A retired steelworker bought a small parcel of land that included a waterfall and meandering river. Without any theme park building experience, he set out to build a park based on his granddaughter's favorite childhood game, Candyland, using the meandering river as the blueprint for the game board. He used his steel-working craft to build much of the scenery and was able to pump water from the river into an ingenious snowmaking line. While it was never his intention to make it a tourist attraction, word got out and it became a cult classic theme park, despite the novice approach to building.