Introduction
Ghost Town in the Sky sits on Buck Mountain above Maggie Valley, North Carolina, near the edge of the Great Smoky Mountains. Its top elevation is about 4,650 feet, and it advertised itself as "North Carolina's mile-high theme park" (Wikipedia). For more than forty years it was the main reason most tourists came to Maggie Valley. It filled the strip along Soco Road with motels and pancake houses, and it gave a small, unincorporated mountain community a name people recognized across the country. Over the next twenty years it became something else: a byword for bankruptcy, a mudslide, failed inspections, odd investors, lawsuits, and repeated promises that it would reopen.
The park's history isn't simply a rise and a fall. It rose, fell, came back, fell again, partly came back, and then spent more than a decade in legal limbo while people kept saying it would return. This essay follows that whole arc. It covers the founders and the 1960 construction, the heyday of the 1960s and 1970s, the corporate years and Coburn's return, the 2002 closure, the 2007 revival and its collapse, the 2010 landslide, Alaska Presley's last attempt, the strange redevelopment deals of 2018 to 2021, and the court fights and sale talks that followed her death.
A note on dates: the sources disagree about some basic facts. Some say the park opened on May 1, 1961, others say June 1961, and a few say 1962. The early corporate sale is variously dated to 1970 or 1973. Where the record conflicts, this essay says so.
Part One: The Vision (1959–1961)
R.B. Coburn and the Western craze
Ghost Town was the idea of R.B. Coburn, a native of Covington, Virginia, who moved to Maggie Valley (Wikipedia). On a family vacation he was captivated by several abandoned ghost towns in the American West (The Mountaineer). He brought home the idea of building a Wild West town in the Southern Appalachians.
The timing was good. In the late 1950s and early 1960s, Westerns dominated American television. The park's central theme was a lively frontier town modeled on the scenes in shows such as Laramie, The Virginian, Wagon Train, Gunsmoke, and Bonanza (The Mountaineer). Families raised on these shows would happily drive into the mountains to see a gunfight in person. As the same Mountaineer retrospective notes, this was before Carowinds, Busch Gardens, Six Flags, or Dollywood as people know it today. Ghost Town launched in 1961, the same year as Rebel Railroad, the park that eventually became Dollywood (TheSmokies.com).
The Presleys, Uncle Dan Carpenter, and Buck Mountain
Coburn had not planned to build on a mountaintop. According to Alaska Presley, he first meant to put the park in Ratcliff Cove, at the other end of Haywood County (Smoky Mountain News). Wikipedia similarly says the park was first planned for a site between Waynesville and Clyde, and that Presley suggested the mountaintop instead (Wikipedia).
Alaska and Hubert Presley had come to Maggie Valley in 1955, when it was an unincorporated hamlet of fewer than 200 people with one main road (Smoky Mountain News). As she later told the story, "We got acquainted with him and then Hubert, my husband, took him over to see uncle Dan Carpenter who owned that property on the mountain, and he and my husband built Ghost Town" (Smoky Mountain News). Coburn bought the land on Buck Mountain in 1960, and construction began that September (Smoky Mountain News).
A local legend is tied to the purchase. Coburn reportedly heard that Uncle Dan Carpenter had lost sheep in a large cavern on top of Buck Mountain and thought cave tours could be added to the Western town. When the two men went to look, the opening had apparently closed, and no entrance was found. Since construction, the area between the Indian Village and the main frontier town has kept settling and collapsing. Some people dismiss the story as folklore, while others connect it to the mountain's later landslides (Wikipedia).
Financing and building a town in a year
Local investors supplied much of the money through debenture bonds starting in 1959. According to the park's lore, a child of one of the investors came up with the name. Russell Pearson designed the park, and it cost about $1 million to build (Wikipedia). Coburn worked with a group of local business owners to raise the $1 million and built the park within a year (The Mountaineer).
The work started with removing the top of the mountain. Coburn and the Presleys shaved the top off Buck Mountain to make room for the attraction (Smoky Mountain News). The dirt from that leveling was pushed over the side and held in place by terraced retaining walls, some of them built from railroad ties (Smoky Mountain News). That engineering decision would cause serious trouble fifty years later.
More than two hundred local workers built the 40 replica buildings of the Western town at the summit. The town covered about 120,000 square feet and used 300,000 feet of lumber, 200,000 feet of plywood, and 20,000 pounds of nails (Wikipedia). Construction finished in May 1961 (Smoky Mountain News).
Getting people up the mountain
Building on a mountaintop meant visitors needed a way to reach it. Guests parked beside Jonathan Creek at about 3,150 feet and rode up to the park's lower level at about 4,400 feet, a climb of about 1,250 feet. The Western town itself sat at about 4,600 feet (Wikipedia). The park opened with a double incline railway (a funicular) that carried guests more than 3,300 feet to the top. It later added a two-seat chairlift, which was then the longest in North Carolina and the second longest in the country (Wikipedia). Guests boarded the incline at the gift shop on U.S. 19 and rode tiered seats up into the Western town (Ronny Salerno).
The ride up became part of the experience, but it was also the park's weak point. As long as Ghost Town existed, its survival depended on aging machines that hauled thousands of people up a steep slope every day.
Part Two: The Golden Age (1961–1970s)
Opening day and instant success
Wikipedia gives the opening date as May 1, 1961, and says the park quickly became one of Western North Carolina's most popular attractions (Wikipedia). The Mountaineer, Haywood County's newspaper, says it opened in June 1961 "with little fanfare," and that little was written about it during construction, maybe because few people understood how much it would change the area (The Mountaineer).
The quiet opening didn't last. In its first season, Ghost Town drew 300,000 visitors from every state and nearly a dozen foreign countries. Within a few years it had built a brand known internationally and averaged about 500,000 visitors a year (The Mountaineer). At its peak, annual attendance reportedly reached 620,000, and the chairlift could carry 1,200 people an hour (Wikipedia). Alaska Presley later recalled that the crowds were sometimes so large she couldn't get everyone up the mountain (Smoky Mountain News).
What visitors found at the top
The center of the park was a re-created Old West town with two saloons, a schoolhouse, a bank, a jail, a church, and other businesses. Every hour, a gunfight was staged in the street while visitors crowded the boardwalks to watch. The Silver Dollar Saloon offered hourly can-can shows, and the Red Dog Saloon presented country and bluegrass music all day (Wikipedia).
The park was divided into themed areas at different elevations. Indian Village staged shows about Indigenous life in the Old West, including a deer hunt and a raid on a frontier settlement. Mining Town let guests pan for gold and silver. Mountain Town presented life in the Smokies (Wikipedia). Over time the park added roller coasters, a carousel, bumper cars, and circus and children's rides (Blue Ridge Country).
Gunfighters, undertakers, and TV stars
Ghost Town's performers became local celebrities. A 1963 postcard by photographer Pal Parker Jr. shows several of them: Robert Bradley as "The Apache Kid," Harry Valentine, Tic Rich, Herbert "Cowboy" Coward, and Robert Doyle Teaster as the first "Digger the Undertaker" (Wikipedia). The park's lore says Bradley got his career in the summer of 1961 when Coburn asked him to take part in a gunfight. His fall was so dramatic that Coburn reportedly said, "Don't let him go back to the bottom of the mountain again, he stays here, he's my gunfighter" (Wikipedia). Herbert Coward later appeared in the film Deliverance.
Coburn also brought in real television stars. Older residents remember Dan Blocker of Bonanza, a young Burt Reynolds, and Jon Provost with Lassie. In the 1980s, country singers such as Reba McEntire, Mel Tillis, and the Statler Brothers provided the star power (The Mountaineer). Local musicians played there too, including banjo player Marc Pruett, later of Balsam Range, and "Panhandle Pete" (Howard Nash) with his one-man band (The Mountaineer).
For many visitors, the memories were vivid and sometimes a little frightening. Libby Withers Wilder of Spartanburg recalled hiding behind her father as a child in the 1960s because the gunfire scared her (Smoky Mountain News).
The park that built a town
Ghost Town's effect on Maggie Valley is hard to overstate. The Mountaineer says the park turned a sleepy stretch of U.S. 19 into a boom town and sparked the strip of mom-and-pop motels, diners, and gift shops along both sides of Soco Road (The Mountaineer). Brenda O'Keefe and her husband opened Joey's Pancake House soon after the park created a tourism base.
The park also helped give the valley its name. Local businesses had started promoting "Maggie Valley" in 1949, and Ghost Town reinforced the name by calling itself "Ghost Town in Maggie Valley" (Wikipedia: Maggie Valley). By the mid-1960s, business was growing faster than local lodging and infrastructure could handle, and talk of incorporating began in 1963 (Smoky Mountain News). Alaska Presley helped lead that effort, and the Town of Maggie Valley was incorporated in 1974 (Smoky Mountain News). Maggie Valley's mayor later said that "Ghost Town was one of the largest attractions in the Southeast back in the '60s and '70s" (WLOS).
The park's influence extended beyond Maggie Valley. Pearson and Coburn opened Frontierland in Cherokee, North Carolina, in 1964, and then Six Gun Territory, another Wild West park, in Florida (Wikipedia). Decades later, Cherokee vice chief Larry Blythe said Coburn "had a vision 50 years ago we could really use today... At that point in time, he changed Cherokee" (The Mountaineer).
Part Three: Corporate Years and Coburn's Return (1970s–1990s)
Selling to a national company
In the early 1970s, Coburn sold the park. Wikipedia dates the sale to 1973 and says it was a stock swap (Wikipedia). A 1986 court opinion names the buyer as National Service Industries, Inc. (Little v. National Service Industries). Wikipedia also cites one source saying the park suffered because it was a minor holding for that company (Wikipedia). The Mountaineer dates the sale to 1970, although its description of the buyer appears to contain an error (The Mountaineer). Whatever the exact details, later accounts agree that the park was under-managed and under-supported during these years (TheSmokies.com). One writer called the sale "the beginning of a very long, slow end" (TheSmokies.com).
The park still had some notable moments. In 1982, its performers appeared at the World's Fair in Knoxville, Tennessee. In 1984, a $1 million roller coaster sponsored by Coors was planned, and the site was cleared (Wikipedia).
The Red Devil
In 1986, at his son's urging, Coburn bought the park back (The Mountaineer). O'Keefe recalled that "Mr. Coburn said he would come back if he could get a commitment from people in the community to help." He upgraded faded attractions and added new ones. The best known was a steel looping coaster called the Red Devil, which opened in September 1988 (Abandoned Southeast).
Coburn promoted it with his usual showmanship: "That roller coaster, now — there won't be nothing like it in this part of the world. We're going to put it all over the side of the mountain. It's got the curves and the loops and the view over the cliff. People'll think they are going to outer space" (The Mountaineer). The ride, built by O.D. Hopkins, had an unusual layout. Its station sat at the top of the hill, so the train rolled out, turned 90 degrees, and dropped straight into its single inverted loop, with track running out over the edge of the mountain. The lift hill came at the end of the ride rather than the beginning (Wikipedia).
Other rides followed, including the Monster (1992), the children's coaster Lil Devil, the Sea Dragon (1995), and a Trabant-style ride called Casino (2000). Older rides such as the Tilt-A-Whirl, which dated to 1961, and the Mining Town Swing, from 1966, remained in operation (Wikipedia).
Recognition and slow decline
In 1994, the Maggie Valley Chamber of Commerce honored Coburn for bringing in $45 million in business, 600 jobs, and television advertising that promoted the whole community. Organizers didn't tell him about the award ahead of time because they feared he wouldn't come if he knew (The Mountaineer).
By then the park was already declining. In 1986, the same year Coburn regained the park, Silver Dollar City in Pigeon Forge became Dollywood, and Ghost Town was slow to change its mining-town theme (TheSmokies.com). As the Pigeon Forge park grew, the Maggie Valley park fell into a cycle of underfunding and worse guest experiences. Smoky Mountain News attributed its falling revenue in part to modern mega-parks built around licensed characters such as Bugs Bunny and Batman (Smoky Mountain News).
The rides wore out. The Red Devil, Goldrusher, Sea Dragon, Monster, Mountain Town Swings, Undertaker, Dream Catcher, Casino, Round Up, Lil Devil, and Silver Bullet broke down often and were rarely open. The chairlift and incline needed constant repair (Wikipedia). The Monster closed in 2000 after repeated failures. The Silver Bullet, a custom ride built in-house, never opened because a car derailed during a test run and was destroyed (Wikipedia).
Part Four: The First Death (2002–2006)
The end of the Coburn era came on July 16, 2002, when the chairlift stopped and stranded passengers for more than two hours (Wikipedia). Some accounts describe them hanging in the summer heat (TheSmokies.com), and Coaster Buzz reported it as the second stranding that year. Attendance was already down because of the park's condition. Coburn closed Ghost Town a few days later and put it up for sale (Wikipedia). Smoky Mountain News describes the closure as Coburn's retirement after years of declining revenue (Smoky Mountain News).
The park sat closed and unmaintained for four years. Many people assumed no one would buy it because the rides were in such poor shape (Wikipedia). Maggie Valley's economy suffered badly. Businesses missed the lost visitors, and town leaders tried to recover the Ghost Town years. Plans for a "town center" were drawn up and studies were done, but nothing replaced the draw of the park (The Mountaineer).
When Coburn finally found a buyer in 2006, Maggie Valley held a tribute to the man who had put it on the map (The Mountaineer).
Part Five: The Revival and the Crash (2006–2009)
Ghost Town Partners
Coburn sold the property in August 2006 to Ghost Town Partners LLC. Its officers were Allen (Al) and Carol Harper, owners of the Great Smoky Mountains Railroad in Bryson City and the Durango and Silverton Narrow Gauge Railroad in Colorado; Hank Woodburn of Jacksonville Beach, Florida, founder of the Adventure Landing family entertainment chain; and Miami venture capitalist Peter Hairston (Smoky Mountain News).
During the transition, the park also appeared in a film. In October and November 2006, Ghost Town: The Movie was shot in the Western town. It was directed by Haywood County native Dean Teaster and included original 1961 gunfighters such as Robert Bradley and Herbert Coward. Alaska Presley put up half of the budget. The film premiered in Maggie Valley in June 2007 and was later released by Lionsgate as Dean Teaster's Ghost Town (Wikipedia).
Reopening day, 2007
Ghost Town reopened on May 25, 2007. Wikipedia repeats a widely cited figure that $38 million was spent on renovations and improvements and says $10 million in loans came from BB&T (Wikipedia). The figure may be inflated, since other accounts put total spending through 2009 at about $11 million (Abandoned Southeast). The new owners added a "Heritage Town Square" at the top of the chairlift with a history museum, a restaurant, and new rides. The Red Devil was repainted and renamed Cliffhanger, and Lil Devil became Tumbleweed (Wikipedia). A drop tower bought from Memphis's defunct Libertyland, later called Geronimo Drop, was also added (Wikipedia).
The reopening was incomplete. Every ride came back except the incline railway, the train, and the Monster. Attendance numbers were not released, but tourism in Haywood County rose 22% (Wikipedia). Cliffhanger, the main attraction, stayed closed through the 2007 and 2008 seasons because it needed major repairs (Wikipedia). In 2007, a large section of the terraced slope also slumped. The park hired an engineer and contractor for repairs, but some of the old railroad-tie walls were left in place (Smoky Mountain News).
The economy turns
Then came the 2008 financial crisis. Ticket sales were described as "sluggish" amid high gas prices and the Great Recession (Smoky Mountain News). By 2008, attendance had dropped to about 340,000 (Wikipedia).
By 2009, Ghost Town LLC was more than $12 million in debt. It owed $2.5 million to 220 local vendors and contractors, including more than $97,000 in state sales taxes and $70,000 in municipal and county property taxes. According to general manager Steve Shiver, nearly $500,000 in liens had been placed on the property. The company had put almost $4 million of its own money into repairs, but it still filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy (Smoky Mountain News). Shiver said, "We were on the cusp of making this thing work, and then the credit markets absolutely fell apart." Of the money spent, $6 million had gone to Cliffhanger alone (Wikipedia). Shiver and his partners filed for Chapter 11 bankruptcy in March 2009 (Smoky Mountain News).
Begging the town for a loan
In late April 2009, the park asked the Town of Maggie Valley for a $200,000 loan, which worked out to about $125 per taxpayer, saying it was "at the end of our rope" (Smoky Mountain News). Some reports said a $330,000 loan was needed and warned that 200 jobs and a $2 million payroll were at risk (Wikipedia). Alderman Mark DeMeola didn't want to put taxpayers on the hook. At a public hearing on May 18, Shiver withdrew the request because a private business owner had offered to help (Smoky Mountain News). That anonymous backer was later identified as Alaska Presley.
The park opened on May 22, 2009, with the adult ticket price raised $3 from $28. The roller coaster still didn't have a state license. On July 1, the rebuilt Cliffhanger finally opened, but state inspectors shut it down the next morning after finding a hairline crack in the frame of a seat (Smoky Mountain News). It ran again briefly near the end of the season before more mechanical problems closed it (Wikipedia).
Revenue for May, June, and July 2009 totaled $1.53 million, short of the $1.85 million in operating costs. When the park closed for the season, workers weren't paid for their final two weeks, and the Maggie Valley Sanitary District shut off the site's water because of unpaid bills (Smoky Mountain News). It was the last full season Ghost Town in the Sky ever operated as an amusement park.
Part Six: The Mountain Gives Way (2010–2011)
The landslide
On February 5, 2010, after heavy rain and melting snow, the terraced retaining-wall system on Buck Mountain failed (Smoky Mountain News). A wall of mud and rock about 30 feet high swept down the mountain, cutting a path up to 175 feet wide. It damaged at least three homes and cut off access to 37 others (Claims Journal). Smoky Mountain News described the slide as more than half a mile long and said debris moved down Rich Cove Road, the park's access road, at about 30 miles per hour (Smoky Mountain News). No one was hurt, but more than 40 homes were evacuated (Abandoned Southeast).
State geologist Rick Wooten said material from a retaining-wall system Ghost Town had built within the previous three years contributed to the slide (Claims Journal). The soil pushed off the summit in 1960 had finally moved. The park was three months behind on its general liability insurance payments when the slide happened (Smoky Mountain News). Lawsuits followed but were put on hold during the bankruptcy (Smoky Mountain News). Federal funding of $1.3 million was granted to clear Rich Cove Road (Wikipedia).
Bankruptcy endgame
BB&T, the largest creditor, asked the court to liquidate the company to recover its debt, while the park said it had financing arranged and would reopen in late May (Claims Journal). In May 2010, the bankruptcy court approved a deal to transfer the park to a new company, American Heritage Family Parks, formed by Al Harper, one of the current owners. He would put up $7 million toward a debt of about $13.5 million (Smoky Mountain News). That plan fell apart, the park didn't open in 2010, and BB&T foreclosed in August 2010, citing $9.5 million owed since 2007 (Smoky Mountain News). In April 2011, the bankruptcy administrator recommended dismissing the case because the owners hadn't filed a workable reorganization plan, which cleared the way for foreclosure (Wikipedia). Ghost Town was closed for the entire 2011 season.
Part Seven: Alaska Presley's Crusade (2012–2016)
Buying back her own history
In February 2012, Alaska Presley, then 88 and one of the park's original backers, bought Ghost Town at a public auction for $2.5 million (Smoky Mountain News). Some sources give a figure of $1.5 million and a year of 2011, but most reports use $2.5 million and February 2012 (Smoky Mountain News). Waynesville mayor Gavin Brown said, "Only an Alaska Presley could ever get Ghost Town to run again," and added that he didn't see value in the park "in today's market, in today's world" (Smoky Mountain News).
Presley found major mechanical and cosmetic problems with the coaster, chairlift, and water system, and estimated that fixing everything would cost about $11 million. "Poor management and bad debts has plagued it for years," she said (Smoky Mountain News).
Partial openings
On June 29, 2012, the A-frame entrance building opened for gift sales for the first time in four years, and the chairlift began carrying visitors on tours of the town (Wikipedia). Presley brought in singer Stella Parton, Dolly Parton's sister and her longtime friend, to help hold concerts in the parking lot (Smoky Mountain News).
The obstacles were large. During four years without security, the park had been vandalized and stripped, and the 2010 slope damage still needed repair. New state rules required expensive inspections. The private wells were condemned because they were too close to possible contamination. Four new wells were drilled and all but one failed, so the park had to connect to town water and replace almost the entire old water system (Wikipedia). Presley spent millions bringing water to the summit, repairing the incline, building a zipline, and restocking the A-frame shop (The Mountaineer).
Her plans went beyond a Western park. She wanted a Christian-themed attraction with a giant cross above the park (The Mountaineer). She also planned a final phase called Holy Land, including a replica of Jerusalem (Blue Ridge Country), sometimes referred to as "Resurrection Mountain" (Wikipedia). In 2013, the park planned a Memorial Day season opening with restored children's rides, three ziplines, a museum, restaurants, shops, can-can dancers, and gunfights (Smoky Mountain News).
Setbacks
Over the next few years, the park opened only sporadically. There were failed ride inspections, unsuccessful wells, new rules requiring an alternate evacuation route, a lawsuit from a visitor injured on the zipline, and an incident in which a veteran actor-gunfighter was hit by a real projectile during a show (The Mountaineer). The performer, who was 69, said he was struck in the thigh during a scene in which another actor was supposed to fire blanks from a shotgun (Fox News).
In 2014, Presley told the town board she was "cash poor," that land wasn't selling, and that she couldn't afford a winter wonderland at the base or a gondola to the top. The council declined to help, saying taxpayer money shouldn't fund a private business (The Mountaineer). That November she listed the lower part of the property for $3 million to raise money for the Holy Land project, then took it off the market in January 2015 (Wikipedia).
In October 2015, the park rebranded as Ghost Town Village. The plan dropped the old coasters, which were too expensive to restore, in favor of gunfights, the chairlift, Appalachian-themed shops, ziplines, a museum, paintball, an arcade, and horseback riding. The opening was set for June 1, 2016 (Wikipedia). On June 2, 2016, management announced that the park wouldn't open and was for sale again (Wikipedia). Presley had spent about $5 million trying to bring it back (The Mountaineer). The park hasn't been open to the public since (Smoky Mountain News). Later in 2016, the property was listed for $5.95 million (Smoky Mountain News).
Part Eight: Promoters and Promises (2018–2021)
Ghost Town Adventures and Lamar Berry
In 2018, a new company called Ghost Town Adventures announced plans to buy the 250-acre property from Presley and reopen it in spring 2019. Its chairman and CEO was Lamar Berry, and his partners were Spencer and Valerie Oberle (The Mountaineer). The Oberles were described as former Disney executives. Berry, a former chief marketing officer of Popeyes, was responsible for raising the money to buy the park (Smoky Mountain News). That summer they promised a fall preview opening and began renovating the A-frame entrance. The state Department of Labor confirmed that no rides at the park were certified to operate (Smoky Mountain News).
The deal soon fell apart. Smoky Mountain News reported on Berry's earlier failed ventures, including a 2005 sandwich chain modeled on the comic-strip character Dagwood that ended in an investor lawsuit, and a proposed boardwalk in Lake Charles, Louisiana, that never got financing (Smoky Mountain News). In October 2018, contractor Clark and Leatherwood filed a $52,551 lien for work on the A-frame against Lula LLC, Presley's company that owned the park (Smoky Mountain News). A local innkeeper sued Berry for more than $3,000 in unpaid lodging. When the purchase deadline passed on November 30, 2018, investor John Kovack said, "Lamar's company no longer has any legal relationship with Ghost Town" (Smoky Mountain News). Local investors said Berry had taken $50,000 from them, and Presley said she was no longer interested in any offer from him (WLOS). "I didn't need money, I needed help to get it back open," she said. "But my doctor told me for my own health I needed to sell it."
In 2019, the property was back on the market for $5.95 million and was described as 250 acres with 40 buildings on four levels of the mountain (NAI Beverly-Hanks). News coverage at the time, including from WTVD and the Charlotte Observer, began calling it the "cursed" theme park (Fox News).
Frankie Wood and the $200 million vision
In October 2019, the property went under contract again with a developer who at first spoke to Smoky Mountain News without being named, and the closing was put off several times (Smoky Mountain News). That developer was later identified as Frankie Wood of South Carolina (The Mountaineer). In March 2020, Presley and Wood's company, Coastal Development LLC, formed Ghost Town in the Sky LLC. Presley contributed about 250 acres and the buildings, and Wood was supposed to provide financing and labor (The Mountaineer). A second company, Maggie Valley RV Park LLC, was formed to develop land on Moody Farm Road, and Presley provided $250,000 for that purchase (The Mountaineer).
In 2021, the land was transferred, and the developers presented a project they said would bring more than $200 million in investment over ten years. Plans included a Biltmore Village-style Main Street with shops and homes, a lodge-style hotel at the base, a cross on the summit, several themed "worlds" up the mountain, affordable housing, a modular-home factory, and even a grocery store and urgent care clinic for the town (Smoky Mountain News).
Most of the work went into zoning and RV parks, not rides. Wood said the town needed housing for the roughly 200 employees the park would need, and he pursued more RV park and campground approvals. In a town that already had about 600 RV sites, that became a heated political issue. It contributed to a change in town leadership and a moratorium on new campgrounds and RV parks (The Mountaineer). At a December 2021 meeting with business owners, Wood said he would drop the project unless development rules were eased (Asheville Daily Planet).
Part Nine: Death, Litigation, and Limbo (2022–2024)
The passing of Alaska Presley
Alaska Presley died on April 7, 2022, at age 98 at Smoky Mountain Health and Rehabilitation (Smoky Mountain News). Some sources give the date as April 4 or April 8. Her funeral was accompanied by talk of the cross she had hoped to place on Buck Mountain (WLOS). She had been involved with the park for about sixty years, from helping choose its site to her final partnership.
McClure v. Ghost Town in the Sky, LLC
Presley's 50% stake passed to her niece, Jill Holland McClure. In August 2022, McClure sued to dissolve both LLCs. She said the companies were insolvent, had no revenue, and depended on Presley, and now McClure, to pay taxes, utilities, and insurance (The Mountaineer). The suit said the planned purchase was never completed within a year, that the LLC's only possible income was one residential rental, and that the RV park was being redesigned for permanent homes (Smoky Mountain News). One critic said Presley and Wood's partnerships rested entirely on Presley's land and money (Renting Dirt).
The case moved to the North Carolina Business Court. In March 2023, the RV park dispute was settled in mediation (The Mountaineer). Coastal's filings put the cost of reopening the amusement park at $79 million to $80 million, cited "verbal commitments" from a Charlotte-area real estate investor, and mentioned "alternative plans to develop the land in other ways." An appraisal valued the property at $6.54 million (Yahoo/The Mountaineer). Wood said he had offered $4 million, while McClure asked for $6 million (Yahoo/The Mountaineer).
On May 16, 2024, Judge Adam Conrad dismissed McClure's suit. He found that the company was too young to justify dissolution and that Wood, as managing member, had almost complete control (WLOS). One legal commentary noted that Ghost Town hadn't operated since 2009 and that its owners had neither financing nor income (Fox Rothschild). McClure said she hoped they could "work together" for a good outcome.
Hurricane Helene and Wood's death
In September 2024, McClure and Wood were on Buck Mountain inspecting the property when Hurricane Helene hit, and they waited out the storm together for three hours. "He kept talking. I knew none of it was true," McClure said later (The Mountaineer). Helene devastated tourism across Western North Carolina (Charlotte Observer).
Frankie Wood died on November 4, 2024. Under the operating agreement, McClure took over Presley's rights and responsibilities. Because Wood had made no documented capital contribution and had no will, his heirs received only economic interest rights, not voting control (The Mountaineer).
Part Ten: The Present (2025–2026)
In May 2025, McClure said a buyer was interested. He was from Florida, ran an entertainment venue there, and had met McClure while in Maggie Valley helping with Hurricane Helene relief (The Mountaineer). McClure said he would probably keep the Western town and was interested in country music, rodeos, conventions, and festivals. "I am the sole owner, member and manager," she told WLOS. She said the 285-acre property had been appraised at $6.4 million and that if this deal didn't happen, she would put it on the market (WLOS). She has said she wants it used for entertainment, not housing: "I don't want to see housing put all over the top of it."
As of spring 2026, no sale had been announced (Romantic Asheville), and a 2026 real estate guide describes the park as still closed despite periodic talk of a sale (Smoky Mountain Homes). The property is private, trespassing signs are enforced (Romantic Asheville), and cameras have been installed to catch trespassers and thieves (WLOS).
Meanwhile, Maggie Valley has gradually built a separate identity. When Ron DeSimone became mayor in 2011, he argued that the town needed a marketable character independent of Ghost Town. Since then the town has invested in its Festival Grounds and branded itself the "Elk Capital of North Carolina" (The Mountaineer).
Conclusion: Why Ghost Town Endures
The history of Ghost Town in the Sky reflects what happened to American roadside attractions over the last sixty years. It began when a single entrepreneur, local backers, and the popularity of TV Westerns could make a family attraction profitable. It peaked before corporate mega-parks, licensed characters, and interstate highways changed what families expected and where they went. It declined because its biggest advantage, its setting on top of a mountain, was also its biggest cost. Every visitor had to be carried up by aging lifts, every gallon of water had to be pumped uphill, and every ride had to sit on soil that had been pushed over a cliff in 1960.
Beyond the economics, the story is about people. R.B. Coburn imagined the park and came back to save it once. Alaska Presley helped choose the site, helped build the town that grew around it, rescued the park from foreclosure in her late eighties, and spent her last years trying to put a cross on top of the mountain. The gunfighters, can-can dancers, and undertakers became part of local legend. Thousands of families still post faded photos in Facebook groups and keep asking whether it will reopen.
People call Ghost Town "cursed." The record points to more ordinary problems: deferred maintenance, too much debt, bad timing, an unstable slope, and a series of promoters who promised more than they could raise. Still, the place has a way of drawing people back. After each closure, someone has tried again. Sixty-five years after the first gunfight on its main street, its future is still undecided.