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[Pudgy Jones]

They tried to bring SDC into the "future" several years ago with the ill-fated "Gaslight Square" experiment. Thankfully, that idea went away quickly.

[Junior, too!]

From what I heard, Gaslight Square was Jack's idea. It failed badly. Next season, things returned to what they were. Anyone remember "The land of forgotten crafts?" 

[History Buff]

Concerning the LoFC, they just didn't go far enough with it, and it was too isolated.  Those things still need to be interspersed in the City and not relegated to the boondocks.

[Pudgy Jones]

If I remember correctly, wasn't the Land of Forgotten Crafts in front of the waterfall area where the lumberjack dining area is now? I like the concept of the forgotten crafts area. I wish it would come back.

Gaslight Square, however, was horrid. The TV commercials advertising it featured a barbershop quartet. I remember seeing the commercial as a kid and watching my mom almost cry because of what they did to SDC! At the time, I believe that SDC was supposed to be 100 years in the past, and Gaslight Square was supposed to bring the park into the "gay nineties". After the Gaslight Square fiasco, they decided to stick to the 1880's.

[okiebluegrass]

I remeber in the 70s and 80s, it was supposed to be 100 years back. Gaslight square was an attempt to bring it into the 1890s. It just didn't work

[runner1960]

If I remember correctly, wasn't the Land of Forgotten Crafts in front of the waterfall area where the lumberjack dining area is now? I like the concept of the forgotten crafts area. I wish it would come back.

Gaslight Square, however, was horrid. The TV commercials advertising it featured a barbershop quartet. I remember seeing the commercial as a kid and watching my mom almost cry because of what they did to SDC! At the time, I believe that SDC was supposed to be 100 years in the past, and Gaslight Square was supposed to bring the park into the "gay nineties". After the Gaslight Square fiasco, they decided to stick to the 1880's.

Gaslight square and Land Of Forgotten Crafts were both horrid in my book. I remember the TV commercials and they were even bad.

[History Buff]

I don't think either idea was inherently bad.

I will always welcome the old crafts, but the ones they chose were not in any way revenue builders.  Some of those things are still in the area, by the way, and you can see them when standing in line to see a show at the Opera House (when they have a show - what happened to the shows?).  The coin press, for example, is still sitting there.

Gaslight Square was an idea that could have worked.  It would have been cool to see them lighting the gaslights around the square in the evenings, but the idea really seemed to be a scam to feed into the swing dancing fad and the Victorian Age trend of home decor in the 1990s (i.e., an excuse to sell some cheap lace curtains and doilies).  Again, it was hardly a revenue builder for a theme park.  I think GS would have taken 200% buy-in by the people in charge for the long run, but instead they just did a little bit, stuck a finger in the wind, and caved on the whole process.

At the same time, logistically, keeping the 100-years-in-the-past rule would have been a nightmare.  Eventually, automobile travel would have been addressed (with what - a little monorail Tin Lizzy thing?), and powered air travel would be introduced (and that seems to still be an option after seeing the concepts pitched for Fireman's Landing).  On one hand, it would have been interesting to watch the transformation of the park, but on the other hand, simply by advancing the technology, we would have lost some of the iconic elements of SDC:

• No baldknobbers
• More advanced mining techniques in the FM
• Wildfire fuel no longer necessary with combustion engines in play
• Stagecoaches?  Outdated.

and finally,

• The logo would become a chainsaw resting on a log