By some strange coincidence Houston and Lynda were working on family photos when I posted my piece about Echo Valley. The weird thing was, they were processing photos from 1968, and had just come to our great mountain adventure when we visited the park. These photos were taken by my father. Last night they gave me two more photos from the old park. Here’s a scene from the town…
Here’s a shot of the chairlift heading over the ridge….
Notice the base of the tower. It’s the same square block of concrete I photographed a couple of weeks ago for my piece…
My thanks to Houston and Lynda for preserving these bits of our family history.
Most do not know or remember this place because it is not on the damned eastside of Greenville County. A shame since most think the sun rises and sets in the backside of the eastside.
During the summer I was 13 years old, I ran the 3 kiddie rides during the summer for $5 a day. I had my first crush, the son of the sheriff, Gary Strong. My grandfather had horses in the back field and you could pay to ride a horse around the horse path in the field. He also played the spoons in the saloon. I loved to ride the train and chairlift but most of all I loved to ride the horses and helped my grandfather anytime I could. It was a great summer that I will always cherish. One reason I have always felt the park lost its way was the sheriff was (I believe accidentlly) shot and killed during a poker game in River Falls, South Carolina. I have many fond memories and also some photos if anyone is interested of some of the people during that time.
If you happen to be notified that I have posted this reply, I would love to see the photos, but I don’t know how to tell you how to get them to me. My brothers and I visited, I believe in 1967, and still talk about it. Our Mom wore sandals or some similar footwear and was quite concerned going over the lake on the chair ride that she would lose one or both!