Atlanta, Georgia: Fun Town (Gone)

My father's old diary talks about taking his family to a place called "Fun City" on Atlanta's Stewart Avenue in 1952. Could this have been the original "Fun Town"? My brothers and I went there many times in the 1960s before it closed.

This was the place to go for children in the early 1960s. I remember the batting cages and the rides, especially the fake rocket ship that a crowd could sit in and watch a movie of an imaginary trip to the moon. You got a stamp on your hand to show you had paid. Stewart Avenue was a wonderful place to me as a child.

Funtown was Atlanta's Town of Fun till it closed in 1966. It was your basic local amusement center with rides, a miniature golf course and a bowling alley. It's claim to fame was it being mentioned in a speech by Dr. Martin Luther King in 1964, where Dr. King said that his [daughter] wanted to go to Fun Town but couldn't because it was white only. Funtown closed its doors in the mid-sixties because they didn't want to integrate. This could have also be the reason for the demise of other amusement parks in the deep south. The fact that a Six Flags opened in Atlanta around the same time may have played a part in its closing. The golf course stayed open for a few more years and its tattered remnants could be seen on Stewart Ave. through the 80s. The bowling alley remained opened till recent years. During the 60s and 70s it housed a large slot car track.