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[Junior, too!]

I think today is the 10 year anniversary of this site...thanks, Shave for all your hard work over the years! It has been great to be a member, wonderful to share with fellow members our love for the park. Keep it going, and here's my wish it can go on another 10 years!

[Joy]

Wow! I can't believe I've been a part of this community for a whole decade! And I've known Shave for even a bit longer 'cause we met on the 1Branson boards and threw around ideas about an SDC-specific site. Shave put it together and BAM, the rest is history!

Congrats to SDCFans for making it TEN YEARS!!! And here's to many more!

[shavethewhales]

Wow, yeah it's nuts how a decade goes right by. It's been fun - hopefully we can really put things into high gear before too long and make this decade even more memorable.

Here is what I posted on the FB page:

Today is the tenth anniversary of SDCFans! Here are some ramblings to mark the occasion:

Today is the tenth anniversary of SDCFans.com. For a solid decade now this community has chatted, griped, argued, and passionately followed every movement of our long-beloved vacation destination in the Ozarks. I never imagined that the site would stick around this long, or that I would still be running it long after graduating high school, getting through college, and starting a professional career. When I started this site it was mostly just to play with while I sharpened my programming skills for a career path that I ultimately abandoned. Long time users will remember my constant poorly-planned tinkering and modifications to the site in its early days, and the constant layout changes as I tried to master graphic design and CSS. Through it all though, the forums remained a constant source of intrigue, discussion, and new friendships that led me to stick with it long after I was done playing with the code.

For a site dedicated to following the developments of a theme park, SDCFans began at an inconvenient and fairly tumultuous time during SDC's development. Ten years ago one of the first projects we got to watch was the infamous parking lot project that filled in a large valley and rerouted the old Indian Point Road. SDC's parking has been even more of a wild
mess ever since, but I guess we've all gotten used to it by now. The only new development for the 2008 season was the culinary school building, which provided us a much loved porch but little intrigue.
Following that, the great recession caught up hard with the Ozarks, and we had to watch Celebration City close it's doors forever. The big projects for the 2009 seasons at both SDC and DW were delayed and we had to watch a mud pit in the middle of our dearly-missed Tom Sawyer's Landing for an entire season. Things got rolling again in 2010 when RiverBlast finally opened and was highly lauded for it's extensive thematic touches, but with the exception the kids area, Half Dollar Hollar, in 2011, not much major development happened until 2012 when a mysterious new roller coaster project finally got underway. At long last we got to salivate over a slowly growing mammoth of twisted wood that captivated the entire enthusiast world and put Silver Dollar City back on the map. Things have been ramping up since then, with the massive overhaul of Geyser Gulch into Fireman's Landing in 2015 and finally the coaster mega-project that we are watching today taking place behind Echo Hollow.

It's been an up and down ten years of development at the park, but we have been tremendously pleased at how the park management has managed to hold onto most of the countless little things that keep the park special while at the same time developing and transforming it for the next generations. We have a bit of a reputation for being grouchy old-timers who dislike change, but it is only because we cling dearly to the amazing memories that we have all created at this park and hope to share it with everyone else. I don't think any park anywhere else has such a dedicated following on and off of the internet that so fervently supports and prizes the place (well, besides Disney perhaps...). They have always done something truly amazing and almost indescribable at SDC, and few other places on earth can come close to it.

Thank you to all the fans, enthusiasts, friends, and coaster dorks that have made the last ten years interesting. I intend to keep this site running for as long as we are all enjoying it. I'm grateful that we have cultivated such a nice community, and that is so much more rewarding than just setting up a website. The next ten years should be tremendously exciting for both Silver Dollar City and this community!

[Coaster]

Happy anniversary SDCFans! I love vising this site for my dose of SDC and the amazing fan community that loves it so much. I remember those early days of SDCFans very well. From TGS was the brand new attraction, having to wait patiently for new projects due to the recession, as well as following Conductor Sam on the SDC blog and using that as a main news and discussion source.

It's been fun and I can't wait to see what else the future holds!

[sanddunerider]

Congrats Shave.!  Thanks for all you do..

[How-doFolks]

Congrats shave!! Glad to be part of it!!

[cheesehead57]

Happy Anniversary SDC Fans. Great site, great work,  keeping it going.