![]() ![]() In 1953 they were contacted by Walt Disney, who was just beginning to plan a new type of amusement park in California. They started out small, building merry-go-rounds and other rides for local amusement parks. ![]() was founded when World War II veterans Ed Morgan, Karl Bacon, Bill Hardiman, and Angus "Andy" Anderson formed a small machine shop at 243 Moffett Boulevard, just north of Downtown Mountain View, California. 1.2 Move toward roller coaster manufacturingĪrrow Development Company Inc.Roller coaster company Vekoma still uses Arrow designed trains on some of their roller coasters. Innovations include the first tubular-tracked steel coaster, Matterhorn Bobsleds at Disneyland Park, the first mine train roller coaster, Runaway Mine Train at Six Flags Over Texas, the first modern inverting roller coaster, Corkscrew at Knott's Berry Farm, the first hyper coaster, Magnum XL-200 at Cedar Point and the world's first 4th-Dimension coaster X at Six Flags Magic Mountain Arrow Dynamics had a monumental and lasting impact on the roller coaster industry. In 2002, the company went bankrupt but was quickly bought by fellow amusement ride manufacturer S&S Power to form S&S Arrow.ĭuring its peak, Arrow Dynamics was responsible for some of the biggest and most influential advancements in the roller coaster industry. Unless otherwise specified, all flumes feature at least one lift and a drop into a splash pool.Bankrupt October 2001, bought by S&S PowerĪrrow Dynamics was a roller coaster, log flume and amusement ride manufacturer based in Clearfield, Utah, USA. Flumes and larger capacity Super FlumesĪs of 2019, Hopkins Rides has built 7 roller coasters around the world.The company currently focuses only on water ride attractions: Hopkins also re-fabricated portions of track on two Arrow Dynamics-built coasters: Dahlonega Mine Train at Six Flags Over Georgia received 1,400 feet of new track and supports in 1986 and Canobie Corkscrew at Canobie Lake Park received new track and supports in 1990. Santa's Village still operates its SkyGlider, and Wonderland Park still operates its Aqua Drag and SkyGlider in addition to its other Hopkins rides. They also dabbled in other amusement ride types such as a SkyGlider, tube slides and water jet ride known as an Aqua Drag. In addition to the water-based attractions, Hopkins built seven roller coasters from 1985 to 1996. The company originally manufactured Sky Rides, but in the 1980s, with the increase in popularity of their water-based attractions, those rides became the company's primary product. WhiteWater sells its products under the Water Rides brand. Although WhiteWater Attractions has adopted the Hopkins Rides technology, it is not a parent company to Hopkins Rides, LLC and the companies operate independently. In August 2012 water slide manufacturer WhiteWater West acquired assets and intellectual property from Hopkins Rides, LLC. The company reorganized and emerged as Hopkins Rides, LLC in May 2002, and was for a brief time in partnership with Reverchon Industries of France. ![]() The aerial ropeway/sky ride division was spun off to Skyfair, Inc. The success of that project started Hopkins in the water ride manufacturing business. In 1979, Hopkins was approached by Paul Roads, owner of Wonderland Park (Texas), to build a reasonably-priced log flume for his park. In 1971, the name of the company was changed to O.D. Hopkins' first customer in the amusement business was Charles Wood of Storytown USA. Soon afterwards a competitor, Universal Design Ltd., discontinued manufacturing Sky Rides, and their customers turned to Hopkins Engineering for parts. In 1965 Hopkins purchased the ski lift division and all the related assets from Roebling & Sons. Hopkins incorporated Hopkins Engineering and started installing ski lifts for J.A. ![]()
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