Great Adventure Theme Park and Rolling Thunder | Jackson Township, New Jersey

 

Six Flags Great Adventure

 
Great Adventure is a Six Flags theme park in Jackson Township, New Jersey that opened in 1974 and still is open today.

It has an animal park and many rides and attractions.

Roller coasters are still extremely popular at Great Adventure. But where did they come from and who invented them?

The History Of Roller Coasters

Roller coasters originated in Russia, and were popular in many other countries.

According to PBS American Experience’s fascinating A Century of Screams: The History of the Roller Coaster:

The roller coaster has its origins in St. Petersburg, Russia, as a simple slide that took thrillseekers down an icy ramp past a variety of colored lanterns. Catherine the Great gave this custom a boost when she fitted her imperial sleigh with wheels for summer use. The next leap forward came when a French traveler beheld this odd national pastime and imported it to his homeland. Adapting the ice slide to a milder climate, the French soon learned to erect a track with a groove running down the middle. A bench with wheels was fitted into the groove, and down the Parisians went — facing sideways.

Roller Coasters are very much part of American popular culture to this day. They became especially popular in Coney Island, located in Brooklyn, New York.

Americans loved their roller coasters.

As PBS continues:

By the 1920s the scream machine was evoking more screams than ever. America boasted as many as 1500 roller coasters, the highest of which stood 138 feet high, the fastest of which plummeted to earth at 61 mph. From the simple “out-and-backs” more complex forms had evolved, with tighter curves, steeper drops and wild combinations of spirals and figure eights. In Los Angeles, there was even an “auto coaster” designed to be traveled by automobiles.

This was the Golden Age of Roller Coasters, or rather, the Wooden Age — and a bracing era it was. Clattering, jittering and lurching, coasters made of wood instilled the kind of terror that kept visitors coming back. Coney Island’s Cyclone, built in 1927 by Vernon Keenan and Harry Baker, was perhaps the paragon of the wooden form. No less an eminence than Charles Lindbergh remarked that it was scarier than flying an airplane. With its 85-foot drop executed at 60 miles an hour, it is still considered by many to be the standard by which all others other measured.

Rolling Thunder At Great Adventure

The ride I remember most is Rolling Thunder, a wooden roller coaster that operated from 1979-2013. 

It was a sad day when it closed and was finally demolished. Rolling Thunder was so famous it even has its own Wikipedia page.

I wasn’t fond of roller coasters than turned upside down which is why I preferred Rolling Thunder to Lightnin’ Loops.

I do remember how Rolling Thunder would s-l-o-w-l-y climb up the tracks and poise for a breathless moment on top — and then go racing down!

Here is a commercial for the new Rolling Thunder roller coaster in 1979!

Here is a great video detailing the history of Rolling Thunder.

Here is a view from the ride itself.

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