In February of 2001 – over 25 years ago – we launched Roller Coaster Alley with the simple dream of being the best source of information for Silverwood Theme Park fans. We could never have dreamed it would continue for this long, but it’s been an amazing journey! We wanted to take a moment to pause and reflect on this major milestone for our site.
Mike and Chris’s On-Ride Photo from Tremors in 1999
Let’s take a walk down memory lane, shall we? If you’ve been following us for any amount of time, you’ll know that we are two brothers who have a shared love of theme parks and roller coasters worldwide. Around the turn of the century, we had developed an affinity for Silverwood Theme Park, it being our “hometown” park. We also enjoyed making our own personal websites about theme parks, and we yearned for a project we could collaborate on together. Many other theme parks had unofficial websites created by fans, and we saw a golden opportunity to do something fun for our own local park.
Version 1.0 – the O.G.!
Roller Coaster Alley 1.0 was thus born with the goal to be a place for Silverwood fans to come together, learn about the park, and interact. Our original site had park information, rumors, ride reviews, user-submitted trip reports, and even…lime green text (it sounded like a good idea at the time). Over the years, we’ve evolved the look and feel of the site, adding some new things that worked well, and others that didn’t really pan out. But at the core, we always strove to live up to our original vision. Here’s a few more screenshots of our older versions; which one makes you laugh the most?
Version 2
Version 3
Version 4
The most recent major change to the site was a few years ago, when we decided to embrace our true identity as a blog and fan site. It’s been a lot more fun posting our opinions and sharing our own personal tips, as opposed to simply offering park info and news. And branching out to include coverage of other theme parks in the Pacific Northwest – although they are VERY few and far between, and shrinking in quantity – has helped broaden our reach a bit more. Suffice to say, we hope you enjoy the content as much as we enjoy creating it!
25 years is a long time to be following a theme park. We’re long past the point where we’ve been covering Silverwood for more years than we weren’t, and as such, we’ve seen a lot. We fondly remember the first major addition we covered – the original incarnation of Boulder Beach in 2003, pictured above. That encompassed Polliwog Park, Rumble Falls, the Lazy River, and the first Wave Pool. It’s hard to believe the water park once only featured those four attractions.
Since then, we’ve followed the additions of Velocity Peak, Panic Plunge, Aftershock, Avalanche Mountain, Ricochet Rapids, SpinCycle, Riptide Racer, Stunt Pilot, Scarywood, Eagle Hunt, and everything in between. Not to brag, but we even accurately predicted a couple of those! We watched the park close and re-open during the pandemic in 2020. We’ve had the chance to interview several people at the park, most notably former park owner Gary Norton in 2013. And just last summer, we were honored to be featured on Silverwood’s Podcast. Above all else, we have enjoyed hearing from and interacting with all of you, our readers.
Perhaps it’s fitting that we hit this milestone at almost the exact same time as our home park is entering it’s new era under Herschend Family Entertainment. There’s a lot that could change at Silverwood over the coming years – most of which we believe will be positive. As we enter our next quarter century, it will be fun to follow and discuss as all of those changes unfold.
In short – thanks for joining us for 25 amazing years. Here’s to another 25 and beyond!
How long have you been following Roller Coaster Alley? Do you remember any of our older site versions? Who remembers the lime green text? Is there a favorite article or memory from our site over the years that sticks out? Let us know in the comments below - we'd love to hear from you!
The official Silverwood Theme Park website can be found at: www.silverwoodthemepark.com. All business-related questions should be directed to this site.
