The Space Race’s Forgotten Theme Park

In 1964, in Huntsville, Alabama, anything seemed possible. Just 15 years earlier, the city had been, in the words of the local paper, a “ghost town,” a community of just 16,000 people spread over about 4.5 square miles. Now, it was “Space City,” a thriving metropolis that had annexed almost 46 additional square miles of the Appalachian hills to accommodate some 123,000 residents. The population boom could be credited almost entirely to Space Race–related installations, such as NASA’s George Marshall Space Center...