(CNN) -- For Connor Hays, nothing said summer more than spending a day at Joyland Amusement Park. Back in its prime, the Wichita, Kansas, theme park drew families with novelty rides, carnival food and live entertainment. Hays, now 25, says he visited Joyland at least twice each summer when he was a kid in the 1990s. After moving back to his hometown earlier this year, Hays wanted to revisit his childhood amusement park. But he couldn't. Joyland was no more. The theme park, which had been operating for 55 years, closed in 2004. What Hays found instead was a heap of scraps from a forgotten place. With a camera in hand, the web designer walked carefully through the tall fields of grass that now surround much of the abandoned remnants of the theme park.
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During the mid-2000s, several smaller U.S. theme parks closed their doors for good
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Nostalgic travelers are looking for a more intimate theme park experience
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Vintage theme parks like Land of Oz learned to adapt by offering nostalgia for visitors
He plans on taking them to a theme park similar to @placeholder.