Funtown Mountain: Abandoned

On our way out of Cave City, Kentucky (after a blissful night spent sleeping in a Wigwam) we couldn't resist stopping to check out Funtown Mountain. Originally opened in 1969 as Guntown Mountain (you can see where the G was amended to an F recently), the attraction included a gift shop, haunted hotel and chair lift ride up the titular mountain.

It was reopened as Funtown Mountain in June of 2015, but closed in September of that year when the owner ran into financial trouble and missed some loan payments. Cave City officials declared the park a public safety hazard, and the property went up for auction in April of this year. It sold for $295,000 to a Cave City local who plans to turn it into a destination, a project estimated to cost anywhere from five to twenty million dollars.

We creeped around for a while before I thought I was actually going to die from the heat and insanely bright sun. We climbed up a flight of very rickety wooden steps and discovered an overgrown snack bar car, restrooms, a creepy white-washed bus and what looked like the remnants of some sort of bumper ride. We were sure there was more to the park, but we were running low on time (and cooling mechanisms) and didn't want to push our luck.

The Haunted Hotel and adjacent fortune-telling hut were definitely a highlight. Although we couldn't find a viable way into the "hotel," it was still such an A+ find. Parts of Funtown Mountain feel as if they've been abandoned for years—instead of months—but I can still see why someone with big dreams would be able to see its potential. I'd love to revisit Funtown if it ever reopens, but they might find it difficult to improve on the creepiness of a legitimately abandoned Haunted Hotel.