FRONTIER CITY
and White Water Bay
Oklahoma City
Owned by EPR Properties
Managed by Six Flags Theme Parks
 Park News - (8/30/2024) Screamscape has been told that Frontier City’s Diamondback roller coaster (a rather rare Arrow Shuttle Coaster design) is reportedly closed for the rest of the season. From what we’re hearing, the coaster suffered from damage during a storm about a month ago.
In other news, the closed Gully Washer water slides that have been closed for the past couple of seasons are now rumored to possibly being moved to the nearby Hurricane Harbor waterpark instead. This could possibly be a move from the new Six Flags management team, who might be looking to focus all their local waterpark efforts only at Hurricane Harbor, rather than keep the small micro waterpark at Frontier City.
On the positive side, we’re also hearing rumors that management may be trying to install some sort of S&S Tower attraction on the site of the park’s former Erruption ride, where they could likely repurpose the existing pads and some infrastructure for the new attraction. Keep your eyes peeled for activity here when visiting the park.
(5/27/2024) There has been some fuss over the fact that starting in late June, Six Flags over Texas will close the entire park each week on Tuesdays for the entire Summer. This is a bit of a surprise to the local market, as this is also the original Six Flags theme park that started the chain. Naturally guests in other markers have been concerned about their own parks making similar changed to their operational schedules.
Going through the posted calendars for all the parks on the Six Flags website, I’ve only been able to find the following items of interest.
Frontier City (Oklahoma) will be closed on every Tuesday and Wednesday from now through to the end of July, with the exception of July 3rd. Unfortunately, the park also goes entirely to weekend only operations the first week of August, but that is likely due to the local school schedule.
(3/7/2024) I’m sorry to break this news, but things are starting to look a bit sketchy over at Frontier City for the 2024 season. It seems that Frontier City will not be open 7 days a week over the busy summer season this year. To see for yourself, follow this link to the official operations calendar on the park website and click it forward to the week of Memorial Day (May 27th) when the park should be going to 7-days a week ops, but instead the park is staying closed on Tuesday and Wednesday. With the exception of actually being open on Wednesday, July 3rd, the park will be closed every Tuesday and Wednesday through to the end of July 28th, and then the park goes to weekend only operations for the rest of the summer, adding in Monday, Labor Day, Sept. 2 as one extra operational day. Running things forward, the weekend operations continue for the rest of the season, adding in Friday evening operations in October for Fright Fest dates.
Like I said, this is not a good thing. The last time we saw several parks forced to do this was during the peak of COVID, when staffing levels became such a problem that several parks were forced to cut back on their hours of operation during the 2020 and 2021 seasons. By 2022 most attractions had been able to return to a more normal schedule, though to keep staffing levels at the right levels, many were also forced to increase their employee’s wages to the $15 to $20 range during this time. Currently Frontier City’s own current “Jobs” page shows that pay levels are only starting at $10-12 per hour this year in most common departments (Park Services, Admissions, Ride Ops and Food Service).
(4/9/23) Some interesting things are said to be happening at Frontier City this season regarding the Nightmare Mine building. Now for those that don’t know the Nightmare Mine building was created in 1989 to enclose a Galaxi model coaster that was at the park that was originally located outside and called the Screamer. At one point, thought to be around 1999 the park actually replaced the roller coaster with an identical model ride that was removed from another park. Unfortunately this didn’t last long and the Nightmare Mine coaster is listed on RCDB as being closed down around 2000.
Rumor has it that the coaster sat idle inside for a number of years following that until they got around to removing it, and then began to use the building to set up haunted houses in the fall for Fright Fest starting in 2016. According to new reports there has been a long of interesting activity taking place around the Nightmare Mine building, following the removal of the Geronimo sky coaster last year.
I’m told that this year the building appears to have been sealed up, with the walkway that runs under the log flume’s lift hill now being closed, a smoking section area next to the building behind Gunslinger has been removed, and all the wild vegetation, growth and some trees that grew up alongside the building are being cleared out. The smaller “power station” building next to the main building now appears to be in almost brand new condition. Furthermore, the decaying building facade that sits over the former queue area is also now in the process of being repaired. Meanwhile a bridge and pathway along the ride that was damaged during a storm is also being replaced and will reopen in the near future.
In short, the area has been the focus of a lot of refurbishment work as of late, which of course has started up the rumor mill that perhaps the park may be planning to repurpose the building to house another new ride or attraction in the near future. Indoor / Semi-Indoor dark coasters are popular at the moment, we’ve seen a few of the SeaWorld chain of parks repurposing some of their older attraction structures to house new launched coaster projects such as DarkCoaster at Busch Gardens Williamsburg (all enclosed), Arctic Rescue at SeaWorld San Diego (enclosed station/launch) and a rumored similar concept in development for the Orlando park to replace their former Antarctica dark ride.
When it comes to building an indoor roller coaster, what most smaller parks find to be prohibitive is the extra costs involved in creating a structure big enough to house the ride. But if a park, like Frontier City, already has a structure just sitting there empty… I say, why not put it to good use?
2024/2025 - New Attractions - Rumor - (7/4/2023) According to a video post from Frontier City Thrills, at last night’s celebration event for the July 4th holiday, the park played a video featuring footage of the park’s rides, concerts and such. While they did not capture this actual video (which is expected to play again tonight at the park) they claim that two rides not at the park were also included in the video package. According to the post, footage of The Joker (S&S 4D Free Spin) coaster at Six Flags over Texas and footage of Pandemonium (Zamperla Giant Discovery) at Six Flags over Georgia were included, which they are taking as a teaser for future park additions over the next two seasons.
I guess we’ll have to wait and see if anything gets announced at the end of the summer.
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