Wednesday, August 31, 2011

Tombstone Junction


I have one last western themed brochure to share, it's Tombstone Junction in Cumberland Falls, Kentucky.  This park was notable for having a full-size operating steam train that ran on a 2½ mile track.

I was a little skeptical of the "See the World's Top Country & Western Stars Perform" claim (see the yellow circle above), but after checking out the Wikipedia entry it seems this was totally true.



When other small parks fold up they usually just quietly go bankrupt, but it sounds like Tombstone Junction went out in a blaze of glory.  The place caught fire twice - once in 1989 which caused serious damage, and again sometime around 1991 which was the final coup de grâce for the park. Then according to the wiki entry even the wooden train cars were intentionally burnt to salvage the scrap metal in 1992. Although it's reported the burning cars rolled away uncontrolled and crashed in a flaming heap.  I think I might have bought tickets to see that.

1 comment:

Anonymous said...

This is all true. The biggest country stars came here. That handsome town sheriff in the blue shirt and black vest is my brother. His high school sweetheart worked in the Red Garter saloon restaurant. They later married. This was a family fun wonderful place. Conway Twitty use to go to one of the locals homes and eat dinner. Lol great memories. I was just a kid but remember it well and all the stars. Dolly Parton. Loretta Lynn. Johnny Cash, just to name a few.

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