Arrow Dynamics
Arrow Dynamics Headquarters
In the years of 1946 many coasters were in need of repair and many parks fell victim to the same thing. That's when a small machine shop was opened by Ed Morgan, Carl Bacon, and Walter Schulze as Arrow Development Company.
The company purchased a small park as a financial investment. They slowly refurbished the rides, and then they started manufacturing new rides for their small park. People began to take notice and wanted these rides for their own parks. In 1947 the city of San Jose approached Arrow about a carousel for their new municipal park. The $3,500.00 carousel was the ride that took Arrow into a future with the amusement business.
A man by the name of Walter Disney wanted Arrow to design rides for his new park called Disneyland. Arrow designed many of the small rides in the park and in 1959 Arrow installed it's first coaster. Matterhorn Bobsleds was the first ride that used Arrow's tubular track, that eventually revolutionize the coaster industry. Flume rides are also a specialty of Arrow.
Arrow's most well known coaster would have to be the corkscrew. This coaster is an installment in many parks. Along with the corkscrew another coaster that brings the name Arrow to mind is the Suspended Coaster. Arrow's first Suspended was the Bat at Paramount's King's Island. It was unsuccessful and removed soon after. Then they built The Big Bad Wolf for Busch Gardens Williamsburg. This coaster is the first successful suspended design for Arrow. They went on to build Eagle's Fortress, Iron Dragon, Ninja, Top Gun and most recently XLR-8. The pipeline coaster is another coaster built by Arrow, but it was to expensive to persue manufacturing.
In the 80's Arrow pulled the wraps off their "big boys", These coasters are the coasters that really bring the Arrow name to mind. With Desperado, Magnum XL200, Shockwave, Great American Scream Machine, and the Steel Phantom topping the coaster charts it really seems that Arrow is on top of it's game.
During it's years Arrow has seen it's share of ups and downs. After being owned by Rio Grande Industries and being sold to Huss in 1981. Then it survived chapter 11. Then Arrow came back in 1999 by building the Tennessee Tornado at Dollywood. Now it's back to bankruptcy because of building X for SFMM. Hopefully Arrow will last for many years to come.
|
Adventure Express