Reading the "Club 1880" thread about the proposal for a "hidden" elite club for special guests like Club 33 at Disneyland, it made me think about hidden places at SDC. So I am going to tell you something most employees or former employees will not...about secret places at SDC! Due to the hilly landscape, and the fact that Andy Miller and Mary Herschend were excellent designers of the original SDC attractions, buildings, and so on, there are some hidden, secret places around the old part of the park:
1) The Hospitality House has a basement. If you stand in the main room of the HH, look toward the fireplace and sitting area adjacent to where cave tours go in. the building sits on a hillside on that side...when you go out for the cave tour, you walk down stairs to the area where photos are taken, and then downward again to the cave. On the main floor, behind that fireplace, are several offices for entertainment and attractions personnel. There is a stairwell to the basement there, and additional office and storage space.
2) The building housing the Mill and Mine Restaurants is part of a larger building complex. There is a large blue metal building you pass when riding Thunderation. It's the back side of that building. In all, there are five stories. The big blue building houses the employee cafeteria, the commercial kitchen and food storage locker, a merchandise warehouse, more offices, and the costume shop.
3) The Ozark Marketplace: It has a second floor that contains many offices and a large accounting office.
4) The ticket booth building: It has a second floor that used to be the corporate offices of the company.
Jack and Pete's offices, conference rooms, many other offices still on that floor.
5) General Store/Grandfather's Mansion/adjacent restaurant: It's all essentially one big building built on a hillside. The building fronts are all "broken up" to appear as many buildings. Hidden inside the complex, outside the visitors view, a trash compacting area, employee restrooms (in the 60's they were public restrooms) the office that housed the maitanance and street sweepers was there during my time.
6)Grandfather's Mansion: As I have told in another thread, it has a secret room that serves as a maitanance area. There is a two way mirror on one of the doors to the room where I used to stand and flash a flashlight on my face to scare people when I was an entertainer there. The "mansion" side of the door just looks like the wall in the room it is in. You would have to look REAL HARD to see the door.
7) Hannah's/Springhouse: The broken up fronts on these shops hide the fact that it's really one big building, too. The upstairs to Hannahs was an area the street troupe utilitzed for props, and so on. There is also an office used during my time as a food managers office.
8) The old diving bell building/Lost River now: In the hallway leading to the loading platform at the lost river there are at least two secret doors. Both lead to maitinanace areas of the building. During the diving bell days, there were three such doors, and two other doors were covered in the rocky looking concrete material and were building exits. The diving bell buildling has a basement that the lost river channel now runs through, but in the diving bell days, there were two or three hidden areas down there that maitianance personnel worked out of at times. Above the children's playground there was a hidden door that would take you to the "attic" of the building, and would give access to a wall that could be climbed down to reach the basement. There also was a small hidden room on the second floor of the building that was never utilized for anything. The facade of the building was also broken up and the secret room, about the size of a small bathroom, was the end result of the trick building front.
9) Fire in the Hole: A large, hidden employee break room is located within view of guests. But you would never know it was there. Entry is through a hidden panel in the exit area of FITH>=.
OK, enough secrets for now. But there are many other hidden, secret places around park. I'm sure many more now than when I worked there, since the park has grown!
Thanks for sharing this inside info, Junior! This is fascinating stuff. How's the ankle doing?
This is post break week three, with three more to go! I'm actually looking forward to going back to work. Yikes! ;)
I have only been in # 4. It has been years, but I was up there in high school while filling out some paperwork for the park! I gotta get started snooping then huh? 8 more to go!
Betamike has talked on another thread on here about the candy making/packing/storage facilities in the basement of Brown's Candy Factory.
Yup, that's another place. Also the Flooded Mine has many secret places behind the "scenes" you see on your boat trip. There is also a hidden maintainance area at Flooded Mine.
As a child-when the ride was scary, I thought about bailing out and taking an emergency exit-and I have always wondered since then-where does that exit go!
Outside! :D
Haven't been to 3 & 8...I need to put all my "behind the scenes" pics in 1 album on flicker... I'm dying to get into the tree house & take pics before it comes down!
No one has mentioned the old Bolen Brothers cabin yet? :o
That was a break room that featured signatures of everyone that has ever played the roles of the Bolen brothers.
Have to see if I can find my pictures from inside that cabin that I have when I get home
They must have remodeled the interior of the old robbers shack since I worked there. Back in the day, it had old, worn out paneling on the walls, a shabby rug covering the floor, and cast off furniture from God knows where. It's saving grace, as far as the employees were concerned, was a window air conditioner unit hidden behind the "chimney" on the outside wall. For entertainment between robberies, there were old magazines some of the employees brought in, and a am/fm radio. Sometimes someone would bring in a portable TV.
Quote from: Swoosh on May 14, 2010, 01:27:38 PM
No one has mentioned the old Bolen Brothers cabin yet? :o
That was a break room that featured signatures of everyone that has ever played the roles of the Bolen brothers.
Have to see if I can find my pictures from inside that cabin that I have when I get home
You posted it in Where In the City? a couple of years ago.
We've got a "new" shack now. It still has AC/Heat, TV/DVD, Fridge and Microwave, all the comforts of home...sort of...
I knew the robbers worked out of a different building nowadays far away from the "development" that has gone on at SDC, and am glad to hear the current crew has all the comforts of home...I had some great times hanging out with the robbers in the old robbers shack during "my time" at park. Many of the robber/conductors moonlighted at the diving bell. We pulled a lot of pranks on each other. Picked up girls together...and so on...and so on... ;)
I know of a lot of "secret" places. But I'm not telling, or they wouldn't be secret anymore. ;)
Ha! Good one. :D
I dont have any secret places, but as a park go'r.. I'd have to say my #1 spot STILL at City, is down by bathrooms by the saloon ( around back ) where ya can sit on the fence & look down the railroad tracks & see the train comin'. I used to sit there as a kid. Now i sit there & relax & think of times past & "memories that are repeating." If i feel alil' honory, i'll smoke a cig. Dont worry tho', we are respectable smokers, we put'm out & put the butts in their proper spot. ;)
nice Zephon...well spoken
Some hidden track pictures from FITH:
(http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-sf2p/v329/49/70/34318189/n34318189_35251098_2713.jpg)
These are located beneath the moon and stars high above the burning cabin scene:
(http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-sf2p/v329/49/70/34318189/n34318189_35251105_3217.jpg)
(http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-sf2p/v329/49/70/34318189/n34318189_35251106_3543.jpg)
(http://www.facebook.com/photo.php?pid=35251118&id=34318189)
(http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/photos-ak-sf2p/v329/49/70/34318189/n34318189_35251110_4889.jpg)
(http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-ash1/hs257.ash1/18470_657628849694_34318189_38440320_4263130_n.jpg)
(http://sphotos.ak.fbcdn.net/hphotos-ak-snc3/hs137.snc3/18470_657628874644_34318189_38440324_1489359_n.jpg)
Thanks for the behind the scenes shots of FITH. When I was an employee, I worked at FITH a few times, and got to go into the maitianance area a few times. That big ole room in the middle of the attraction always surprised me. By the way, I believe it was in that area of the attraction that the 1980 accident occurred in. A train was accidentally put through the room and a guy hit his head on a low hanging metal bar. I was working at the park that day...a dreadful day in park history.