‘It so fundamentally changed our entire area’: Busch Gardens marks 50 years of fun

JAMES CITY COUNTY, Va. (WAVY) — “It was a real change.”

John McGlennon, who serves on the James City County Board of Supervisors, said that is the best way to describe the arrival of Busch Gardens to the Historic Triangle on May 16, 1975.

Up until that time, the greater Williamsburg area’s tourism centered almost strictly around history, with Colonial Williamsburg and the Jamestown Experience being the main attraction.

However, McGlennon, who arrived to teach at William & Mary in 1974, said it was clear to him the region was abuzz with new excitement when the Anheuser Busch Company chose Virginia for their next Busch Gardens.

Fifty years later, he said he understands why.

“It so fundamentally changed our entire area,” McGlennon said.

The development of the Anheuser-Busch Company dates back to the 1960s. August A. Busch Jr., was looking to develop a new brewery in Newport News, according to a 1969 article in Time magazine.

However Arkansas’ Gov. Winthrop Rockefeller, then-chair of the Colonial Williamsburg Foundation, convinced the Busch family to look at James City County. The brewery, which remains in operation today, opened in 1970.

By 1975, August A. Busch Jr’s son, August Busch III, had taken over as president of the company, and the opening of Busch Gardens “The Old Country” was his first major project.

McGlennon said he believes Busch III’s timing and attention to detail is one of the many reasons the park remains successful today.

“August Busch fell in love with the area really, appreciated its history and the beauty of the landscape in particular,” McGlennon said. “And he really wanted to develop something that would be a family legacy.”

Skip Ferebee tends to agree. He helped lead marketing efforts for the park for more than a decade, beginning in the late 1990s.

“August Busch cared about quality and the experience,” Ferebee said. “From the landscaping to the food, he had an expectation.”

To this day, the park’s breads and desserts are all made on the property. The horticulture team has helped hold the National Amusement Park Historical Association’s “most beautiful theme park” award 34-years running.

Ferebee said the attention to detail, matched with the attraction’s location on the eastern seaboard, helped to draw visitors in.

In 2007, Busch Gardens Williamsburg had an estimated annual attendance of roughly 3.2 million guests, according to the Themed Entertainment Association Global Attractions Attendance Report. That year, it was also the 15th most attended theme park in the United States.

Ferebee said he knows for a fact those visitors weren’t only coming to the park on their trip.

“They’d come down and go to Virginia Beach for a few days, than book a hotel in Williamsburg, go to the park, Colonial Williamsburg,” Ferebee said.

McGlennon said it’s a proven economic driver.

“One of the things that it did was it lowered the tax rate for homeowners, in half, moved it from about $1.40, for $100 of assessed value to $0.70, because of the increased value of everything that was coming in,” McGlennon said. “Whether it was the brewery itself, which had a machinery and tools tax to pay, and in addition to property taxes, Busch Gardens, which was paying meals, taxes, all of that really contributed an awful lot to our ability to move from being a kind of sleepy, small town into a very dynamic community that attracts folks from all over the world.”

However, more than anything, it’s the memories that both Ferebee and McGlennon said they cherish the most about the park.

While the Busch family ownership ceased in 2009, Ferebee said their employee philosophy remains with him.

“It was a family park in the sense that the Busch family cared as much about their employees as the guests,” Ferebee said. “The mulch backstage in employee areas was to be just as nice as the public facing.”

He also adds, being in the business of creating smiles didn’t hurt either.

When it comes to smiles, McGlennon said he loves roller coasters, but the largest grin comes to his face when thinking about the 1999 opening of Apollo’s Chariot.

“Of course, everybody remembers Fabio and and his experience with the goose,” McGlennon laughed.

Italian model and actor Fabio Lanzoni, best known as just Fabio, was riding the new coaster, when his nose collided with a non-ticket paying goose. The aftermath was captured on camera and went national.

“Fortunately, nobody was seriously injured in that incident,” McGlennon said, “but it’s nice to have something a little bit humorous to make you feel like your hometown’s special.”