SeaWorld Ohio
— — a marine park the lake outlived.
Not only on a wall.
“SeaWorld Ohio sat on the north shore of Geauga Lake from 1970 until 2000, when Anheuser-Busch sold it to Six Flags and the property was folded into the larger amusement park next door. The whole site closed in 2007. What remains is the lake itself, the bandshell concrete, and a kind of summer memory anyone who grew up in northeast Ohio still carries.
SeaWorld Ohio, on ceramic.
Each tile is finished by hand in our Knoxville studio. Artwork is slowly infused into the ceramic surface under high heat and pressure, and rests beneath a thin glossy finish. The colour lives in the surface, not on top of it.
Pick any four 4-inch tiles — National Parks you've been to, a Smokies set, the four seasons of one place. $ for a set of , cork-backed, ready to live on the table.
The place, in three passes.
The park opened in May 1970 on the north shore of Geauga Lake in Aurora, Ohio, about thirty miles southeast of Cleveland. For three decades it ran as a sister property to SeaWorld's other locations, sharing trainers and animals across the system. Anheuser-Busch sold the park to Six Flags in 2001, which combined it with the adjacent amusement park as Six Flags Worlds of Adventure. The marine animals were moved to SeaWorld San Antonio in 2004, and the combined property ceased operation in 2007. The lake itself remains.
Geauga Lake is a natural glacial lake of roughly 60 acres on the boundary of Aurora and Bainbridge Township in Portage County. The amusement park used the south shore from the late nineteenth century onward; SeaWorld occupied the north shore from 1970. Skyride gondolas and small boats crossed the water during the combined Six Flags era. Today the lake still draws kayakers and a small public fishing access. The shoreline holds quiet traces of foundations where the Shamu stadium and the dolphin show once stood.
The park closed in late 2007 and most structures came down between 2008 and 2016. The 162-foot Big Dipper wooden coaster on the amusement side stood until 2016. Aurora rezoned the land and parts have been redeveloped as a residential community called the Geauga Lake Yacht Club. Walking the bandshell concrete on the former SeaWorld side is a strange experience: the loops and arcs of asphalt still legible, the show buildings gone, the lake doing what lakes do. Locals call this stretch the quiet shore.