Six Gun City
You have to know where to look in the Kentucky woods, but it’s up there in the hills—an abandoned town looking like the set of a John Wayne film. Was the place the forgotten theme park that the internet had touted it to be, though?
Back in October of this year, I published a piece on North Carolina’s “Ghost Town in the Sky,” a closed theme park sitting atop the fog draped peaks of the Smoky Mountains. That story intertwined with a deeply personal journey—all of it relating to the years I’d spent working in an amusement park crossed with all of the abandoned parks I’d photographed in the same era. The particular ghost town seen in this post today, however, seemed far less significant than the North Carolina subject. Visually, it was much smaller and far more disintegrated. Historically, there was little information and the accounts that did exist were conflicting. Personally, the surrounding circumstances of this trip weren’t as emotional—nor the stakes as high—as the previous Ghost Town, but I was in the company of a few other theme park employment refugees who had appeared in the first story.
This place had an uneasy quiet about it, a tension that reminded me of my earliest days of urban exploration. There wasn’t a lot to see, though, and we were pressed for time—this being just a small detour on the way to a weekend getaway. Aside from some animal jumping out of the tall grass and into one of the crumbling shacks, there was little excitement.
What was once known—or was intended to be known—as “Six Gun City,” actually traces its roots back to another closed park. “Tombstone Junction” got its start as a 2.5 mile standard gauge, scenic railroad. Eventually, the sightseeing attraction would evolve into a full fledged, western themed amusement park. Per a 1998 edition of the Lexington Herald-Leader: the park was also known as a venue for popular country music acts such as Tammy Wynette and Dolly Parton. The same paper notes that an October 1991 fire burnt Tombstone Junction beyond repair. But that park was merely mentioned as an anecdote, the main story concerned a new amusement park that would evoke the once popular, now departed Tombstone Junction.
The May 3, 1998 story credited to Ann Gibson of the Associated Press ran in multiple Kentucky newspapers on the same day under headlines such as:
“Effects of theme park worrying some”
Lexington Herald-Leader (Lexington, KY)“Six Gun City: Theme park promises jobs; environmentalists fear impact”
The Messenger (Madisonville, KY)“Nature advocates taking potshots at Six Gun City: It’s too close to Cumberland Falls, they say”
The Courier-Journal (Louisville, KY)“Six Gun City too close to nature preserve, critics claim”
The Courier-Journal Indiana Edition (Louisville, KY)“Environmentalists worried about effect of theme park on preserve”
The Advocate-Messenger (Danville, KY)“Theme park promises jobs; some fear impact on preserve”
The Messenger-Inquirer (Owensboro, KY)
Gibson’s reporting laid out that Six Gun City was hoping to open on May 18, just over two weeks from when the story ran. Plans called for hiring “up to about 70 seasonal workers, about 40 of them full-time” for a park that would feature “country dancing and wild-west shootouts.” The concern mentioned in the headlines was in regards to the nearby Cumberland Falls State Park Nature Preserve. While Tombstone Junction had previously been located near one of the state’s biggest tourism attractions, Six Gun City would actually border the park. In an effort to ease those concerns, a park spokeswoman listed efforts being made to protect the state park’s land: a new septic system had been installed away from the nature preserve and a fence was being erected to keep Six Gun City guests away from the state park. Still, the potential noise of live action, wild-west shootouts remained an apprehension for one quoted environmental advocate.
The nearby Cumberland Falls State Park and Nature Preserve.
The nearby Cumberland Falls State Park and Nature Preserve.
The nearby Cumberland Falls State Park and Nature Preserve.
The nearby Cumberland Falls State Park and Nature Preserve.
The nearby Cumberland Falls State Park and Nature Preserve.
The reason I’ve focused so much on this story by the AP’s Ann Gibson is because it’s seemingly the only mention of Six Gun City that I can find. After the May 1998 article, the term “Six Gun City” seems to never appear again (at least in regards to this particular park), nor does the name of the park spokeswoman. Which leads one to anecdotal evidence. A handful of YouTube videos and websites claim that Six Gun City was a stop on Tombstone Junction’s railroad, but Gibson’s article makes it clear that the new park hadn’t even discussed opening until well after Tombstone Junction closed. In a string of over 100 Facebook comments from 2015, two are somewhat relevant, but also conflicting:
One person claims to have been a performer at Six Gun City.
Another states that he believes it never opened.
If Six Gun City did eventually open to the public, it operated with little to no attention from the local press or records as far as I could find.
The remains of Six Gun City.
The remains of Six Gun City.
The remains of Six Gun City.
Smashed glass from vandalism.
The remains of Six Gun City.
The remains of Six Gun City.
Former slide attraction similar to those found at traveling carnivals?
As we were leaving, one of our group pointed something out. He and I had been casually trying to look up the park’s history on the way down to no avail. “I think this might have been a chair lift station,” my former amusement park coworker said to me. A chairlift would’ve been an interesting feature of the park, one in a similar vein to the aforementioned “Ghost Town in the Sky.” When I finally had a minute to look through newspaper records, this small line of Gibson’s reporting stood out: “A few hundred feet from the top of the renovated chair lift…”
Former chair lift station?
If there was once a chair lift to Six Gun City (if there even had been a Six Gun City), it was now long gone. These days, the “Niagara of the South” roars below while a ghost town remains hidden in the hills above.
Kentucky’s Cumberland Falls a.k.a. “The Niagara of the South.”
“Six Gun City” is just one of many abandoned amusement parks featured on this site over the years. View them all here.
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