows were not. We didn't take too many photos because we didn't want to spoil the real opening day. Here are the photos we did take!

Here is our park entrance, about 1,000 guest were at the park this day.

Most guests went to Cannonball, the world's tallest roller coaster!

Just about every guest agreed Cannonball is the best coaster they have ridden!

Guests grabbed ice cream and other treats at the State Fair section of the park.

Liberty Square looks nice, I can't wait to see how it looks in the upcoming years!

Another big hit was the log flume which was given the name- Chattahoochee Saw Mills.

Indianapolis Star, April 11, 1976
American Adventures Amusement Park near Mooresville just had it's grand opening yesterday! Over 13,000 guests were at the park for it's opening, that means about 18% of Indianapolis was at the park! American Adventures said they will be open on weekends from now until Memorial day weekend, than it will start all day operation until Labor day weekend when it will close for the season.

American Adventures Funstruction Guide 9, April 11, 1976
Wow! That is all I have to say about yesterday! We had over 13,000 people attend yesterday's park opening day! We had guests as far away from Brazil at the park! Luckily all rides at the park were open, cause some rides such as Double Loop and Cannonball had lines up to three hours most the day! The only attraction not open was the Aquatic Adventure Dolphin Show which was closed because it's April. Through out the day we interviewed people and took many photos! We will show the photos first!


Welcome to American Adventures, Indiana's biggest amusement park!

The State Fair is home to some of the biggest attractions at the park such as The Cannonball, Aquatic Adventure Dolphin Show, and Midwestern Tour Vintage Cars.

One of the most popular rides in the Fairgrounds was Spider.

The Fairgrounds could possibly be the most beautiful area in the park with it's fountain and gardens.

Sadly, Aquatic Adventure Dolphin Show will not be open until Memorial Day weekend once it's warm!

Jolly's Circus was for sure the most crowded area!

You cold barley walk without bumping into someone!

We have two car rides, one for the whole family, and another for the kids!

The park's smallest coaster was a hit with the kids!

One area that didn't get too much attention was the trail connecting Appalachia to Jolly's Circus.

Double Loop had a full queue just about all day.

Our park has three bathroom facilities, this one is the most themed!

Just about everyone said that Appalachia was the coolest themed area!

Chattahoochee River Saw Mill wasn't too busy because of the not too warm weather.

All the guests, and even me are extremely excited for the rest of the season!

Now here are some of the responses we got after interviewing guests!

Q: What is your favorite ride here at American Adventures?
A: My favorite ride has to be The Cannonball! It's so tall I thought I could see my house from the top. Plus it was cool being against the water!

Q: What do you think about Double Loop?
A: Double Loop was the scariest ride here! It was almost as tall as Cannonball! Than the drop was almost straight down, oh and the loops were the scariest! I thought the train might fall off when we flew through those loops!

Q: Will you be coming back to American Adventures?
A: Oh yes! I had the best day of my life today! I can not wait to come back!

Q: Do you have any advice which could make your next visit to American Adventures better?
A: My day at American Adventures was so great, I can't think of what could made it better. I think it would be so neat if the park had fireworks like Kings Island in Ohio though!

American Adventures Funstruction Guide 10, April 12, 1976
Yesterday was our second day of operation. To the guests who came both days, you could obviously tell that opening day was much more crowded. Yesterday it was in the lower 60's and rained some of the day. It didn't really look too good outside besides the morning and evening. We were shocked to see that both Cannonball and Double Loop both had walkons almost the whole entire day!

Cannonball with it's just about empty queue

Double Loop's queue just as empty

Barnstormer was closed during the rain, but did open some of the day

No one wanted to ride Chattahoochee River Saw Mills due to the weather so we ended up closing it early

Being a Sunday, we closed at 8PM.

It was a pretty good weekend, but lets hope they get better!

We are now in our everyday schedule, meaning you can visit the park on weekdays. We have been asking many guests for criticism on our park and we haven't gotten too much, but one of the most common things said was that the park doesn't have enough food options. This update will be showing some of the great places at American Adventures to grab a bite, and also telling you that we do have plans to add much more food options in the near future!

The popular Indiana Dining Hall on Liberty Square has an outdoor seating area

There is a back door from Indiana Dining Hall leading to the outdoor seating area, and there is also a hidden pathway to it from the park entrance

Appalachia Grill has mostly meat-related food such as BBQ and steak. There is some indoor seating, but alot of outdoor tables

Throughout the park there are small vendors such as this one in Appalachia

Than in the Fairgrounds we have a massive ice-cream bar

There are a few booths, many tables, and a good amount of bar stools here to provide guests a relaxing environment to eat