ZDT's Amusement Park
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| Location | Seguin, Texas, United States |
|---|---|
| Coordinates | 29.5800° N, 97.9670° W |
| Owner | Danny Donhauser |
| Opened | March 2007 |
| Previous names | ZDT's Amusement Center |
| Operating season | All year |
| Rides | |
| Total | 13 |
| Roller coasters | 1 |
| Water rides | 3 |
| Website |
www |
ZDT's Amusement Park is a family amusement park located in Seguin, Texas. ZDT's is open year-round, with its water rides only being open from March through September. It opened in 2007 with an initial five attractions, and as of 2015 it operates thirteen attractions. In November 2014, the park announced the opening of Switchback, the park's first roller coaster.
History
In March 2007, ZDT's first opened its doors as Seguin's only family entertainment center with five indoor attractions. Because the destination was designed for families, owners Danny Donhauser and Sarah Donhauser decided that it should be named after family. The name comes from the three children of the park's owners: Zac Donhauser, Danielle Donhauser, and Tiffany Donhauser.
Since opening day, ZDT's has been growing at a rapid pace. One year after opening, GoKarts were added to the amusement center's lineup of attractions. The following two years, five more attractions were added to the park. This pattern of development has continued ever since, with additions and improvements being made year after year. In 2011, ZDT's again expanded its offerings with the park's first water ride – the Mad Raft Water Coaster.
Most recently, ZDT's has invested in their largest attraction yet – Switchback. This roller coaster is unique in many ways, having been custom-designed specifically for the park. The ride navigates through and around buildings with many airtime moments, culminating in a Grand Spike that sends riders to a record-breaking, near-vertical angle of 87 degrees. Switchback is the first modern wooden shuttle coaster ever to be built, and derives its name from an 1884 ride that many consider to be the first roller coaster in America: Switchback Railway.
The theme of the ride also celebrates the history of the property on which the park is built with its locomotive-themed train cars. The park grounds were once an agricultural and grocery center containing within the block of land everything from grain silos to meat processing. All of the buildings in the park were remodeled from their original purposes instead of being torn down and rebuilt. The Silo Climb, for example, is a climbing wall built on the facade of the silos that once stored the grain of local farmers. The indoor section of the GoKarts runs through the warehouses in which that grain was processed, where one can see hanging above some of the original equipment used for this process. The main building of the park was once a grocery center that would have stored and readied the finished product for sale. The walkway to the water park is built atop the old train tracks which were used to transport that product to other areas, and an original Santa Fe executive train car still sits along this walkway in part to commemorate this history.
References
Coordinates: 29°34′48″N 97°58′01″W / 29.580°N 97.967°W