Well, well...

[mapsedge]

A news report this morning on KMBZ radio had me doing a Google search for "8th Street Tunnel", which eventually took me here:

http://www.undergroundozarks.com/camelot.html

Doesn't look like much, does it?

Late Edit: I've created a bit of a mess here, and didn't intend to. While I haven't done so yet, I may close this post to further comment. We'll see.

Have you seen the website with the photos of the ren faire from back East that closed for want of a buyer? The pictures are sad and spooky. The Camelot pictures hit me in the same way, and I posted the link (and will leave it here) for that reason.

Comments

[iarraidh.livejournal.com]

THAT'll give some folks a flashback or two...

[billthetailor.livejournal.com]

I'd never seen the place except for a full-color brochure presented att the meeting in KC that looked like a rip-off of Disney Orlando. Hard to see how the reality could have ever matched the drawings.

Yeah, like me.

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

*sniff* Well, yeah.

It certainly put a new meaning to "...for one brief shining moment..."

While it didn't look like much, we certainly put a lot into it for the three months we lived there.

Re: Yeah, like me.

[iarraidh.livejournal.com]

Was that 'castle' a one-holer or a two-holer?

[fantomas71.livejournal.com]

It certainly does bring back memories; for me, peripheral ones. I think I visited the site once.

I remember sitting and having Martin English give me the sales talk for the thing, wanting all of us to commit on the spot. I think now I made the right choice.

[rougewench.livejournal.com]

That entire trip down there for the sales pitch was surreal. Being stuck in the basement of the motel during the tornado should have been the big clue...


D.

[fantomas71.livejournal.com]

Holy shit, I forgot all about that.

[rowangolightly.livejournal.com]

I will forever disagree with some of you on the character of Martin English. He is one fine man and personally paid out of his own savings, bills of performers who needed the financial help.

He felt, and still feels personally responsible for having drawn many people in to Camelot. He bought a house down there and bought into the dream himself.

He was one of the victims, not a perpetrator.

And it is not a matter for joking in my book. Sorry.

[rougewench.livejournal.com]

I don't think anyone intimated that he was a "perpetrator" by any means.

Although it is true that many people who made the choice to go made it on the strength of believing that if Martin was involved it was necessarily legit.

Me? I wasn't going to give up an actual job with actual benefits to try out something that clearly had a piss poor business plan...and I was someone who was offered not only a performance gig, but a clerical gig in the office to boot to entice Cliff to make the choice to go.


D.

[cammie018.livejournal.com]

I remember that, They wanted John and I to do a highland games every weekend. We decided to wait a year and see how they did. I'm really glad we made that decision. I will never forget having to rescue people who had given up their homes and jobs to move down there. Had people crashed on our couch for a couple of months after it closed down.

[starwyse.livejournal.com]

Thanks for posting this. Sorry it brought up shit and created a mess of sorts.

I was there.

[rougewench.livejournal.com]

The vagaries of a forum with public comments, my dear, is that people will comment. Never feel badly about posting something you find interesting, even if it does touch a nerve with some who see the material, whatever it might be...that's part of what makes various material interesting and the forum a place for open communication between people who might otherwise not have opportunity.

However, my apologies if anything I have said in comments here have led you to any negative feelings about having posted it. Such discussion would probably have been better placed by me in the comments to my own post about the pictures.


D.

[sablessam.livejournal.com]

We (my household) was involved to varying degrees, some gave their all (literally) and some of us ere available to help pick up the pieces. While I was updated by phone from the site on a regular basis, I can only personally speak of the aftermath - 6 people, two cats all living in the same 3 bedroom duplex for months, and the drowned hopes and dreams of what could have been.
Yes, the idea was wonderful, but the execution sucked - whether intentional or not. According to my parents, who live 20 minutes from the site, the departure of the management group was a PLANNED thing, as they had done something very similar to an area called Branson West within the previous few years. I personally don't think Martin would purposely drag anyone into something like this and I have heard about how much he and his family lost in the deal also. It just sucked for all of us involved in one way or the other. It was a bad time for several shows, we won't even start on Stroud and the disaster THAT was.

Yes, I've been to the Camelot site a couple of times, and there are still tickets sitting in the ticket booth (or at least there were two years ago). It's very sad to see the potential going to hell, and it would be nice to see someone buy the land and at least tear down the buildings that are barely standing. Let the land go back to it's wild and healing state, so someone could possibly start again.