Remember last year when Banksy created his version of Disneyland only he called his Dismaland? These photos of an abandoned River Country in Bay Lake, Florida, Disney World’s first water park, which opened in 1976 and closed in 2001, are a lot like that.
The fact that the park was also reportedly the cause of a young boy’s death in 1980 after, and I am quoting The Daily Mail here, “a rare amoeba went up his nose and seized his brain and nervous system,” only serve to make these photos that much more creepy.
Photographer Seph Lawless, who took these photos of the abandoned park, says that he “hopes his photos bring awareness to the fact that Disney failed to clean up what they left behind.”
Of course, Disney wasn’t too thrilled with Lawless doing this, despite legally renting a Disney boat to take the pics, and have since banned him from all Disney World properties.
It seems somewhat understandable why they wouldn’t want him taking photos of the park when you read this excerpt…
In an email to Dailymail.com, Lawless says he interviewed workers who operate Bay Lake where the park is located and he says they told him that the lake is much too dangerous to swim in.
The workers reportedly told Lawless that the Disney boats and the nightly fireworks polluted the lake so badly that people who fish in the lake mustn’t eat what they catch because the sea creatures are toxic to eat.
River Country is only one of two Disney parks to ever have been shuttered along with Discovery Island – originally Treasure Island, also on Bay Lake, which was open from 1974 to 1999.
Here’s what the park looked like back in 1981…
And what it looks like today…
Check out the rest of Lawless’ photos of the abandoned park on his Web site here.