The ruins of America’s first water park, adorned with graffiti and put on the market for $11 million in August after a 20-year collapse in the Mojave Desert, has been in debt for the fourth time after a history of bankruptcy, the California News Times reported. Dry pools and rotting water slides at Lake Dolores Water Park in Newberry Springs, Calif., has seen only urban explorers, skateboarders, movie crews and rare rains since the last cooling of patrons from the heat of the desert in 2004. Conveniently located just off Interstate I-15, the park once boasted waterslides, flowing pools, ziplines, go-cart trucks, bumper boats and family-friendly raft rides, making it the largest in the world in 1998. Lake resorts with cabins and picnic areas, RV parks, water and sewage treatment plants, libraries, museums, shopping centers, hotels and amphitheaters are all currently approved land uses for the site. However, the already-proposed plan is also available for purchaser use. The park was open to the public for the longest period from 1962 to the late 1980s, after the site was first built before the bankruptcy of local businessman Bob Buyers. It was reopened as “Rock Ahula” in 1998, but only a year later, an employee was permanently paralyzed in the park’s “Doo Wop Super Drop” slide in 1999 and won a $ 4.4 million sentence. Lake Dolores Group LLC filed for bankruptcy in 2000.
