austin_dern

I didn't think to look it up before. Hillard turns out to have been an electrical engineer who'd worked for the park for thirty years. (http://obits.mlive.com/obituaries/muskegon/obituary.aspx?pid=163699154) That isn't the park's whole history --- that goes back to 1956 --- although the mid-80s is when it shed its earliest, petting-zoo-based parts and focused entirely on being an amusement park.