Joyland in Lubbock
When I was a teenager living in Phoenix, Arizona, there was an amusement park known as Legend City; it wasn’t Disneyland, but it was a large park, with carnival-style rides and even dark rides, such as the Lost Dutchman Mine, where you’d climb into a mining car and roll on the tracks through a spooky Old West ghost town. Eventually, Legend City shut down and became part of local history, but other cities managed to hold onto their older amusement parks, bringing them all the way from the 1940s and into the 2010s. Joyland in Lubbock, Texas, is one such place.
Originally, in the late 1940s, Joyland was known as the Mackenzie Park Playground, entertaining thousands. By the 1960s, the park was on the decline, until Jimmy and Kate Dean purchased the park in 1973. The Dean family owned a number of rides at amusement parks around the area, in such places Funland Park (Wichita Falls, TX), Cliffs Amusement Park (Albuquerque, NM), and Wonderland Park (Amarillo, TX). They refurbished the park and changed its name to Joyland Amusement Park, establishing that this wasn’t the same old place with which people were familiar. They began with thirteen rides; today, Joyland features over thirty rides and attractions.
The park is now operated by the second generation of the Dean family, and has become something of a west Texas tradition for the families of Lubbock. Thirty-seven years ago, Joyland began with thirteen rides; today the park features over thirty rides and attractions, from a water coaster to roller coasters. They have as well junior rides and carousels.
For whatever reason you’ve come to Lubbock — to view the Buddy Holly Center (Lubbock is, after all, the birthplace of Buddy Holly), to take a look at the Silent Wings Museum (a place designed to honor glider pilots of World War II) — stay the night in one of the many great hotels Lubbock has available for its visitors, and treat your family to a great little amusement park.
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