Celebration of Suds
When I did a brief stint as a tour guide in Colonial Williamsburg shortly after I retired from teaching in 2012, our training included learning about the “non-history” attractions in our area, so that we could address the needs of a wide range of people during their visit. During one of our training exercises, we were told to develop a three-day family vacation itinerary, and one of the things that we learned was that we needed to build in some time for the kids to swim in the hotel pool, visit local beaches, or visit our local amusement park, Busch Gardens (only six miles from the Colonial Williamsburg Visitor Center). A family trip to this historically rich part of Virginia had to be more than all-history, all the time, if we wanted people to return.
This article from today’s Virginia Gazette celebrates the 50th anniversary of the opening of the Anheuser-Busch Brewery in the Williamsburg area. The brewery also developed Busch Gardens, the amusement park adjacent to the brewery, opening it in 1975 as the third site to bear that name (after Tampa, FL, and Van Nuys, CA). Until 1998, a monorail ran from the brewery to the amusement park; visitors to the park could ride to see the brewery and sample the product. Busch Gardens and its companion park, Water Country USA, are now both owned by Seaworld Parks and Entertainment. Multi-park passes are available, allowing for discounted visits to both parks.
One iconic image associated with the brewery is the Clydesdale horses, which began promoting Anheuser-Busch and Budweiser in 1933 to celebrate the end of Prohibition. You can still visit the seven Clydesdale horses that live at Highland Stables on the property. These horses are huge – over 6 feet tall at the shoulder. To make the cut as a Budweiser Clydesdale, a horse has to be at least six feet tall at the shoulder, be a gelding at least four years old, and have a bay coat with four white stockings, a blaze of white on the face, and a black mane and tail.
An operation as large as Busch Gardens contributes substantially to the economic health of the region. More than 5,000 people work for the park, although the work is largely seasonal and low-paying. The Busch Entertainment Corp. is the largest employer in James City County; Anheuser Busch is 8th on the list. In 2015 (the most recent year for which I was able to find information), almost three million guests visited the park. Some of these people live locally – the park sells a summer pass to allow local residents to visit the park regularly – but most of them are from other parts of Virginia as well as from all over the country. These people contribute to the local economy as they stay in hotels, eat at restaurants, and visit other sites while they are here.
I have a couple of specific memories about Busch Gardens.
In the 1990s, Woodbridge High School in Prince William County, Virginia (where I taught for 10 years) sponsored a senior class trip to Busch Gardens every year. As I was a class sponsor, I had the privilege of going on this trip for several years. It was fun, although it was a very long day and I was almost always wet from the water rides (my students always targeted me on these rides, making sure I was soaked by the time the road was over). After the first year this happened, I learned to bring a change of clothing, which I put in a locker at the park and changed into as we were leaving.
Our students were all either 17 or 18 years old, so we didn’t ride herd on them throughout the day. Our only requirement was that they check in with us near the park entrance sometime between 12 noon and 1 pm, so we could check that they had not actually left the park to pursue interests of their own. They generally met that requirement – I don’t remember anyone who strayed for long.
One thing I remember from these trips is that the teachers I was with usually ate lunch in Das Festhaus – a beer garden in the middle of the park. In those innocent days, most of us drank a beer with our lunch. Our students were around, saw this happening, and had no reaction to it. I remember our principal downing a beer with us on one of these trips. On one trip several of us rode the monorail to visit the brewery and take advantage of our beer sample. We saw several of our students on the monorail with us; we didn’t acknowledge them and they didn’t acknowledge us, and we never spoke of it. I don’t think any of this would happen today.
I don’t remember taking our children to Busch Gardens; our go-to amusement park was King’s Dominion, which was much closer to our home in Northern Virginia.
Since Tim and I moved to Williamsburg 25 years ago, I’ve been to Busch Gardens a few times. We visited the park and rode some rides when we first moved here, but we haven’t done that since. When my sister Maribeth visited me one time (probably 20 years ago), we spent the day at Busch Gardens. One time Tim and I bought tickets to Busch Gardens to go to a show in one of their venues – an Irish dance program at the time when River Dancing was so popular. Last summer, we went to Busch Gardens with our son Kevin and his family. While I was teaching in Newport News (in a school that was about 10 miles from Busch Gardens), the amusement park was a favorite source of summer jobs.