Delta Village

Delta Village was an amusement park in Tallulah, Louisiana, USA. It was in operation by the early 1970s, and it closed in the late 1970s. No traces of the park remain today.

Delta Village was a small park with only about a half dozen rides, designed to appeal to small children. It also included a petting zoo, replicas of Wild West buildings, and a "Storybook Land" with replicas of objects from nursery rhymes, also designed to appeal to very young children.^[1]

The amusement park is remembered for its Wild West Medicine Show which featured "Chief Running Wind" (Ray Stevens) and his Indian riders, who performed various types of stunt riding. Cowboys would perform stunt fistfights and jump off rooftops. The show also usually featured a medicine man trying to sell cough syrup as a miracle drug.

Delta Village housed one of the first coin-operated games in which visitors could pit their quick-draw skills against the fastest cowboy gunman robot in the west. There were also midway games in which one could try to win a goldfish by throwing a ping-pong ball into a small glass container. Children could watch a chicken play the piano for a nickel, or walk through the Gravity House where objects appeared to roll uphill.

Amusement park rides included a log flume, a train ride featuring a cave with a gorilla, and a boat ride which featured simulated explosions in the river. There was also a giant slide, similar to those seen at state fairs, where visitors would climb up stairs and ride down the slide on a bean sack.^[2]

References

1. ^ Black and white photographs of Delta Village from the LOUISiana Digital Library. Retrieved 30 July 2010.
2. ^ Recollections of Delta Village, Roadside America.com