How an infamous Baton Rouge rollercoaster became the subject of an urban legend
I was in fifth grade when I saw it for the first time. It was evening in the park. Colorful lights illuminated the rest of the rides and games; but it sat in the dark in the corner, gradually being swallowed by weeds. It was a large cube of grey metal that resembled a cage. The faded words “Wild Mouse” marked the entryway. My friend Angie Rybolt walked up beside me and said, “You know it killed people. That’s why they shut it down.”
The rumors surrounding the closure of the Wild Mouse Roller Coaster at Fun Fair Park in the late 1980s were only rivaled by the fantastic stories about satanic cults running wild at night on Hoo Shoo Too Road. Over the next few years, I heard the Wild Mouse was responsible for multiple decapitations, the demise of its repairman, broken bones, and even the death of Fun Fair’s beloved mascot Candi the Chimpanzee. All of these tales have proven to be false. With the exception of two girls who sustained minor injuries in the late 1970s while riding the coaster together, there is no documentation to suggest the Mouse was a murderer of children or primates.
Franz Mack invented the Wild Mouse-, AKA Mad Mouse-, AKA Crazy Mouse-type of roller coaster in the early 1960s in Germany. This small coaster was designed so that the cars were much wider than the tracks. It made tight, flat turns that gave the rider a feeling that he or she was hanging off the side of the track and created the illusion that the cars might plunge to their doom with every change of direction. Amusement park operators liked Wild Mouse rides because they were economical and compact. However as larger steel coasters came into vogue, the popularity of the Mouse declined; and by the 1990s they were almost extinct.
So how did the Wild Mouse go from a beloved childhood attraction to a death machine? The answer is a simple one—exaggeration. By the time folks had spun a yarn about the two girls who sustained minor injuries, they had become headless ghosts who roamed the park. In 1985, a maintenance worker at a church fair in Baton Rouge was struck and killed by a rollercoaster he was installing, but this happened miles away from the site of the Mouse. In the early 1980s, a boy was thrown from the Wild Mouse at Pontchartrain Beach in New Orleans. He fell twenty-five feet and suffered a head injury. These unrelated incidents all melted together and shaped the mythology of the abandoned coaster at the back of the park.
In the end, the explanation behind the Mouse’s closure was quite simple: by the late 1980s, it needed major repairs and the owners were contemplating moving the park. They decided to temporarily shutter the doors to the Mouse; in 1999, Fun Fair Park finally did close. Owner Sam Haynes moved Candi the Chimpanzee and many of the rides out to Highland Road and opened a new park called Dixie Landin’ by Blue Bayou Water Park. The family still has the Wild Mouse in storage and might refurbish it one day. I hope they do. Then I will finally be able to take that wobbly yet harrowing ride that fascinated me twenty-five years ago.
Details. Details. Details.
Blue Bayou Water Park & Dixie Landin’
18142 Perkins Road
Baton Rouge, La.
(225) 753-3333 • bluebayou.com
