Remembering King World: The History Behind Moab’s Forgotten Water Park

There was a time when the best part of a Moab trip had nothing to do with Arches.

It was a water slide. On a red rock hillside. Right off Highway 191.

If you were a Western Slope kid in the 90s, you know how it went. You begged the whole way down I-70. You burned your feet walking in from the parking lot. You rode the slides until your fingers looked like raisins.

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Butch Cassidy's King World Water Park Opened in Moab, Utah in 1992

The 1935 Moab Rock Carving Behind the 'King World' Name

Bob and Diane Norman built the park in 1992 on their property at 1500 North Highway 191. Diane's original plan was a lot tamer: a little gift shop and a historic hike.

Then their son Robert, a kid who could not pass a water park without demanding to stop, got a chance to buy slides from a park that was going under. The property already had hills and springs, so the math was easy.

For about 15 summers, that was the place to be.

But wait. Butch Cassidy? King World? There's a story there.

Up the hill sat a huge sandstone boulder carved in 1935 by a drifter named Aharron Andeew. He lived in a rock shelter on the property and rode around town on a prancing horse, dressed like a Russian.

Jacob Barlow via Facebook

He carved a man's face next to a horse's head and pecked "King World" into the rock. From that same ridge, local lore says, you could see the alcove where Butch Cassidy stashed cattle. Probably not his.

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Why King World Water Park in Moab Closed in 2008

The park was built for 500 people a day and never got there. By 2008, insurance, payroll and pumping costs were eating it alive, and the Normans didn't open that season.

Jennifer Speers bought the land in late 2009 and pulled the slides out.

The 30-ton King World boulder got hauled across town to the Grand Center on 500 West.

The slides are gone. The king made it out.

Moab Water Park 2006