Welcome to Silverthorne Valley!

Tune in periodically for updates on the park as our walk-through tour is conducted.

Coasters will either be shown here or added after their appearance in Build-It!

Stay tuned for the teaser trailer coming later today!

Looks nice except for the ghost train at 1:21. Why are you using the prefabricated track, scenery and all, instead of an original design?

Dark rides aren't my forte and I do rather like it. I wanted a horror themed dark ride in the park and decided it would be a good fit in the space I had left.

Amazement; only word that comes to mind

Update #1 - The Founding

     Sorry guys, no pics or anything this time (management fails to keep good records of nearly anything). So here goes: Silver-Thorn Valley was first discovered by wayward pioneers who thought they were travelling along the Oregon Trail in 1822. This band of settlers was actually a group of ex-cons, all of which had been indicted for serious crimes by the British back when the US was still a band of colonies. So as you can probably picture, all of them were aged quite well. The leader of this motley crew was none other than Boris Sills - you've likely never heard of him but he was a famed dueler in his time. He was the convoy's lead navigator and swore that when they had reached what they named Silver-Thorn Valley, they were in California and the hills were full of Silver. (The name Silver-Thorn originally came from their notion that the hills were made of silver, and the extremely prickly/thorny array of foliage that littered the region).


     Two years after the original pioneers laid their claims to the land only two families remained in the valley. The Sills, and the Thorntons. Eventually a Romeo&Julietesque situation developed in the valley, and after it had blown over the two lovers were left alone in the valley. Embarrassed about the feud of their fathers, they decided to take the hybrid name of Silverthorne, this way a stranger would neither know of their origins, and they could still keep some secret relation to their families.


     Now we fast forward through a few, mostly un-noteworthy generations, until we come to John Silverthorne. John was one of the first environmentalists, theme park enthusiasts, and major thrill seekers the world had ever seen. He declared the valley a nature preserve in 1900 when he was the age of twenty, and spent the better part of the year trying to clean residents off the land and post dozens of signs to keep off the property. His family cabin was the only building left on the site after he completed his "purge for nature" as he had dubbed it. It still stands to the present day, however it was renovated by John to serve as the station for the park's first roller coaster in 1930. On his forty-sixth birthday he had a crazy idea to convert his wildlife refuge into what he would call an amusement park. His idea was that people would come in, go camping like his forefathers, enjoy nature, and do it relatively comfortably. Silverthorne Valley Park officially opened to the public in 1926. Although it was advertised as an "amusement park" it was little more than a glorified campground. Two years later one of the Sills tried to reestablish contact with the family (most likely due to hearing the news about the successful campground). Adam Sills was his name and he was a carpenter living in North Tonawanda, New York. In his letter to John he wrote of a machine that rotated in clockwise fashion with wooden chariots and animals that riders would sit on. He called the contraption a Carousel and said that he'd be honored to build and ship one to the park. John eagerly accepted and also placed an order for a slide tower for small children to use. Both arrived on site the following year - 1929. Adam personally travelled with the parts and assembled them on site. When finished the Grande Carousel and Slippy Slide became the first two additions to the park.

                                                   Tune in next time for part 2 - Prospector's Promenade

Part #2 - Prospector's Promenade

     As mentioned in the previous section the first rides added to Silverthorne Valley were the park's Grande Carousel and Slippy Slide. These two gentle rides occupy Founder's Plaza, as well as the John Silverthorne Memorial Food Court. The food court was the first of its kind and was built by John Silverthorne Junior in 1935. Originally it was used as the county court, however being a food court the jury  threw food at whoever they felt held the winning case for the duration of each trial. Some poor residents were know to sue each other simply to eat free food. Eventually the county government felt that the court should be moved to a proper courthouse, and not a small backwoods building. In 1941 the food court became the first "modern" food court in the county, serving flatbread, smoked barbequed foods, and fresh lake water.



                                                                                    




                                                                                    


     You may also remember how John Silverthorne (Senior) converted his home into a roller coaster station. Well it still stands to this day (although some minor renovations are completed from time to time) and is the home of the park's oldest coaster: Gangplank! We're still not sure what was going through Mr. Silverthorne's head when he started construction (yes he intended to build the whole thing himself, well, until he died anyways - he died peacefully in his sleep) but this coaster was decades ahead of its time (Although one could argue less seeing as construction took fifteen years to complete). Construction started in 1929 when Sills brought lumber to construct the Carousel and slide. While Sills was building those, Silverthorne was punching holes in his walls and building supports. Sills thought he'd gone insane, but rather than sending him to an insane asylum (which probably would have let him inherit the park) he decided to let him work at whatever he was doing until it was large enough to convert the home into a mansion. Eventually while left unattended Silverthorne had completed the lift hill, the sign atop it today reads exactly as it did back then - "Hold on!" For whatever reason Silverthorne thought that if people always held onto the hand rails they couldn't fall off the unfinished hill.



                                                                                     
           
                                                                                    

                                                                                    

     Gangplank Download here: http://rctgo.com/downloads/view/15486

John Silverthorne Senior passed away on October 29th, 1930, shortly after work on remodeling his home to accommodate the station of his Gangplank was finished. After John Senior's death, John Junior had no idea what to do with his father's wooden serpent as the town had dubbed it. Sills suggested that it be finished based on a random scribbled design Senior had drawn days before his passing, and the two agreed on a plan to finish it. Sills brought in a team of carpenters and the ride was slowly completed, no one could understand how it took about a year for just Senior to build the lift hill. The town awarded the carpenters with the "County's Slowest Builders Award" in 1934 when the coaster was finally opened to the public, stating that any team of twenty men should be able to finish what one man started in at least half the time. To this day the chain-lift on Gangplank has never been replaced, nor snapped, nor broken down once, yet the remainder of the ride needs yearly maintenance.

     Business was good for Junior for the next decade while visitors flocked to see Gangplank, although he found it impossible to catch any sleep with the coaster occupying the main level of his home. In 1943 he decided enough was enough and contacted a scrap dealer to have the coaster demolished. When the dealer arrived he instead pitched an idea for a new ride - he called in an Enterprise. Struck by the shiny exterior, flashy steel, and new-age name, Junior took his offer and completely forgot to have Gangplank removed. Enterprise took two weeks to build out of scrapped metal from WWII Sherman tanks (which was quite abundant at the time) and Enterprise became the first ride to occupy what is known today as Pioneer Plaza.

                                                                                     


     Junior wasn't the only one "star-struck" by this flashy ride, as attendance skyrocketed and Junior earned enough money to move out of Gangplank's station for good. He ended up building himself a nice mansion in the nearby town of Hellwig. While a resident of Hellwig he started to acclimate himself to "mainstream" America. By the time the Greasers and the 50's came rolling, Junior was what they would have called "cool." Although he was aging well by this point, he still tried to run with the stallions, and in the summer of 1950 he purchased his first hot rod. He loved the car soo much he decided to make a track where anyone could drive one right in Silverthorne Valley.

                                                                                    

     And voila, Hot Rod was finished in 1952. At first it was an actual self-contained road, and guests would drive from the parking lot to the track and vice-versa. This resulted in bridges that were intended for pedestrians to become quite run down and attendance to drop sharply as people didn't want to risk getting hit by a drunken Greaser's rod. To solve the problem Junior fastened a set of rods to the track and enclosed the area with some fence. To make the drive a little exciting (since most of the excitement had previously come from speeding past other guests who were on foot) he added a gas station (that could only be used by park employees) and some drive-thru buildings.

                                                               Tune in next time for Part #3 - Junior's Folly!

Gangplank, LOL! I LOVE THE NAME!

Good work so far that I am seeing! Love the narration too! I'm excited for the release!

After nearly two weeks Silverthorne is back with another update. Junior's Folly (as known by management) is also known as the 'Midway' section of the park. After the success of Junior's Enterprise and Hot Rod, he thought it was a good idea to keep doing what had worked and add two more flashy steel thrill rides.


                                                                              
  Midway.JPG (Size: 255.9 KB / Downloads: 403)

     Unfortunately for both the park and Junior attendance sharply dropped after the addition of these two rides: Gravitron and Silo. Gravitron was the first "tumbler" ride in the country, while Silo was the tallest steel ride in the country. Despite reaching these feats people seemed to avoid the Midway area of the park, in fact the R/C tower near Hot Rod (Radio Control Tower) received more visitors than the Midway did, and it was only open to the radio show hosts. (Yes, Silverthorne Valley has its own official radio station). Around the same time that attendance began dropping surveys started showing that more and more people left the park hungry. Naturally Junior felt he could kill two birds with one stone by erecting a large food court right next to the Midway. While this did draw more people into the area, they did not go on the rides.

                                                                            
  Silverthorne Radio Control.JPG (Size: 112.36 KB / Downloads: 419)

                                                                            
  Junior's Midway Food Court.JPG (Size: 64.69 KB / Downloads: 426)

     Part II of Junior's Folly will be released sometime next week, stay tuned for more Silverthorne Valley!

Looking really nice! I like the colors, layout, design and progress,