Opryland USA was a theme park located in Nashville, Tennessee. It operated from 1972 until 1997. Billed as the "Home of American Music," it featured a large number of musical shows along with the typical rides such as roller coasters, carousels, and the like. It was opened by the former National Life and Accident Insurance Company, a Nashville insurer best-known for operating WSM radio and the Grand Ole Opry. The Opry itself moved to an adjacent site, the New Grand Ole Opry House, in 1975. (However, music at the park was not limited to country music; there were jazz and pop-themed shows as well). Six Flags New England, an amusement park in Springfield, Massachusetts. ... The Nashville skyline Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee. ... 1972 was a leap year that started on a Saturday. ... 1997 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... A typical roller coaster The roller coaster is a popular amusement ride developed for amusement parks and modern theme parks. ... A carousel in a summer festival in London, with traditional animal mounts, barley twist poles and fairy lights. ... WSM is the call letters of a 50,000 watt AM radio station located in Nashville, Tennessee. ... The Grand Ole Opry is a weekly Saturday night country music radio program broadcast live on WSM Radio in Nashville, Tennessee. ... 1975 was a common year starting on Wednesday (the link is to a full 1975 calendar). ... Country music, also called country and western music or country-western, is an amalgam of popular musical forms developed in the southern United States, with roots in traditional folk music, spirituals, and the blues. ... Jazz master Louis Armstrong remains one of the most loved and best known of all jazz musicians. ...

A large, resort-style hotel was also built, and the Opryland Hotel is now the largest non-casino hotel in the United States. After the takeover of National Life by Texas-based insurer American General (now part of the American International Group), management deemed the Opryland to be too peripheral to the operation of the company and sought to sell it, along with the Opry itself and the broadcast operations. These operations were sold to the Gaylord Company of Oklahoma City, Oklahoma, whose then-controlling figure, Ed Gaylord, was a huge fan of the Opry. Annual changes were made to the park to continue to attact local Nashvillians as well as out-of-town visitors. Package deals including rooms at the hotel, tickets to Opryland, and admission to the Grand Ole Opry were made. In the early 1990s, "Trickets" (three-day admission tickets for one price) were introduced, large numbers of season passes were sold to residents of the Nashville area, and Opryland became the "official destination of NASCAR" (as in, "I'm going to Opryland!"). A resort is a place used for relaxation or recreation. ... Gaylord Opryland Resort & Convention Center, formerly known as Opryland Hotel, is a large hotel and convention center located in Nashville, Tennessee and owned by Gaylord Hotels, a division of Gaylord Entertainment Company. ... The Trump Taj Mahal in Atlantic City, New Jersey Mirage Hotel & Casino, Las Vegas (jb) A casino is a building that accommodates certain types of gambling games and activities. ... American International Group, Inc. ... Gaylord Entertainment Company operates a number of hotel, resort, and media companies. ... Downtown Oklahoma City The State Capitol of Oklahoma From The South Founded Incorporated   County Oklahoma County Mayor Mick Cornett Area  - Total  - Water 1,608. ... // Events and trends The 1990s are generally classified as having moved slightly away from the more conservative 1980s, but otherwise retaining the same mindset. ... The National Association for Stock Car Auto Racing (NASCAR) is the largest sanctioning body of motorsports in the United States. ...

However, Opryland was handicapped by the fact that it was built in the Pennington Bend of the Cumberland River. This meant that not only was the site subject to occasional flooding but also that the park, bounded on the other side by a freeway, could not expand in size to include new attractions as consumer preferences changed. Therefore to add new attractions the park was forced to remove older installations. Also, the Nashville climate made year-round operations almost impossible; seasons were largely limited to weekends in the late fall and early spring and daily in the summer. Seasonal workers became hard to find, and Gaylord found itself with a labor shortage. They began to employ many immigrants from Latin America and elsewhere. Attendance plateaued, and, by 1997, management decided that the property would no longer make a rate of return on investment equal to that desired for its properties and was unlikely ever to return to doing so. Management decided the park should be replaced by a property which made year-round usage of the site. The rides were sold and the park demolished; the site is now occupied by the Opry Mills mall, which now has no connection to Gaylord other than the licensed "Opry" name. Length 1,106 km Elevation of the source 480 m Average discharge 3,217 m³/s Area watershed 46,830 km² Origin Oven Fork, Kentucky Mouth Ohio River Basin countries United States The Cumberland River is an important waterway in the southern United States. ... Look up Flood on Wiktionary, the free dictionary A flood (in Old English flod, a word common to Teutonic languages; compare German Flut, Dutch vloed from the same root as is seen in flow, float) is an overflow of water, an expanse of water submerging land, a deluge. ... Latin America consists of the countries of South America and some of North America (including Central America and some the islands of the Caribbean) whose inhabitants mostly speak Romance languages, although Native American languages are also spoken. ... 1997 is a common year starting on Wednesday of the Gregorian calendar. ... In finance, the return on investment (ROI) or just return is a calculation used to determine whether a proposed investment is wise, and how well it will repay the investor. ... One of the entrances to Opry Mills. ...

In the park's later years, the official name was changed to "Opryland Themepark". The "Opryland USA" name was designated as the destination's name, to include all of Gaylord Entertainment's Nashville properties. For example: Opryland Hotel, Opryland Themepark, and the Grand Ole Opry were all components of Opryland USA, as were the Ryman Auditorium and Wildhorse Saloon, which are located a few miles away in downtown Nashville. The Grand Ole Opry is a weekly Saturday night country music radio program broadcast live on WSM Radio in Nashville, Tennessee. ... The Ryman Auditorium The Ryman Auditorium is a live performance venue located at 116 Fifth Avenue North in Nashville, Tennessee, and is best-known as the one-time home of the Grand Ole Opry. ... The Nashville skyline Nashville is the capital of the U.S. state of Tennessee. ...

The "Opryland USA" name disappeared permanently in 2001 when Gaylord repositioned itself, and all the Nashville properties were bundled into the newly renamed "Gaylord Opryland Resort".

In 2004, Gaylord Entertainment made a statement in a Tennessean article that claimed current company executives had found no evidence that former decision-makers even had a business plan for Opryland USA theme park, let alone any strategic analysis that led to closing it, and that no compelling reasons had been found for the park's closure. Most of the Opryland-era executives left Gaylord Entertainment early in the decade when the company restructured itself. The Tennessean is a dominant daily newspaper in Nashville, Tennessee. ...

Nashville's tourist ecomomy is yet to recover fully from this blow as there has not been a comparable property opened (as of 2004) to in any way replace Opryland. Several developers have floated plans for a new Nashville-area theme park; to date none have come to fruition. A tourist boat travels the River Seine in Paris, France Tourism can be defined as the act of travel for the purpose of recreation, and the provision of services for this act. ... 2004 is a leap year starting on Thursday of the Gregorian calendar. ...

External links

• ThrillHunter - a site devoted to preserving Opryland USA's history