Music Man Surfaces in General Vicinity of Music City

Fight disinformation: Sign up for the free Mother Jones Daily newsletter and follow the news that matters.


Campbell Robertson reports that Harold Hill has, at last, been spotted in central Tennessee:

The park, he said, would be called Festival Tennessee, and it would cost around $750 million. On these bucolic 1,500 acres, there would be two resort hotels with 4,000 rooms apiece. There would be 80 restaurants and clubs, as well as one of the largest water parks in the United States. And a stadium. And, with any luck, an NBA franchise. And a television production studio. Also, a charter school.

Mr. Peterson estimated that Festival Tennessee would create 15,000 jobs, maybe even 20,000. And, he said, it would be open in less than two years.

One small hiccup: The company that’s supposed to put all of this together just had its license revoked in Nevada, and its president has filed for bankruptcy. Also its treasurer says she’s never heard of the company. Also one of Lanley’s Peterson’s advisers is currently on parole for “child sexually abusive material.” Also, a previous plan to get Michael Jackson to narrate an animated film about an orphan “who saves the world with the help of some endangered species” failed (note: we kind of want to see this movie).

Ok, so, maybe not the best investment for Spring Hill, Tennessee. But Festival Tennessee reminded me of another, slightly less scammy but magnificently audacious would-be destination: Excel Communications founder Steve Smith’s plan to build a billionaires’ resort in Lajitas, Texas. Per John Spong:

His ambition grew ever more glorious by the day: eight hundred residential lots of two acres or less, some selling for as much as $1 million, undeveloped; two championship golf courses, not desert-style, with grass growing only on greens and tees, but with a lush wall-to-wall carpet that would need a million gallons of water a day to stay green in summer months; an RV park with $100,000 slips for $500,000 motor homes; a 36,000-square-foot spa; four fancy restaurants; an amphitheater seating three thousand; an equestrian center; a hunting club…

Hundreds of trees, including pears and plums that had no business being in the desert, were ordered before there was a plan to plant them and then planted before there was a way to water them. They died. Grass that was seeded on the golf course couldn’t survive on the brackish well water. It had to be replaced…A skeet range was put in that had shooters firing over the bike trail.

When they opened Disneyland in 1956, nothing worked! I’m not sure there’s a larger point here, except to say that America clearly does not always do big things.

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

AN IMPORTANT UPDATE

We’re falling behind our online fundraising goals and we can’t sustain coming up short on donations month after month. Perhaps you’ve heard? It is impossibly hard in the news business right now, with layoffs intensifying and fancy new startups and funding going kaput.

The crisis facing journalism and democracy isn’t going away anytime soon. And neither is Mother Jones, our readers, or our unique way of doing in-depth reporting that exists to bring about change.

Which is exactly why, despite the challenges we face, we just took a big gulp and joined forces with the Center for Investigative Reporting, a team of ace journalists who create the amazing podcast and public radio show Reveal.

If you can part with even just a few bucks, please help us pick up the pace of donations. We simply can’t afford to keep falling behind on our fundraising targets month after month.

Editor-in-Chief Clara Jeffery said it well to our team recently, and that team 100 percent includes readers like you who make it all possible: “This is a year to prove that we can pull off this merger, grow our audiences and impact, attract more funding and keep growing. More broadly, it’s a year when the very future of both journalism and democracy is on the line. We have to go for every important story, every reader/listener/viewer, and leave it all on the field. I’m very proud of all the hard work that’s gotten us to this moment, and confident that we can meet it.”

Let’s do this. If you can right now, please support Mother Jones and investigative journalism with an urgently needed donation today.

payment methods

We Recommend

Latest

Sign up for our free newsletter

Subscribe to the Mother Jones Daily to have our top stories delivered directly to your inbox.

Get our award-winning magazine

Save big on a full year of investigations, ideas, and insights.

Subscribe

Support our journalism

Help Mother Jones' reporters dig deep with a tax-deductible donation.

Donate