http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20070205/ap_on_fe_st/wonder_spot
I didn’t realize they had one of these in the Wisconsin Dells (a place I haven’t visited, but want to – it sounds so delightfully tacky).
You have to wonder what’s going to happen when the bulldozwer hits it. Will it implode, like the house at the end of Poltergeist?
Or is it closing because people are getting too hip to its misdirections?
Naaaahhhhhhhh!
It’s been neglected and passed by for the last 25 years by most tourists, and it’s nothing special. The only mystery was that the spot wasn’t redeveloped sooner. It’s right off a super busy highway, and it’s going the way of many cheesy fakery attractions have already gone. It’s actually one of the last in that catagory to go.
West Virginia’s Mystery Hole nearly suffered the same fate, but some brave folks bought it and reopened it several years ago.
Yeah, I know, but if you’ve never been in one, let me tell you, it’s quite an adventure. The disconnect between what your inner ear and your eyes are telling your brain makes for a very interesting experience, even when you know exactly how the effect is achieved.
There used to be one at the long-vanished Freedomland in NYC, called the “Casa Loca”. After it went belly-up, the folks from Clarke’s Trading Post in New Hampshire went down and bought a lot of Freedomland stuff, incorporating it into their park.
They didn’t try to bring the Casa Loca up to New Hampshire, but they bought the plans and built their own version. It’s still operating up there.
The mystery spot may close, but no doubt the Gravity Vortex will remain.
Unfortunately that is true and it is a very real concern but people don’t want to listen.
From the link:
“We’re kind of wondering how the town is going to deal with the gravitational forces under the road. That might be an issue with driving and how you bank a curve,”
Whoa, I thought you were referring to the Mystery Spot in Santa Cruz, California. Had me worried there for a moment. It still exists.
In this dimension, anyway…
I’ve always wanted to set my mom and dad up with one of those.
They are easy to construct and you can do it out on nearly any old farmstead, just a couple of acres for parking and pick a place with no zoning.
I couldn’t run it myself. As a professor, I’m on the explaining end of optical illusions.
But I have constructed a couple of the components, full size rooms with slight angles that fool you unless you view from the opposite corner, etc.
Actually, it might be a good change of pace to replace a Mystery Spot with an Optical Illusions Explained Spot. Since most of the visitors are campers with time on their hands, when you go to one of those you run into people who have been to several of them already, and have the oddest explanations for them.
Michigan’s Mystery Spot seems to be going strong. It surprises me how many of these there seem to be.
It’s closing? Damn.
Now we’ll never find Ozzie Smith.
My God, what’s next, Wall Drug?
At least the Mystery Wet Spot will remain across America and around the world.
The Dells has changed from a seasonal spot for tourists looking for summer fun involving camping and outdoor activities. It’s a place where most resturants and businesses can stay open all year, because the indoor waterparks, gambling, and fancy hotels are full all year. The outdoor amusement parks and minigolf places do great in warm weather, but stuff like the Mystery Spot, Bibical Gardens, and the House of the Future are gone as of now. The Upper Dells Boat Tours and Ducks do well. Things changed enough that the company that owned much of the acreage along the upper dells boat tour gave the land to the DNR to release it’s tax burden, and allow investment in the waterparks and like. The area and others have been under special laws writen for the Wisconsin riverway, that restrict development whithin a distance of the river. By the way robot world isn’t anything like when Tommy Bartlet was alive. It went downhill fast, and is now the Tommy Bartlett Exploratory. You can still go there to see one of the two Russian MIR space station main modules that were constructed and kept on Earth. My orientation goes to hell when I stand in it. The curved surface you stand on and see around you , makes me lose my balance and I get nauseous. Another loss to changing times is you can’t find the drink glasses that have adults in dissapearing clothes anymore.
Little Bohemia, the Wisconsin destination of Al Capone and his cronies, has been for sale a number of years now. There’s a good chance that the large property will be developed if it ever sells, and the place gone for good.
Why am I suddenly thinking of an orange Dodge Charger, flying through the air, while the horn plays the first few bars of ‘Dixie’, but with Wisconsin plates…? 
I know the place is as tacky and fake as it gets, but I am still sorry to hear of it’s passing.
My good friends had a house within walking distance and I spent many weekends up there with them as a kid. The Mystery Spot didn’t charge admission to the locals so we would walk over there and hang out a lot of weekends.
I hate how the Dells had changed into such a corporate entity. What’s going to die next, the Deer Park?
Barrels
Mystery Spot was on TV today, the first five minutes on Weird U.S. on the History Channel.
They didn’t give it a good segment though, not worth looking for. Just said the same thing five times. That show has no writers.