[We’re reworking and republishing some of the articles published in the Cobb County Courier in its earlier years. This was originally published in 2017, which was the 50th anniversary of the Six Flags amusement park in Mableton]
Since its opening in June of 1967, Six Flags has dominated the part of Cobb County south of Mableton Parkway. Five major roads around the park contained “Six Flags” in their names until four of them were renamed in 2014 to reduce the confusion.
But why was south Cobb chosen as the location for Six Flags to begin with? Until the amusement park was built, the area was rural. In fact, one of the big news stories during the building of Six Flags was a moonshining arrest on an adjacent property. When it was first announced that the Dallas-based Great Southwest Corporation planned an amusement park in metro Atlanta, Mayor Ivan Allen of the City of Atlanta announced that it would be built in Fulton County…