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Henceforth to be known as "PacoMadera"
Posted on 12/12/2007 6:14:26 AM PST by SoothingDave
Kennywood Park, the summertime mecca for generations of Pittsburghers in search of thrill rides, arcade games, old-fashioned family fun and gooey cheese fries, was sold yesterday to a Spanish company.
Kennywood Entertainment, a West Mifflin-based enterprise since 1898, will be taken over by Parques Reunidos of Madrid, which plans to leave day-to-day operation of the park in local hands.
The descendants of F.W. Henninger and A.S. McSwigan, who acquired the park from Pittsburgh Railway Co. in 1906, had been approached by amusement companies in the past about selling the local icon, but have refused. When Premiere Parks, an Oklahoma-based chain, made a lucrative bid for Kennywood in 1997, the company wouldn't sell because the buyer would have significantly changed the park.
What is different this time is assurances of maintaining the amusement park's image.
(Excerpt) Read more at post-gazette.com ...
Burgh ping
they dang well better leave the place as is!
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Henceforth to be known as "PacoMadera"
Just had a vision of Kennywood's future.
Picante to go w/the Potato Patch fries? Sigh.
Wrong Spanish! It’s Spanish as in paella, not Spanish as in frijoles.
Kennywood está abierto.
There are not many businesses that have been 100% family owned and operated for over 100 years.
I imagine if we knew more about it, we’d find out there’s a divorce or estate issue that is causing the assets to be sold off. I hope it’s not a new generation that didn’t want to bother with the family business and just wanted to cash out.
I used to go to Kennywood as a kid. Fun times. I hope that the company does not change it too much.
South of the Border. I have not been there since 2000. I always stop there to eat while traveling.
What tends to happen is that as generations go on, ownership becomes more and more diluted among an ever growing number of offspring. They all can't be in operations. But who knows. Maybe they simply got an offer they couldn't refuse.
I haven't been to Kennywood since my kids got old enough to ride by themselves. I was never a big amusement park fan, but as those parks go, Kennywood is defiantly among the best. It was always a family friendly kind of place and you could take a family there without breaking the bank.
When I was a kid we always went to Westwiew Park. I had only been to Kennywood 5 or 6 times. Sad to see an icon like that change hands. Not as sad as seeing Westview Park close its doors though.
4th and 5th generation of the controlling families. Around 100 shareholders.
LOL...on the monkey. I guess we wuz told. Snap!
I lived just up the hill from Kennywood when I was growing up - we used to ride our bikes down “Kennywood Hill” into the back of the parking lot, then go in and hang (until they instituted an entrance charge to keep riffraff like us out). Walking our bikes back up the hill was a bear.
Used to swim at the pool when I was real small, too - they closed it down to make room for the Thunderbolt, IIRC. I worked one summer there during college, but was fired because they always fired a percentage of their help before the year was out to avoid paying bonuses - had to be there 6 days a week, open to close, so I was heartily sick of the place, anyway.
I’m not an amusement park fan, but Kennywood is still one of the best - beats Six Flags parks by a mile. Hope they don’t ruin it.
Just glad to see Kennywood is still there.
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