[DaveVan]

Anyone else here old enough to have gone to Lakeside? I went in 1971 while living in Charlotte. Long way to go before Carowinds! It was a decent old style park with one large wood coaster. Not a lot of history out there on the park other than it was closed to make a shopping center.....today a McDonalds sits at what was the entrance. Others????

[shootingstar]

Oh yes, I remember Lakeside Park! It was located in Salem, VA, near Roanoke. I went there many, many times in my younger days. I really miss that park. Their wooden coaster, the Shooting Star, was the focal point of the park. It was a John Allen PTC dogleg out and back, a truly great coaster. It was the first coaster I ever rode, and remains my favorite to this day.

Lakeside closed at the end of the 1986 season. There were several reasons actually, competition from larger parks in the area (including Carowinds), a devastating flood in November 1985 that damaged a lot of the rides and buildings, and an accident involving the Shooting Star in 1986 that resulted in a lawsuit. A maintainance worker was cutting grass along the Shooting Star before the park opened one morning, and was struck and killed by a train of the Shooting Star while on a test run.

The Shooting Star was a major investment for the park, opening in 1968. It replaced an older coaster at the park. The coaster reportedly cost $225,000 at the time. It operated until the park closed in 1986. After Lakeside closed in late 1986, the Shooting Star was purchased by Emerald Pointe Water Park in Greensboro, NC, disassembled, and was moved to Emerald Pointe, except for the track bed which could not be reused. The coaster sadly sat neatly stacked at Emerald Pointe for several years, rotting away, and was never rebuilt. Emerald Pointe had financial problems, and it was reported at the time that they realized they could not afford insurance to actually run the coaster. All of the wood was eventually sold as scrap lumber in 1994, sealing the fate of a classic John Allen coaster. The coaster had two trains, a red one and a blue one. One of them was sent back to PTC and apparently scrapped, the other was rebuilt and is running on Swamp Fox at Family Kingdom in Myrtle Beach...although I do not know which train.

There is a group on Facebook dedicated to Lakeside Park, with lots of pictures and stories from the park. There is even a link to a video on YouTube of the Shooting Star.

The track bed from the Shooting Star sat stacked along Mason's Creek for many years, behind the current shopping center which occupies the site. It was finally donated to FloydFest, and much of the wood was used to construct a concert stage there. At least a small part of the Shooting Star is still entertaining people, with the concert stage and one of the trains on Swamp Fox!

[bgwfreak]

The coaster was recycled into a stage. How sad.

http://www.rcdb.com/id1954.htm

[swampfox43]

Anyone else here old enough to have gone to Lakeside? I went in 1971 while living in Charlotte. Long way to go before Carowinds! It was a decent old style park with one large wood coaster. Not a lot of history out there on the park other than it was closed to make a shopping center.....today a McDonalds sits at what was the entrance. Others????

I visited the remains of the Shooting Star at Emerald Pointe in 1994. When the manager told me they had decided to scrap the wood I asked him if he had any "souvenirs" he could give me. He gave the some of the original blueprints which I still have. I also took a 4x4 beam but stupidly tossed it in the dumpster a year later when cleaning.

The YouTube video is the one I posted a while back. I edited the movie and added the soundtrack but the video clip itself was taken by a guy named Clarence Hinze. Here's the link for those interested:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=BzTiPpVVZDE

[shootingstar]

I have a few "souvenirs" of the Shooting Star, too. I drove up to Salem about 4 years ago and got a few small pieces from the remains of the track bed. I have a small piece of the catwalk that ran beside the tracks, a piece of the red wood beneath the tracks, a turnbuckle (tensioner) from the steel cables at the turnaround, and a short piece of the metal track itself.

While I was in Salem, I also visited the museum there. They had a very nice exhibit on Lakeside, complete with a model of the Shooting Star. I'm not sure if the exhibit is still up, but if anyone is interested it would definitely be worth a phone call to the museum to find out. I've read that there is also a restaurant in Salem named "Macados" that has some items from Lakeside.

I've read that Charlie Dinn's company tried to find a buyer for the Shooting Star after Emerald Pointe decided not to rebuild it. I certainly would have loved it if Carowinds had purchased the coaster. Myself, I'd rather have had the Shooting Star at Carowinds than Hurler. The Shooting Star was an historically significant coaster, representing one of the first attempts by John Allen to design "mega coasters".

A very similar coaster designed by John Allen can still be ridden at Six Flags in St. Louis, the Screamin' Eagle. It was built in 1976, and is loosely based on the Shooting Star, with the same general layout. However, it is taller and longer.

[bgwfreak]

The layout reminds me of Screamin Eagle and GASM a bit, with a bit of Swamp Fox thrown in there too.

Too bad these old classics keep getting scrapped.

Makes me glad at least Cliffhanger wasn't scrapped, when so many little parks like Ghost Town wouldn't have even bothered.

[Edwardo]

Funny you just brought this up. I don't remember the park at all, but my mother told me the other day that I had been as a child. I kind of remember as a child talking about the place and remember having gone, but I don't remember anything about being there. Wish we'd had pix of us there.