The Wet, Wild History of Aqua Thrill Way, Austin’s 1970s Water Park
https://www.texasmonthly.com/being-t...0s-water-park/
It may not have been safe, but it sure was fun.
The old waterslide is hidden among a thicket of cedars off the access road of Interstate 35. Draped across a hill above Boggy Creek, eight miles south of downtown Austin, the slide is covered in a tapestry of spray paint. A little longer than a football field—relatively short, compared to the structures of today’s water parks—the slide’s two parallel, concrete runs circle softly to the right, then veer more sharply left in a notorious turn. This steep bend occasionally left swimmers with concussions, and it’s still risky for the skateboarders and BMX bikers who sneak in to catch rides. Leaves and other debris—shoes, broken beer bottles, soggy pieces of carpet—intermittently cake the chutes that kids once swooshed down on foam pads. The pool at the bottom into which they splashed is now filled with soft silt, and the old pump house has been reduced to rubble. The path patrons trudged back up for another ride has long since returned to the woods, enveloped by a thicket of weeds and branches.
In the late 1970s, small, single-slide water parks like this one were novel, popping up across the country. Named Aqua Thrill Way, this slide opened in 1978 as part of a national chain with two other Texas locations, in Galveston and Corpus Christi. “It is a sport most Austinites have never heard of, much less tried,” wrote Joe Nick Patoski in an Austin American-Statesman story heralding the opening of Aqua Thrill Way and its two competitors: Wet Willie, off Ben White Boulevard, and Flowmotion, on South Congress. Patoski noted that “water-slides loom as the biggest man-made summertime activity since miniature golf.” The fad only lasted a few years, with all three slides closing by the early 1980s; larger parks like Schlitterbahn soon replaced them.
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