Park at West End Gears up for Winter

The Park at West End, an amusement park with a Ferris wheel and carousel in Fort Smith, proved to be a downtown attraction for the city during the summer and hopes to continue that through the winter months. Plagued by a hot August, the park has had reasonable success since it opened in early June, said Justin Huss, manager of the park.

“We’ve been really pleased,” Huss said. “We’ve done very little advertising and had some really good crowds.”

Although he wouldn’t divulge revenue numbers, Huss said June and July brought in even amounts of revenue with August being slow, mostly due to the 100-plus degree weather the River Valley was experiencing. But now that there’s been a significant cool-down, Huss said he expects the crowds to pick back up.

Hours of operation will run from 3:30 to 9 p.m. Monday through Thursday, 3:30 to 11 p.m. Friday and Saturday and 1 to 6 p.m. on Sunday. However, Huss said Sundays are very slow and it may end up being closed on that day if business doesn’t pick back up.

The park does a lot of rentals for parties, fundraisers and company picnics, Huss said. The United Way will have a volunteer appreciation event around Halloween at the park.

Huss said some events like the state’s H.O.G. Rally, held at the end of August, the Mayor’s 4th of July celebration (which was pushed to early August due to rain) and the Riverfront Blues Festival in mid-August proved to be strong weekends for the park.

For the winter months, Huss said the park will decorate for Christmas and offer seasonable refreshments like coffee and hot chocolate.

Also over the winter, the park will work to install its vintage arcade room.