Valentine One: Carowinds

Monday 14 January 2013

Carowinds

The Carowinds theme park was originally envisioned as a component of a large resort-type area which would include hotels, a shopping center, a golf course, and a pro football stadium. However, attendance at Carowinds was curtailed by the 1973 oil crisis, and plans for the proposed resort were put on hold. Hall and the other stockholders of the Carowinds Corporation continued to operate the theme park through 1974, though sagging attendance and mounting debt forced the company to sell to Taft Broadcasting in early 1975.

The park was purchased by Paramount Communications in 1993 and joined the Paramount Parks family, after ownership bounced from Taft Broadcast Company to Family Leisure Centers, a joint venture between Taft and Top Value Enterprises), to Kings Entertainment Company, which was the owner at the time of its acquisition by Paramount. The park was renamed Paramount's Carowinds in 1993. Viacom then purchased Paramount in 1994.