Castle Amusement Park to Be Bought by Ogden

Ogden Corp.--a conglomerate that converts trash to energy, is privatizing 33 Argentine airports and owns the Tinseltown dinner theater in Anaheim--said Friday it agreed to buy Castle Amusement Park in Riverside from Buena Park-based Hurlbut Amusements Inc.

Terms of the deal for the privately held, 30-acre park weren’t released. Castle’s 30 attractions include four heavily landscaped miniature golf courses, go-carts, a log ride and a 101-year-old carousel.

Hurlbut Amusements is run by Bud Hurlbut, who built the log flume ride at Knott’s Berry Farm and developed Castle in the 1980s.

New York-based Ogden said it will manage and market Castle jointly with Raging Waters in San Dimas, Southern California’s largest water-slide park. It bought Raging Waters last month as part of a national expansion into water parks.

Raging Waters General Manager Kent Lemasters will become an Ogden vice president responsible for both Castle and the water park. He said Ogden will add attractions and hopes to improve the appearance of the park from the Riverside Freeway.

“From the freeway, it just looks like miniature golf,” he said. “But people are always surprised at how great it looks from the inside. It’s not just a family entertainment center. It’s a real amusement park, and it has great potential.”

Besides running Tinseltown in Anaheim, Ogden’s entertainment division also provides food and management services at venues across the country, including Edison Field and the Pond of Anaheim.

Its far-flung operations also include a casino/resort near Argentina’s Iguazu Falls, a 50% stake in an artist management company that promoted Grateful Dead tours for 20 years, and the current construction of a jazz-themed amusement park in New Orleans.