Busch Gardens

Greetings family, friends and neighbors!  Today's ramble is about a unique former SoCal theme park that not only marketed a "thrilling and dramatic" monorail ride, but also offered free beer!  Here's more to the story......

Theme Park Rambles

BUSCH GARDENS

Southern California has a long history of roadside attractions, amusement parks and world class theme parks beginning in the late 1800’s with tourist destinations featuring lions, alligators, and ostrich’s (oh my). One of Southern California’s more unusual  and short lived animal parks operated in the unlikely city of Van Nuys beginning in 1966. Hoping to entice an older audience than it’s theme park competitors; Disneyland, Knott’s Berry Farm, Universal Studios and Magic Mountain, Busch Gardens offered their guests...free beer!

“Monorail Tour. A thrilling and dramatic ride through the Los Angeles home of Anheuser-Busch Brewery. Visitors will enjoy the custom designed, electrically operated “Skyrail Tour” monorail trains. The 3500 foot ride is a most unique method for guests to view the brewery operations that produce Budweiser, Michelob, and Busch Bavarian”  

One of the more popular attractions at the Anheuser-Busch’s California bird park was the monorail tour. Unlike Disneyland’s Alweg Monorail System, Park guests rode in one of a dozen custom designed fiberglass and magnesium overhead monorail cars on a ten minute “Skyrail” tour of the  companies brewhouse. Guests were then deposited into the adjacent Bush Gardens theme park where the older members of the party could collect two glasses of the promised free beer. Competing with all the Southern California theme parks, attractions, animal parks and beaches, the sleepy twenty two acre park offered sedate boat rides, magic show, animal programs, beautifully manicured gardens, and a second monorail ride through a huge bird aviary. Unable to keep up with competing parks and after a brief and unsuccessful attempt to attract a conservation minded audience by re-branding the park “Busch Bird Sanctuary”, the theme park and it’s “thrilling and dramatic” Skyrail tour went the way of the lions, alligators and ostrich’s (oh my), closing  after just thirteen seasons. The birds were relocated to the Los Angeles Zoo and to the other Busch Garden locations in Tampa Bay and Williamsburg, while the Van Nuys brewery refocused resources on making Bud Lite.

Circa 1970’s postcard from the collection of Bill Ralph