QUEENSBURY >> Storytown/Great Escape founder Charles R. Wood amassed great wealth developing tourist-related businesses in the Lake George region.
But his entrepreneurial genius was matched by equal measures of generous philanthropy, which saw him give more than $15 million to worthy local causes such as the Double H Ranch for seriously-ill children he co-founded with actor Paul Newman in Lake Luzerne.
A Hyde Collection art gallery, downtown Glens Falls theater and Glens Falls Hospital cancer center are just some of the places named in Wood’s honor, for the gifts he provided that made them possible.
“Mr. Wood said, ‘I made money here and I want to leave it here,” Queensbury town Historian Marilyn Van Dyke said.
Quoting a Washington Post story, following Wood’s 2004 passing, Van Dyke said he made a fortune providing fun and thrills to people of all ages and producing millions of smiles and childhood memories forever etched in time.
She and fellow Warren County Historical Society member Stan Scianfarano led a recent presentation about Wood’s amazing life and times at SUNY Adirondack, with several dozen people on hand including Wood’s wife, Josie.
In addition to Storytown, America’s first theme park which opened in 1954 – one year before Disneyland – Wood built and/or owned Gaslight Village, Waxlife USA, Tiki Motor Inn and the Sun Castle condominium project in Lake George; the former Blacksmith Shop and Coachman (now Johnny Rocket’s) restaurants in Queensbury; and sold the land where the Aviation Mall now stands.
Diane Williams of Bolton Landing once worked as the Tiki’s front-desk telephone receptionist.
“He was a great boss, really friendly and cordial, a man of integrity,” she said.
Countless vacationers per year visit the attractions Wood founded, filling hotel rooms while boosting restaurants and other small local businesses.
“Would they be here without Charlie?” Scianfarano asked.
“He pioneered the whole tourism concept in Lake George,” Van Dyke said. “He was a real go-getter.”
Wood was born and raised in Lockport near Buffalo, in 1914, the son of a factory shirtmaker.
“His business sense began very early,” Van Dyke said. “He bought a Model T Ford when he was 12 years old. He was very mechanically inclined.”
After graduating high school in 1932, he went to Michigan State University and worked three jobs — dishwasher, painting, busboy — to put himself through school. But books weren’t for him, so Wood quit to take a job at General Motors and became an aircraft technician.
During World War II, he supervised a crew of 200 mechanics working on British planes in Egypt; then went to the Pacific for 18 months, handling similar duties for Douglas Aircraft Co.
Afterward, Wood began looking for business opportunities. He once told an interviewer: “I just wanted to own a place that people could have a good time at.”
During a visit to Albany, where he heard that a roller rink and swimming pool were for sale, Wood saw an ad for property in the North Country owned by Earl Woodward, who developed many of the Lake George-Lake Luzerne area dude ranches in the post-World War II era.
That’s what sparked his interest in the area.
Before long, one of Wood’s first acquisitions was Erlowest, a Queen Anne-style stone castle on the west side of Lake George where he later developed Sun Castle Resort.
Then came the biggest turning point of his life, the $75,000 purchase of five acres midway between Lake George and Glens Falls where he built Storytown, a Mother Goose-themed children’s attraction.
“People came in droves the first day,” Wood later recalled. “When we tried to count the money it was blowing all over the place.”
He wisely put almost every dollar back into the business, which grew by leaps and bounds with new attractions such as Ghosttown and Jungleland.
In 1983, he changed the park’s name to Great Escape and began adding thrill rides such as the Steamin’ Demon coaster.
Six years later, Wood sold the property for $36 million to International Broadcasting Corp., parent company of Ice Capdes and the Harlem Globetrotters, only to buy it back four years later when IBC went bankrupt. Wood lost a great deal of money on the original sale because half his payment was in IBC stock, which wasn’t worth anything after the firm went under financially.
Then in 1996 Wood sold Great Escape to Premier Parks — now Six Flags — for $37 million, in cash.
Even before then, he gave large sums to charitable ventures including $10 million for the Double H Ranch, which opened in 1993, and $1.4 to Glens Falls Hospital for a new cancer treatment center.
A man of diverse interests, Wood collected art, including several Frederic Remington sculptures, and had a classic Dusenburg auto previously owned by actress Greta Garbo.
The Charles R. Wood Foundation continues his legacy by financially supporting a variety of local non-profits. Distributions this year alone totaled $350,000.
First and foremost, Wood loved children and enjoyed the rides, games and attractions that put smiles on their faces almost as much as they did.
“He was a big kid always,” said Kip Grant, a Glens Falls radio personality.
