tz
/ August 29, 2026
Herschend Family Entertainment is the largest family-owned themed attractions company in the United States, tracing its roots to 1950 when Hugo and Mary Herschend leased Marvel Cave near Branson, Missouri. To entertain visitors waiting for cave tours, the family built a small 1880s-style village on…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
Custom Coasters International (CCI) was an American roller coaster manufacturer based in West Chester, Ohio, that became one of the most prolific builders of wooden coasters in the world during the 1990s. Founded on September 1, 1991, as Custom Coasters Incorporated by Denise Dinn-Larrick, her…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
Anton Schwarzkopf was a German engineer who took over his family’s business in 1960 and turned it into Schwarzkopf Industries GmbH, one of the most influential roller coaster manufacturers of the 20th century. Based in Münsterhausen, Bavaria, the company built rides that traveled with European…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters, known throughout the industry simply as PTC, was founded on January 21, 1904, by Henry B. Auchy and Chester Albright. What began as the Philadelphia Toboggan Company grew into one of the most influential roller coaster and carousel manufacturers in American amusement…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
The Gravity Group is a roller coaster design and engineering firm based in Cincinnati, Ohio, founded in July 2002 by a team of former engineers from Custom Coasters International after that company went bankrupt. The founders brought decades of combined civil, structural, and mechanical engineering…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
Chance Rides is an American amusement ride manufacturer based in Wichita, Kansas, founded by Harold Chance in 1961. What began as a small manufacturing operation grew out of Chance’s earlier work building miniature trains for the Ottaway Amusement Company, which also operated Wichita’s Joyland Amusement…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
Maurer Rides traces its roots to 1876, when the Maurer family began operating a steel construction business in Munich, Germany. That steelworking expertise carried the company into bridges, industrial buildings, and eventually amusement rides, culminating in the 1993 acquisition of the roller coaster division from…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
S&S Worldwide is an American amusement ride manufacturer founded in 1994 by Stan and Sandy Checketts in Logan, Utah. The company built its early reputation on air-powered drop tower rides like the Space Shot and Turbo Drop, technology the Checketts adapted from their earlier work…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
Antonio Zamperla S.p.A. is an Italian amusement ride manufacturer based in Altavilla Vicentina, near Vicenza, founded in 1966 by Antonio Zamperla. The company’s roots trace back further to a family tradition of traveling circuses and street cinemas, with Zamperla himself starting out as a showman…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
Premier Rides is an American amusement ride manufacturer founded in 1995 and headquartered in Baltimore, Maryland. Owned and led by Jim Seay since 1996, the company built its reputation by pioneering the use of linear induction motors (LIMs) to launch roller coasters, a technology that…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
Great Coasters International, Inc. (GCI) is a roller coaster manufacturer based in Sunbury, Pennsylvania, founded in 1994 by Mike Boodley and Clair Hain Jr. Boodley had previously worked as a designer for Custom Coasters International, while Hain had built a reputation as a master wooden…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
Gerstlauer Amusement Rides GmbH is a German manufacturer of roller coasters and amusement rides headquartered in Münsterhausen, Bavaria. Founded in 1982 by Hubert Gerstlauer, a former employee of the legendary Schwarzkopf Industries, the company began as an electrical and pneumatic supplier before pivoting to full…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
Mack Rides is a family-owned German manufacturer of roller coasters, dark rides, flat rides, and log flumes, headquartered in Waldkirch, Baden-Württemberg. The company traces its roots back to 1780, when it began as a carriage and stagecoach maker before pivoting toward the entertainment industry in…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
Vekoma Rides Manufacturing traces its roots to 1926, when Hendrik op het Veld founded a machine factory in the Netherlands originally called Veld Koning Machinefabriek, the source of the company’s abbreviated name. The business built farm equipment and later steel structures for the Dutch coal…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
Intamin is a Swiss-founded, Liechtenstein-headquartered ride manufacturer that has spent nearly six decades pushing roller coasters to new physical extremes. Founded in 1967 in Bern, Switzerland by Robert Spieldiener, Reinhold Spieldiener, and Alfons Saiko, the company’s name is a syllabic abbreviation of “international amusement installations.”…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
Bolliger & Mabillard, widely known in the industry as B&M, is a Swiss roller coaster design and manufacturing company founded in 1988 by engineers Walter Bolliger and Claude Mabillard. Based in Monthey, Switzerland, the pair previously worked together at fellow ride manufacturer Giovanola before striking…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
Yale Bowl is the 61,446-seat stadium in New Haven, Connecticut, where Yale has played every home football game since it opened on November 21, 1914 — the answer to “where does Yale play football” for well over a century now, and one of the oldest…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
LaVell Edwards Stadium sits on the campus of Brigham Young University in Provo, Utah, at an elevation of about 4,649 feet, making it one of the highest-elevation stadiums in major college football. It has served as the home field for BYU Cougars football since it…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
The Brooklyn Paramount is a live music venue inside a lavishly restored 1928 movie palace at 385 Flatbush Avenue Extension in Downtown Brooklyn. Designed by the Chicago architecture firm Rapp and Rapp for Paramount Pictures, the rococo-style theater originally sat over 4,000 guests and hosted…
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tz
/ August 29, 2026
Tipitina’s opened its doors on January 14, 1977, at the corner of Napoleon Avenue and Tchoupitoulas Street in Uptown New Orleans, taking its name from a Professor Longhair composition. The building itself dated to 1912 and had cycled through lives as a gambling house, gymnasium…
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