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Kings Island founder inducted into Walk of Fame

Former Coney Island employee’s vision led to “greatest all-around theme park in the country.”

Provided Kings Island honored Gary Wachs on Saturday, Sept. 5, inducting him into its Walk of Fame.

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By Eric Schwartzberg, Staff Writer 12:49 AM Thursday, September 10, 2009

Millions of people visit Kings Island each year, but not many are aware that the roots of the 364-acre park are linked to Coney Island.

That’s where, in March 1964, a 28-year-old assistant manager named Gary Wachs devised a plan to rescue the park from the devastation inflicted by multiple floods, including one that saw the Ohio River flood and rise to 66.2 feet.

“When the waters went down ... I’m out there pushing flood mud with everybody else and when I looked at the destruction, I thought to myself ‘This is not the future that I want for this amusement park.’ ”

Emboldened with the belief that a young man “looks way down the road, where an old guy looks right around the corner,” Wachs envisioned where he wanted to be in his 30s and 40s.

“I didn’t think Coney Island had a future and that bothered me because we were recognized by our peers and the general public as the finest amusement park in America and we wanted to stay that way,” he said.

Kings Island honored Wachs on Saturday, Sept. 5, inducting him into its Walk of Fame.

Wachs devised a plan to relocate Coney Island and model the new park after theme parks that offered a “pay one price” admission. However, he aimed to include a crucial element ignored by those parks — rides.

Wachs also reasoned that if attendance totals were to expand beyond 1 million, the park needed a more expansive area, one that was located far from the flood plain.

However, with park attendance totals flourishing, Wachs said he felt like he was swimming upstream against an “if it ain’t broke, don’t fix it” mentality.

Presented with Wachs’ plan, Coney Island’s internal staff listened politely but took no action.But in 1968, Wachs received instant credibility when TV personality Fess Parker optioned property to build a theme park in northern Kentucky at the confluence of Interstate 71 and Interstate 75, where the former heads toward Louisville and the latter heads toward Lexington.

“We were all shell-shocked but overnight, I kind of went from a kid with crazy dreams to a kid with a very realistic dream and probably one we should have pursued some time ago,” Wachs said.

He soldiered on with his dream and in late 1968 explained his idea to Lawrence “Bud” Rogers, president of Taft Broadcasting Company, which had acquired Hanna-Barbera and was on the verge of acquiring Coney Island.During a second audience with Rogers and new board chairman Charlie Meachem two weeks later, Wachs presented the “through the roof” stock performance totals for the company that had acquired two new Six Flags theme parks.

“I’ll never forget, he (Meachem) pushed his chair back and almost knocked over a waiter,” Wachs said.

When banks got word about a theme park deal involving Taft Broadcasting and Coney Island, financing for Fess Parker’s venture evaporated.

Taft acquired Coney Island in July 1969 and threw its financial backing behind the construction of Kings Island, which took its name from the King family, who sold the acreage necessary for the park.

Drawing inspiration from a trip to Europe, Wachs filled the new park with flags, flowers and fountains. He also came up with the idea of live shows, International Street, Rivertown, a Hanna-Barbera section, German Village and countless other aspects of the park.

Kings Island opened in 1972 after two-and-a-half years of construction at a cost of $30 million. Wachs modeled Kings Island’s first signature ride, The Racer, after Coney Island’s popular Shooting Star ride and set off a roller coaster war among amusement parks that still has not abated.

The new park charged $6 for admission and drew more than 2 million people, twice the number of people Coney Island attracted in a typical season.

“It was a helluva value and people talked about it all over the place,” Wachs said of Kings Island. “The park was a cash cow since the hour it opened.”

Wachs, now general manager of Garfield Suites in Cincinnati, still speaks enthusiastically of his immensely popular Warren County creation. “I think Kings Island to this day is probably the greatest all-around theme park in the country,” he said.

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