Rock-A-Hoola: water park in stasis

Rock-A-HoolaBoing Boing posts about a run-down kiddie amusement park in Egypt and I was reminded about Rock-A-Hoola.

Rock-A-Hoola is (was?) a mostly closed-but-not-quite-totally-abandoned water park out in the Mojave Desert in Newberry Springs, CA. The park has been kicking around irregularly since at least the early-70s – I remember ads for Lake Dolores (as it was known back then) airing on KTLA in the cheap post-midnight airspace alongside Truckmaster School Of Trucking and Cal Worthington. Presumably the idea was for it to be a tourist/camping stopover on the road between Los Angeles and Las Vegas. I couldn’t imagine anyone being excited to to there – it’s too far for a day trip from LA and not much there to give you a reason to stay. I suppose there’s always the Vegas crowd, but it seem like they always REALLY want to get to Vegas.

Anyway, I snagged some photos of the place in October 2003. The main water slide part of the park was fenced off (and patrolled by dogs) but I got some pictures of the surrounding facilities. I still have to question the long-term viability of a water park in an area with little water and abundant evaporation, but that’s not stopping folks from dreaming.

Lake Dolores / Rock-A-Hoola on Wikipedia
Rock-A-Hoola in better days.

256 thoughts on “Rock-A-Hoola: water park in stasis”

  1. Rock-A-Hoola, is it? You know, I’ve passed it many times on the way to Vegas and back, but I never did know the name of the place, and it has always seemed to be closed. A couple of weeks ago, though, I cane up with my own name for it – Raging Sands.

    [It helps the joke if you know that there’s a popular water park called Raging Waters in San Dimas, CA., near the 210/57 interchange.]

  3. It was Lake Dolores…or Rock-A-Hoola. I worked there for 2 years and was working on the day of the big accident, which is why it closed down for a month.It opened for July 4th that year and no employees were paid for the last month it was open. All employees got to take stuff home with them. Computers, furniture, food…anything. We made a killing off of the place.

  8. It’s sad to see that this place is still not operable. I remember going down a steel waterslide when I was really little. Before any of the Rock-a-Hoola or anything else was around. It was nice when a coworker asked me what that place was on the 15 on the way into California. I only remember good memories from there and wish it was still open today!

  9. Thanks for the input because I’ve never seen it open and wondered if it had been a movie set at one time. When I first saw it last year I thought, who the heck would build something like that on purpose in the middle of Nowhere,USA, when it has to been 120 degrees on a good day in the summer.

  10. Thanks for the info, my friends and I have always just come up with random theroies about what and why its there. Its so much fun thinking about it.

  12. Lake Delores was once a wonderful place! My parents would take our friends and family to it about 20 years ago. I was five or so and we got to pitch tents right along the waters edge. As soon as the sun came up in the morning we’d be in the water! They had stand up waterslides, a teeter totter in the water. There was a trampeze complete with a 3 tier high dive and soo much more. Its really sad to here that they got sued by an employee, I spent several summers there and some of my greatest childhood memories have Lake Delores in them. Needless to say my parents bought 40acres of property just off the closest exit to that park. They’re in essence creating their own Lake Delores.

  14. I was just there this past weekend and got kicked out after snooping around for a bit. Turns out it is in the process of being sold so that the land can become a new set of cookie cutter homes.

  15. NO! Not MORE homes. Someone PLEASE see if it can be bought and brought back to life. We have nothing out here in the Desert and especially for our kids. There is nothing out here for them to do and something like a Water Park would be great! I live here in Barstow and would be wonderful to see an Oasis in the Desert.

  16. after returning home from a weekend in Vegas, i decided to find out what the water park was all about. i must say it always creeped me out and i am a bit disappointed, i wanted a real good story to come of its closure but there isn’t. now i know the history and its interesting. it would be nice to see it open again however its still a little spooky. thanks for all the info and good luck to those of you who want to purchase it.

  17. Any connection between the park and western swing bandleader-turned wife muderer Spade Cooley’s attempts to build a waterpark in the Antelope Valley in the 1950s?

  18. thanks for the info. i’ve always wondered (and tried to look up info) about this place since I was like, 5. my dad and i see it each time we drive to vegas, but since the rest of the family are asleep they think we’re making up the “waterpark in the desert”.

  19. I can’t believe there are other people as interested in the history of this park as I am. We drive to Vegas every summer and every summer I say I have to remember the name of the park so I can look it up. This year I wrote it down and can’t believe I found this site. I also can’t believe they would put homes out there in the middle of nowhere. Thanks for the information.

  20. Lake Dolores is going to be turned into a retirement RV park. what a BAD decision! there is so much potential for the property simply because of the lake. forget about the waterpark, sell the slides. the lake alone has serious potential for watersports enthusiasts that could generate useful tax money to the surrounding areas as well as give the younger generation something to do instead of METH ! There is a place in the middle of Texas called “TexasSkiRanch.com” which has a lake that is identical to Lake Dolores. this lake is used as a cable wakeboard lake and people travel there from all over just to use the lake. If this were to be built on Lake Dolores, it would be a completely new beginning for the youth (the future) of surrounding areas. If there is anything that can be done to change what is going to happen to the area, i know of many powerful people that would be willing to involve themselves……

  22. I’ve driven past that thing and wondrered for years now. Parts of it look like they’re kept up and others look obviously old and out of use. Sucks about the RV retirement stuff. What a frickin’ grim way to live out the last years or your life, 110 degree heat in an rv in the middle of nowhere. Hope none of them have to find a doctor quickly.

  23. APN: 0539-031-02
    APPLICANT: KHL DEVELOPMENT, LLC
    PROPOSAL: A) TENTATIVE TRACT 17345 TO CREATE
    1,408 RESIDENTIAL LOTS AND 33
    LETTERED LOTS B) PLANNED
    DEVELOPMENT TO ESTABLISH A SENIOR
    RESIDENTIAL COMMUNITY ON 262.57
    ACRES
    COMMUNITY: NEWBERRY SPRINGS (LAKE DELORES)

  25. Does anyone know any ghost stories about this place? Or have any pictures of theBig accident” Please let us know ASAP!

  26. scared……….. ? … the guy from “the big accident” didn’t die, so we know his ghost isnt there. he did get 4.4 million dollars from it though. ……. pics of the accident ???? ….wow, thats sick

  27. Thank you for the valuable info, Jason. Much appreciate. We are not quite as scared anymore. We thought he was a GONER! And that his ghost was lingering in the deserted property……

  32. i left you a link at the bottom of my last entry. i do not know much about ghost stories. too busy with business and family.. just click on the link or copy and paste in your web browser. or you can just search google for anything you would like to know more about.

  33. Wow I just got home and finally looked up Rock a Hoola! I have been wondering for YEARS on what was to happen to the old Lake Dolores. I too remember the commercials. I wish it could reopen, its a shame to put some old people way in the hell out there eh? Thanks for the info and hope to see someone restore this piece of history.

  36. Wow!! Thanks for the all the info and links. Another frivilous lawsuit. I just drove by it 9/10/07 & 9/14/07 and every year I always wondered if that park was ever operational. Thanks to a bonehead employee, people lost a place to play and have fun, people lost their jobs, people lost their business and now new homes will be built. Just what we need, more homes. Thanks Mason! (hurt employees name). Enjoy your blood money, ya extortionist!

  37. Monday, April 12, 2004

    Page 1

    Court of Appeal Rules:

    Worker Can Sue Employer for On-Site, Off-Clock Injury

    By KENNETH OFGANG, Staff Writer/Appellate Courts

    A water park employee injured while using a water slide before clocking in and while the park was closed to the public was acting outside the scope of his employment and was entitled to bring a tort action rather than being limited to workers’ compensation, the Fourth District Court of Appeal ruled Friday.

    Div. Two reinstated a $4.4 million judgment in favor of James Mason, who was rendered a paraplegic after he crashed into a dam at the end of a slide in the Lake Dolores water park in Newberry Springs.

    A San Bernardino Superior Court judge granted judgment notwithstanding the verdict in favor of the park operator, but the appellate panel said there was sufficient evidence to support the jury’s finding that Mason was not acting as an employee when he ordered a fellow employee to turn on the slide and rode down.

    ‘Pool Tech’

    Mason, 23 years old at the time of the late May 1999 accident, was a “pool tech” at the park and normally worked from 6 a.m. to 2 p.m. But on the date in question, there was a jet ski competition at the park, so he was assigned to leave at noon and return at 6 p.m. to clean up after the competition.

    Mason testified that he returned about 5:45 p.m., helped another employee take down a flag, then asked his fellow worker to turn on the Doo Wop Super Drop. He said he did so because he liked the slide, the temperature was high, and the slide was always crowded during park hours.

    Mason said the “runout lane” appeared to be full when he went down the slide, but that near the bottom he realized he was not stopping as quickly as he should have been. He lifted his neck to see where he was going, he testified, right about the time he hit the dam.

    Testimony indicated that an insufficient amount of water pooled in the runout lane at the end of the slide, causing the accident.

    Park officials testified that Mason violated park policy, which allowed employees to use the slides only if they were off duty, and only during hours that the park was open to the public. The employee who turned the slide on during non-business hours was also violating policy and was disciplined, they said. The park had an employee manual that warned workers they were not covered by workers’ compensation for injures suffered “during…voluntary participation in any off-duty recreation, social or athletic activity sponsored by the Lake Dolores Resort.” Mason applied for workers’ compensation benefits and was turned down.

    Jurors attributed 52 percent of the total fault to the park’s owner, 38 percent to Mason, and 10 percent to non-parties.

    Justice Jeffrey King, writing for the Court of Appeal, said it was clear that Mason’s use of the slide was not part of his job.

    The justice distinguished Price v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals. Bd. (1984) 37 Cal.3d 559, which held that an early-arriving employee injured by a passing motorist while waiting outside his workplace was entitled to workers’ compensation benefits because his early arrival was a benefit to the employer and that his waiting outside the premises was “reasonably contemplated by his employment.”

    Justice’s Reasoning

    King reasoned that Mason’s employer derived no benefit from Mason’s use of the slide—in fact it was a detriment because it cost money to start up the slide, the justice noted—and that his employment did not reasonably contemplate that he would be using the slide during non-operating hours.

    The justice also distinguished workers’ compensation cases in which employees injured during recreational softball games involving co-workers were held to be acting within the scope of employment, based on evidence they reasonably believed their employers expected them to participate.

    Mason’s case, King said, was similar to Todd v. Workers’ Comp. Appeals Bd. (1988) 198 Cal.App.3d 757, in which a lunch-hour basketball game on the employer’s premises was held to be outside the scope of employment because the employee’s participation was entirely voluntary and only remotely related to work.

  38. Oh wow!!! Ok, this is interesting…but we’re still a little confused. If he was violating conpany poicly, why was he still awarded the 4.4 mil?

  40. wow! very interresting. just drove by the place again on the way to vegas and just had to figure out what the place was all about. thanks for the info.

  43. I am a local Realtor who deals in land and this is what’s happening.

    The closed water park was purchased by an investment group. Since the acccident it’s probably impossible to get insurance for the park. You can thank James Mason for killing a great place.

    There are several groups interested in the park and/or land, but the owners are not talking. So the closed park is just going to stay there.

    It’s difficult to open another park in the area because
    SB County will not permit more lakes in the area and water rights is another issue.

    For those interested in water parks, there is another developemnt group working on a water park in Hesperia off I-15. The same engineer who designed the park in Newberry Springs has been hired to design the park in Hesperia. No opening date yet, but they will probably target summer 2008.

    That’s it. I can be reached at tb@ez15loan.com interestd in the area.

  44. Tom – thanks for the info… The idea that i had in mind for the property is very different then the existing park. What i had in mind (and also have investors for) doesnt include any water slides. The main attraction is the lake it self. This idea would attract a different crowd than the existing park did, specifically wakeboard and waterski enthusiasts that would sign a detailed waver. I just flew out to Texas a month ago to visit Texas Ski Ranch which is built on a very similiar property as dolores. I spoke with many people there that either drove or flew hours to use the park. Texas Ski Ranch is 1 out of only 5 cable lakes in the U.S. and it makes well over 2 mil. every year. Do you think this would be a different story for commercial insurance? or would it be viewed as the same? I realize that it would take a good winter of rain to help out with the water rights but the area is flooded with watersports enthusiasts…. texasskiranch.com

  45. My name is Lowell Richard Lowe 3rd. And I am the great grandson of Jhon Byers, found of Lake Dolores, if anyone dosn’t know what they mean by the ‘Accident’, I think their referring to the day that two girls went on the same slide, the thing was, it was a slide that was only suppose to contain one person, one of the girls died. I just recently started looking up information on my grandpa, and his son, Jhon Byers, is still alive to day in his 60’s, and lives only across the street from me, he helped build Lake Dolores. My mom also worked their, and she is the daughter of Jhon Byers (Jr.). My great grandpa jumped on a train at 16 to California, and got a job, soon he opened up his own paint shop, he didn’t have much paint, so he got a bunch of paint cans to look as though he did, he had his costumers pay him first, and than days later they would get they paint, after a while he bought acres and acres of land, and soon he took every scrap of metal from that land over the years and buit a huge slide that went into a lake, soon it was made into a water slide, and people would stop just to go down it, they would have to pay, soon my grandpa built more and more, and soon after he built Lake Dolores. My Grandpa (Jr.) was suppose to inherit millions from him, but his sister took the money, and my grandpa just loves her to much to say anything.

  46. that is very interesting, im sorry to here of family problems existing in such a unique situation…

  48. I remember going to Lake Delores as a kid and the motocross races. It was a great place to go and cool down. I went to school with the kids from there and they were some stand up kids and so were the folks. Wish I could meet the kids again and hope they’re all doing fine.

  49. It has been very interesting reading some of the post on this site. I’m one of the owners of this property and I would just like to say that yes we will build homes in the near future. The waterslides will be dismantle starting this month and you can expect to see great things from this project.

  50. Troy—

    I am not alone in my stance that you are the living embodiment of what is SEVERELY wrong with our culture.

    “Great things” — my ass. Keep on spinning, pal — and just remember this: THE FIRST PERSON THAT WE LIE TO IS OURSELF.

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