Six Flags Over Texas | Flashback : Dallas

September 11, 2023

The Stagecoach Ride at Six Flags: 1961-1967

What could possibly go wrong?

by Paula Bosse

Did you ride the stagecoach at Six Flags?

The stagecoach at Six Flags? What? This:

And this (with grazing buffalo for added Old West atmosphere):

When I first saw Six Flags postcards touting stagecoach rides, my first thought was, “How did they ever manage to get insurance for that?”

six-flags_stagecoach_buffalo_ebay_reverse

The “Butterfield Overland” ride debuted in the “Confederate” section when the park opened in 1961 and lasted until about 1967. It was very, very popular.

1965, via UTA Libraries Special Collections (det)

Why did I never know about this when I was a kid? I never saw a stagecoach. I would have LOVED to ride a stagecoach. What happened? Well, here’s what happened: in May 1967, one of the stage’s wheels came off mid-ride, and the stage overturned, injuring 11 of the 14 people on board, most of them children. A 4-year-old Haltom City girl — who was riding on the top — was pinned beneath the overturned stagecoach. When she was freed, she was rushed to the hospital and underwent emergency surgery on both feet. One of the news stories about this unfortunate incident ended with, “Saturday’s accident was the first involving the stagecoach since the park opened in 1961,” adding that more than 4 million persons had ridden this ride between 1961 and 1967. (Four million!) (Granted, I think there were four stagecoaches and four teams of horses, but… four million!!)

One month after the accident, it was reported that the girl’s father had sued Six Flags for $531,000, contending that park officials were guilty of 30 counts of negligence. ($531,000 would be the equivalent in today’s money of about $5 million.) I can’t find anything about what happened with this lawsuit, but I assume there was probably a quiet settlement. Coincidentally or not, that spelled the end of the Butterfield Overland stagecoach ride at Six Flags Over Texas.

And that’s why I never heard of — or got to experience — a stagecoach ride at Six Flags.

(I don’t know what happened to the buffalo.)

***

Sources & Notes

Top photo of a Six Flags stagecoach jam-packed with kids from Fort Worth magazine.

The 1965 image is a detail of a larger photo from the Jack White Photograph Collection, UTA Libraries Special Collections — see the full photo and more details here.

Read more about this Butterfield Overland stagecoach ride at Parktimes.com.

The whole “Confederate” and “Texas” sections of SFOT were kind of weird, including a several-times-a-day lynching (!), as can be seen in one of the postcards in the 2014 Flashback Dallas post “Angus Wynne Jr.’s ‘Texas Disneyland’ — 1961.”

For real, non-amusement-park stagecoach tidbits, check out the post (also from 2014) “Dallas to Austin by Stagecoach: Only Three Days! (1854).”

A slightly different version of this post originally appeared on the Flashback Dallas Patreon page in August 2023. If you’d like to see daily Flashback Dallas posts, please consider supporting me on Patreon, for as little as $5 a month.

six-flags_stagecoach_fort-worth-magazine_sm

3 Comments

October 29, 2019

“Texas Excitement” — Six Flags Over Texas by Rail

Count ’em…

by Paula Bosse

There’s a lot going on in this postcard! The description, from the back of the card:

TEXAS EXCITEMENT
Three of the most popular rides at SIX FLAGS Over Texas are shown in action. At top is the Runaway Mine Train which annually carries more than 2½ million riders. At center an authentic 1898 steam engine carries passengers over a narrow gauge track which encircles the huge theme park. And, in the foreground is the SIX FLAGS Mini Mine Train, designed for the younger set.

***

Sources & Notes

This 1970s-era postcard is from Ken Collier’s fantastic Six Flags Over Texas site, here.

1 Comment

April 10, 2018

Casa Magnetica

How often is juggling mind-blowing? It was here! (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

Every year my aunt and her fun friend Shirley took my brother and me to Six Flags Over Texas. This was the ’70s, so some of the original hard-to-believe attractions were already gone (helicopter and stagecoach rides?! — see a promotional video of the park from 1965 here), but it was still when the place was an actual “theme” park — an amusement park originally suggested by aspects of Texas history. The sections of the park represented the six flags that have flown over Texas (see a map here). One of those sections was the Spanish section, the location of two of my favorite Six Flags attractions: the log ride and Casa Magnetica.

Casa Magnetica was the hard-to-wrap-your-brain-around tilted house (newspaper articles reported it was built at either a 24.6-degree angle or a 34-degree angle) which made you feel completely disoriented, especially if you’d just stepped in from the blinding blast of 110-degree heat and were feeling a bit queasy from one too many Pink Things. I loved it. Things rolled uphill, you couldn’t stand up straight, and your brain was mighty confused. The text from the back of the postcard seen above:

Casa Magnetica was introduced very early in Six Flags’ history — it debuted in the second season, 1962, and it was a huge hit. Here is how the SFOT marketing team described it in press releases at the time. (Clippings and images are larger when clicked.) Imagine what it would have been like to have been the architect of this place!

Six Flags Gazette, April 22, 1962

Six Flags Gazette, April 29, 1962

As far as new attractions, the weird little house was the biggest hit of the 1962 season.

Six Flags Gazette, April 20, 1963

Here it is, under construction, in late 1961 or early 1962:

And, later, with a teenage “hostess” sitting under its Spanish-mission-inspired arch.

The caption of the photo above: “WHICH ONE’S STRAIGHT? — It’s hard to tell in the Casa Magnetica in the Spanish section. It’s difficult to keep from leaning the wrong way in this house where water seems to run uphill. Notice in the lower left of the picture how the basketful of goodies seems to be hanging instead of sitting.” (Six Flags Gazette, May 27, 1962)

Caption: “SOMETHING WRONG? — Six Flags hostesses find that the law of gravity doesn’t seem to apply in Casa Magnetica.” (Six Flags Gazette, April 29, 1962)

Caption: “LEMME OUT! — In Casa Magnetica, a house in the Spanish Section of Six Flags which defies gravity, this hostess gets a little panicky when the 34-degree slant proves too much for her.” (Six Flags Gazette, April 26, 1962)

***

Sources & Notes

Postcard at top from Flickr.

Articles and captioned photos are from the Six Flags Gazette, a seasonal supplement that appeared in both the Grand Prairie Daily News-Texan and the Irving Daily News-Texan during the early years of Six Flags.

Photo of Casa Magnetica under construction in the scrubby Arlington landscape is from the History of Six Flags Facebook group, posted there by the administrator Michael Hicks, submitted to Flashback Dallas by reader Brian Gunn (thank you, Brian!).

The photo of the Six Flags “hostess” sitting outside the entrance to Casa Magnetica is from the Six Flags Over Texas Facebook page, here (it appears with a photo of the Chaparral Antique Cars, the second-most popular attraction introduced in the 1962 season).

Read the “spiel” you’d hear when you visited Casa Magnetica, here.

And, in case you missed it above, I highly encourage you to watch the 6-minute Six Flags Over Texas promotional film from 1965 at the Texas Archive of the Moving Image (TAMI) website here (Casa Magnetica is seen briefly at the :45 mark). Watch it full-screen!

More Flashback Dallas posts on Six Flags Over Texas can be found here.

7 Comments

December 24, 2016

The Over-the-Top University Park Christmas Display Featuring Big Tex and a Six Flags Spee-lunker

Big Tex on the roof, a “Spee” to the right (click for larger image)

by Paula Bosse

You may have heard about Wayne Smith’s annual spectacular Christmas display in the 3600 block of Southwestern in University Park — the one with a cast of thousands, including a previous head of Big Tex, what seems like hundreds of illuminated Santas, Dracula, Moe Howard, and a former denizen of Six Flags Over Texas’ “Cave”/Spee-lunker ride. Before I get back to the “Spees” (the name the creatures have been given by their surprisingly enthusiastic fan-following), here’s a wider shot of a photo I took during last year’s holiday season. (Click it!)

(And this gives you only an inkling of what’s actually there. I LOVED it! I waited until after Christmas — in fact, after New Year’s — to wander around — I can only imagine how backed up with looky-loos the street gets closer to Christmas.)

Back to the Spees. The Cave water ride debuted in 1964 and was an immediate hit. When it opened, there were 28 of these creatures who, according to the original marketing, “came from innerspace.”

They are 30 inches high and they play harps, do the Twist, play cards, hammer cave crystals into rock candy and engage in a shell game — turtle racing.

This ride was always one of my favorites (probably because it provided a brief, cool respite from the glaring sun and the blasting heat that plagued my annual summer visits to Six Flags).

The Spee-lunkers left Six Flags a long time ago, so it’s nice to see that one of them is still entertaining local crowds, right next to another beloved DFW icon, Big Tex … along with a phalanx of festive Santas!

Lest you think the publicity mill wasn’t working all angles of this new attraction, we see below that one of the Spees got a visit from, of all people, TV-darling Donna Douglas who played Elly May Clampett on The Beverly Hillbillies.

photo and article, Hood County News Tablet, June 4, 1964

August, 1964

Grand Prairie Daily News, May 25, 1977

***

Sources & Notes

Photo of Wayne Smith’s Christmas display taken by me on January 2, 2016. The house is in the 3600 block of Southwestern, between Baltimore and Thackery. Since the display is probably visible from space, there’s no way you can miss it.

Postcards found on eBay and Google.

Every year TV crews descend on Smith’s house to do a story. Watch one from this year — from CW33 News — here.

For those who might like more info on the Spee-lunker attraction/ride (which, by the way, is classified as a “dark ride” in amusement park lingo) at Six Flags Over Texas, here’s a bunch of links:

Weird video and music (and history!) by a superfan, here
Article by the same guy who put the above video together, here
Spee-lunker vignettes described here
Google images aplenty, here

More on the new ride can be found in the Dallas Morning News archives in the article “$300,000 Hole: Six Flags To Open Cave Ride” (DMN, May 24, 1964) — accompanying the article is an amusing photo captioned “Gail Powers yelps in mock fear as lobster seizes her hand.”

A shout-out to Wendy Cook who, when I posted the top picture to the Flashback Dallas Instagram feed in January, pointed out to me that the Spee-lunker was even in there. She recognized him right away, but with so much visual overload, I hadn’t even noticed him! Thanks, Wendy!

See stuff bigger — when in doubt, click it!

April 26, 2016

Six Flags: The Mexican Section — 1961

Bienvenidos!

by Paula Bosse

The image above is from a Six Flags Over Texas postcard. The description on the back reads:

Geometric Patterns — Mexican Section
Multi-colored lighting effects reveal a fascinating and beautiful picture of the Canopied Garden Walkway leading into the Mexican Section at this new 105-acre $10,000,000 family entertainment center.

Here it is in the daytime, still kind of attention-grabbing, but nowhere near as cool-looking:

via Ken Collier

I just wanted to post this Six Flags picture I’d never seen and move along, but why not add a few more postcards showing attractions in this part of the theme park: the “Mexican Section.”

There was the Fiesta Train (which I was surprised to see was originally called Ferrocarril Fiesta), which was topped with colorful sombreros and chugged by all sorts of “festive” scenes which might seem a little culturally eyebrow-raising today.

via Ken Collier

There were animatronic bull fights. “Olé!”

via Gorillas Don’t Blog

There were … dancing tamales. DANCING TAMALES! (Designed by Peter Wolf.)

Dancing Tamales — Mexican Section
One of the most popular of the many colorful and comical animations on the Fiesta Train ride, this group of Dancing Tamales perform to the gay strains of Mexican music that fills the air.

via Flickr

And speaking of Mexican music, there were strolling mariachis.

via Flickr

And there was an even an El Chico restaurant.

Six Flags Gazette, Sept. 10, 1961

Here is an interesting article about what visitors to the brand new amusement park could expect to encounter on their visit to the Mexican Section, written by the Six Flags promotion department (click for larger image).

Six Flags Gazette, Aug. 6, 1961

And, no, I couldn’t find a 1961 photo of the sombrero ride!

UPDATE: Found one (from 1965)!

***

Sources & Notes

Sombrero ride photo is from the Fort Worth Star-Telegram Collection, University of Texas at Arlington Libraries, Special Collections — more on this photo is here.

Info about the Six Flags Railroad is here; more about the Ferrocarril Fiesta Train is here.

Apparently those tamales (with a face lift) are still around? I LOVE THESE GUYS!

via GuideToSFOT.com

Ken Collier is The Man for all things Six Flags. See his great site, here.

Other Flashback Dallas posts on Six Flags Over Texas can be found here.

5 Comments

February 22, 2016

When a Ten-Spot Could Get a Family of Four Into Six Flags — 1962

ad-six-flags_dmn_042362

by Paula Bosse

Six Flags Over Texas is about to open up again. In 1962 — the theme park’s second year — the admission price for one adult was $2.75 (approximately $22.00 in today’s money), and the price for children under 12 was $2.25 (approximately $18.00 in today’s money). A family of two adults and two children would pay $10.00 for admission — that would be a little under $80.00 in 2016 money, which was still a lot back then, until you compare it to today’s Six Flags ticket prices: $250 for a family of four (as long as both of those children are under 48″ tall). (Pink Things not included.) And you probably won’t even see a dad wearing a suit and tie and a porkpie hat. And you certainly won’t get to see ANY of this! I think you got a lot more bang for your buck 50 years ago.

***

Never leave home without the Inflation Calculator.

3 Comments

November 15, 2015

Six Flags’ Historical Press Bookshop — 1965

by Paula Bosse

Six Flags Over Texas had a bookstore: the Historical Press Bookshop, located in the “Confederate Section.” Who knew? I was surprised when I ran across this postcard, but I figured it was a place to buy gum, film (remember film?), giant combs emblazoned with the Six Flags logo, and this very postcard. But no. It was a bookstore that sold rare Texana, including historic books, prints, and documents. At Six Flags. …Over Texas. …Land of Pink Things and Log Rides.

The description from the back of the postcard:

six-flags-bookshop_back

The store was ostensibly owned by Six Flags developer Angus Wynne, Jr., but the contents were owned by Ted W. Mayborn, wealthy petroleum trade journal publisher, writer, and Texas history aficionado. In a playful bow to having an antiquarian bookstore inside a theme park (!), he hired female family members to dress up in cowgirl outfits and brandish six-shooters in a bid to “protect” the (probably very expensive) merchandise.

I’m not really sure how this worked — or why anyone would think this was a good idea. Would one find oneself enjoying a day at Six Flags only to stumble across this unexpected cache of rare books and feel compelled to pick up a leather-bound first edition or a fragile broadside? Or would one go to Six Flags expressly to visit the bookstore and browse the stock — despite the fact that it was in an amusement park? Would one have one’s purchase shipped, or would one lug it around the park, through Casa Magnetica, past Skull Island, and into the Spelunker’s Cave?

There has to be a story behind this unusual business endeavor. Did Ted save Angus from choking one time? Did he win the franchise in a poker game?

I’m not sure how long the Historical Press Bookshop lasted. My guess? Longer than it should have.

Weirder than discovering that a bookshop was once part of the Six Flags experience was learning that Mr. Mayborn owned a real bookshop called the Red Barn Bookstore and that my father worked for him for a few months, a time my mother described as being brief but stressful. I think I can understand why.

Click pictures for larger images.

August 22, 2014

Candy Stripers Moonlighting as Six Flags Map Sellers — ca. 1961

by Paula Bosse

“Yes, sir, you absolutely must have a map!”

When going to an amusement park meant going in a suit and tie. …And hat.

I see maybe a couple of teenagers. Otherwise … rather ominously … no children.

***

Six Flags Over Texas, probably in its opening year, 1961.

Click for larger image.

May 21, 2014

Six Flags-Inspired Recipes for the (Gluten-Tolerant) Superfan — 1966

by Paula Bosse

Did you know there was a Six Flages-themed cookbook? Well, there was! Issued in 1966 by the Gladiola Flour company (every recipe — rather unsurprisingly — contains flour), the Six Flags aficionado was presented with dishes such as “Casa Magnetica Churros,” “Log Flume Log Cake,” “Skull Island Treasure Cookies,” and “Sky Hook Snickerdoodles.” From the introduction:

“Names of the recipes have been inspired by attractions and rides at Six Flags Over Texas, the exciting adventureland located midway between Dallas and Fort Worth. Look to the Six Flags Over Texas Cookbook when you want something different — a dish your guests will remember.”

That “Log Flume Log Cake”? Mosey on over here and whip one up this weekend for your gluten-tolerant friends and family.

six-flags-ckbk_cover_1966-sm

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six-flags-ckbk_france

six-flags-ckbk_mexico

six-flags-ckbk_texas

***

All images from The Six Flags Over Texas Cookbook by Gladiola (Sherman: Fant Milling Co., 1966). These images (and the entire cookbook) from Ken Collier’s great Six Flags Over Texas collection. The cookbook can be viewed here; and check out his other Six Flags pages here.

For other Flashback Dallas posts on the early days of Six Flags Over Texas, see here.

Click oblong pictures for larger images.

1 Comment

May 20, 2014

Angus Wynne, Jr.’s “Texas Disneyland” — 1961

six-flags_stagecoach

by Paula Bosse

If you’re reading this, you’ve probably been to Six Flags Over Texas in Arlington. Depending on your age, you may pine for those glorious days of yesteryear when Six Flags was a truly unique theme park. Today it is not. Back then, there was only one Six Flags, and it was a great, weird place. A theme park based on Texas history! Who would come up with such a far-fetched idea? Angus Wynne, Jr. did. Some of it must have sunk in, because, to this day, the way I can remember the “six flags” that have flown over Texas is by remembering rides and attractions at Six Flags Over Texas.

I wasn’t going regularly to Six Flags until the ’70s, when it was still definitely all about Texas, but looking at old postcards that were issued to celebrate the opening of the park in 1961, I was shocked by some of the great stuff that was retired before my annual visits. Like … helicopter rides! Actual helicopter rides that took off from an area near (in?) the parking lot: five minutes for five dollars (this was back when admission was $2.25 for kids and $2.75 for adults — those days are long-gone…).

And … a stagecoach ride! I would have LOVED that! Looks kind of dangerous, though — which might be why it didn’t last. The description on the back of the postcard:

Bridge Out — Confederate Section: Butterfield Overland Stagecoach pulled by a team of four matched white horses cuts past washed out bridge on its way to deliver passengers and the U.S. mail back to the safety of the depot — always plenty of exciting action taking place at the multi-million dollar Six Flags Over Texas entertainment park.

six-flags_confederate

And, yes, the problematic “Confederate” section. The description on the back of this postcard reads:

Call To Arms — Confederate Section: Confederate Drill Team at Six Flags Over Texas. To these men in gray, the South is still ‘a-fightin’ them Yankees.’ Frequent enlistment rallies are held where youngsters join up and receive papers proving their military status in Terry’s Texas Rangers, 8th Texas Cavalry.

Don’t remember seeing that. It probably started to lose its luster somewhere back around the Vietnam War.

six-flags_spanish_mule

Jack Maguire, in his great Alcalde article (link below) describes this … um … “ride” thusly:

The Spanish section is next. Here guests board pack mules to venture forth with Francisco Vasquez de Coronado, greatest of the conquistadores, as he descends into Palo Duro Canyon searching for the Seven Cities of Cibola.

With the mules and the stagecoach team, Six Flags must have had a busy corral somewhere in the park.

six-flags_hanging

And, well, this is my favorite: a hanging. …At an amusement park. Maybe they’re just a-funnin’. This took place in the “Texas Section,” where the bank was robbed every hour on the hour and there was the show-stopping gunfight in the middle of the street. I remember that. I don’t remember some guy getting strung up, though. I like the fact that this photo was used to promote an amusement park.

six-flags

And here’s the whole of it, in 1961. I guess there must have been other things in Arlington back then. But it looks pretty empty once you’ve ventured past Skull Island and left the park.

(Click for much larger image!)

Thank you, Angus Wynne, Jr. — I had so much fun in your park — I wish I had seen it when it opened!

***

Sources & Notes

Top two postcards from the jumble of stuff I own.

All other postcards from the INCREDIBLE Six Flags Over Texas postcard collection of Ken Collier, which you can see — page after page after page — here.

I’m not sure where I found the map, but it gets pretty big when clicked.

Photo of Angus Wynne, Jr. from the Fall, 2002 issue of Legacies.

Memories of the helicopter ride by a former park employee (who says it lasted only until 1962 when it was discontinued due to a “hard landing” incident) can be read here.

And for a truly enjoyable look at the then-new theme park, I HIGHLY recommend Jack Maguire’s “The Wynne Who Waves Six Flags” in the November, 1961 issue of The Alcalde, the University of Texas alumni magazine — read it and look at the photos of a Six Flags *I* certainly never knew (but wish I had), here.

For my follow-up post on The Six Flags Over Texas Cookbook (1966) — with a link to the entire booklet and all the Six Flags-inspired recipes — see here.

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Category: Six Flags Over Texas

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