For Washington, D.C., resident Lise Bruneau, Six Flags America in Maryland is more than a big-name attraction filled with rides, games and gift shops.
It’s the place she began taking her family 16 years ago, where her son first learned to swim. It’s the place that reignited her childhood love for amusement parks and holds generations’ worth of memories.
“We will feel its loss,” she said of the park. “I feel it already.”
Six Flags America and water park Hurricane Harbor in Bowie closed permanently on Sunday after drawing a crowd of all ages for a final day of reminiscing. Visitors reflected on the role the park has played in their personal lives and its impact on Prince George’s County, trying to imagine a future without the community staple that’s been around under different names since the 1970s.
The site first opened as a wildlife preserve, according to The Washington Post. It was then acquired by ABC, quickly sold and renamed Wild World for a time. It was finally bought by Six Flags Entertainment in 1999.
The park’s parent company, which manages more than 40 amusement parks across North America, announced it would close the sole Maryland location in May.
The corporation plans to sell the 500-acre property to be redeveloped because it no longer fits into its business optimization plan and selling the location would generate more revenue than any continued operation, Six Flags President and CEO Richard Zimmerman wrote in a news release explaining the decision in May.
“This was a difficult decision, and we recognize the impact it will have on our Six Flags America and Hurricane Harbor park associates and guests,” Zimmerman wrote. “We are grateful to our park associates who work hard to create lifelong memories for our guests, and Six Flags is committed to supporting all impacted associates through the closure process.”
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Six Flags America employed about 70 full-time employees and 700 seasonal workers, according to The Washington Post.
The company said it would provide severance and other benefits to all eligible associates.
Prince George’s County Executive Aisha Braveboy wrote in an Aug. 6 statement that although the decision to close the park came as a surprise, it presents an “extraordinary opportunity” to redevelop an underused site that operates seasonally on a small portion of its total land.
“I believe that we can and will pursue a higher and more impactful use of this land that better serves our residents and our long-term economic goals,” she wrote.
But some Prince George’s County community members don’t share Braveboy’s optimistic vision. To them, saying goodbye to Six Flags America means saying goodbye to a part of their history.
Gwen Anderson, 63, said she grew up in the county and remembers when the park was known as Wild World. She used to get season passes for her children so that they could spend their summers running around with friends, and now she does the same for her grandchildren.
“You can make a whole day of it, and now it’s going away,” Anderson said.
Thirty-five year old Brandon Higgs, who began visiting Six Flags in 2003, has also passed on his decades-old love for the park to the next generation. He and his teenage son rode their first roller coaster together at the Bowie location, he said.
“It really feels heartbreaking to see something like this go, not just for the rides and everything, just for the whole community base,” he said. “It’s generations here that [were] raised off this.”
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Other locals, including Mary and Lisa King of Gaithersburg, said they would miss Six Flags’ proximity and convenience.
“It’s pretty sad because it’s the only amusement park we have,” Mary King said.
The next-closest park comparable in size is King’s Dominion in Virginia, which is about two hours away from Prince George’s County.
The closure of Six Flags America is just one in a series of economic losses for the county, including the FBI’s reversed plans to move its new headquarters to Greenbelt and the Washington Commanders’ departure from Northwest Stadium in Landover, which is set to take place in 2030.
But despite the losses, David Iannucci, the former overseer of economic development in Prince George’s County, said he attributes Six Flags’ closure to management restructuring within the Six Flags Entertainment Corporation and the larger decline of the amusement park industry nationwide.
“It’s very clear that they calculated that the property was more valuable to Six Flags as a real estate sale than as an operating entity,” Iannucci told The Diamondback.
He added that the biggest loss to Prince George’s County will be summer employment opportunities. Though the property Six Flags America currently occupies shows promising signs for redevelopment, he said residents should anticipate “a long, unfortunate lag in time” before it is sold, cleared and transformed.
Bruneau, the Washington, D.C., resident, said she visited Six Flags America on its last day of operation Sunday to take a trip down memory lane. She brought her son, who is now a member of his high school’s water polo team, to the water park on its final day a few weeks ago, so that he could revisit the site that sparked his passion for swimming.
“This was a fantastic place to bring your family, a fantastic place for teenagers to meet,” she said on Sunday, gazing back at the park after exiting its gates. “This is the real deal.”
