Approximately 35 years ago, there was a water slide right here in the Queen City. It was called the Sky Rapids Water Slide, located behind Mr. Gatti’s Pizza on Admiral Doyle Drive. (Approximately, because sources don’t seem to remember when everything started and stopped.) There are vague recollections of the slide being there, definitely in 1982, recalled Jasob Bayard, because “ET” was playing across the street, and of the slide being shut down because of an injury. Alan J. Lee did mention that he helped open the slide and worked there two summers. He said that trying to keep the flume joints sealed from leaking water and the pumps running was non-stop work, “But,” he added, “boy was it fun!”

The original owner of the slide was Farris Romero, who also owned F & M Mobile Homes. Romero sold the slide to Larry Verret and Red Hebert, who had big future plans for it. “We had some resort property in Toledo Bend, 27 acres, and we thought the slide would be a nice attraction at the front of the property. We bought the slide, dismantled it, and hauled it to my property. It took about twelve truckloads to get it all here. Then time went by, Red lost interest and withdrew because of the liability, and well, the slide never got to Toledo Bend,” Verret said.

Verret, who owns Larry Verret Trucking Inc., now has the ruins of the slide on his property in Iberia Parish. The slide has remained where it lay in 1990. Trees have grown up through the pieces and parts: steel pipes, rotting fiberglass chutes, a fiberglass tank with steps, and two outbuildings. 

“I did have a buyer a while ago,” he said. “But he got cold feet, after he’d paid me $10,000. He never finished the deal. He passed away. I guess all that’s left is to eventually dispose of it.”

Here are some pictures of the formerly glorious Sky Rapids Water Slide, where it currently rests and slowly goes back to the earth.