Heritage USA
Theme park in York CountyWikipedia
179
MENTIONS
82
EPISODES
73
PODCASTS
Search complete. 179 mentions across 82 episodes found for "Heritage USA".
Oct 18, 2026
Susan PuzioHOST
But I'm going, this is the last video I'm going to play, but I want to show you this video of what happened at PTL.
Susan PuzioHOST
Heritage USA after the fall.
Susan PuzioHOST
And it could happen to Daystar.
Susan PuzioHOST
It could very well happen to some of these other big ministries.
Mark ZauberNARRATOR
The case unfolding in Canada's top court could reverberate far beyond the Toronto Waterfront Park that opened in 1971.
Mark ZauberNARRATOR
So over the years, the theme park featured a spherical theater that showed movies on a huge screen, children's play areas, a revolving concert stage, and several pavilions suspended above the water.
Mark ZauberNARRATOR
While the provincial government wants to redevelop the material placed, including a library and spa operated by a private company, a relocated Ontario Science Centre, revamped play and shoreline areas, a parking facility, and a provincial police detachment.
Mark ZauberNARRATOR
The Coalition of Ontario Place Protectors challenged the province's Rebuilding Ontario Place Act on the basis that it insulates state action from scrutiny by the courts and therefore violates the Constitution.
19 MINS LATER
Mark ZauberNARRATOR
Wow, he outlived Tammy Faye by 19 years.
Mark ZauberNARRATOR
They overlapped in the 1980s.
Mark ZauberNARRATOR
Jim Baker, the massively rich founder of the Christian theme park Heritage USA, and Jimmy Swagger, who built a huge multi-million dollar global TV and radio ministry.
Mark ZauberNARRATOR
Besides stealing money from the PTL, which was Praise the Lord Club, Baker was caught having sex with his church secretary.
KriegerHOST
Yeah, you heard me right, 'cause nothing says praise the Lord like puking up a corn dog on a roller coaster.
KriegerHOST
The park was called Heritage USA.
KriegerHOST
And no, thankfully not related to the Heritage Foundation that came up with Project 2025.
KriegerHOST
That's gonna be an episode all on its own.
KriegerHOST
The report from the FCC was finalized in 1982.
KriegerHOST
In it, they revealed that Jim raised three hundred and fifty thousand dollars.
KriegerHOST
He told viewers that the money would be used to fund overseas missions, but that money actually went towards the Heritage USA theme park.
KriegerHOST
The report also found that the Bakers used some of the business funds for personal expenses.
Burke DavisHOST
... '74 and '87, he hosted the television program The PTL Club, and its cable television platform, the PTL Satellite Network, with his then wife Tammy Faye.
Burke DavisHOST
He also developed Heritage USA, a now defunct Christian theme park in Fort Mill, South Carolina.
Burke DavisHOST
Uh, he had a stroke in the year 2020, but no cause of death was given.
Burke DavisHOST
So there you go.
Kathleen MadiganHOST
You would never know.
Kathleen MadiganHOST
In 1987, here's Jim Bakker in front of his water park- [laughs] ... that was part of Heritage USA, and you had to buy condos, and you had to be a super Christian.
Kathleen MadiganHOST
Wow.
Kathleen MadiganHOST
Oh my God.
Phil VischerHOST
It means he bought satellite time on multiple satellites.
Phil VischerHOST
Flushed with fundraising dollars, the couple broke ground in 1978 in Fort Mill, South Carolina on Heritage USA, yet another innovation that Baker cast as a Christian Disneyland.
Phil VischerHOST
At its peak at night, don't find any more similarities between me and Jim Baker.
Phil VischerHOST
At its peak in 1986, reported the Charlotte Observer, the 2,300-acre campus was drawing nearly 6 million visitors a year.
Skye JethaniHOST
They wanted Jesus, or at least the veneer of Jesus.
Skye JethaniHOST
They wanted nostalgia, right? This is all heritage kind of Americana.
Phil VischerHOST
Heritage USA.
Skye JethaniHOST
Heritage USA, the Americana stuff.
Frank FeldmanHOST
It was
Dan BeecherHOST
Heritage USA.
Dan BeecherHOST
Heritage USA.
Frank FeldmanHOST
Which was his theme park that he had put together.
Frank FeldmanHOST
And he started selling timeshares.
Frank FeldmanHOST
But at very least...
Frank FeldmanHOST
Everyone who buys a timeshare has to be able to, you know, you say you pay your $1,000.
Frank FeldmanHOST
This was how Heritage USA did it.
JohnHOST
And then there's this place, which I really hope still exists now that he's gone and continues on in some form.
JohnHOST
Maybe it's done and dusted and mothballed now, but it's called Heritage USA, which at one point was a... was the third most popular theme park in the United States.
JohnHOST
And so it's massive.
JohnHOST
It's like thousands of acres.
JohnHOST
They've got a luxury resort.
JohnHOST
And, yeah.
JohnHOST
And a lot of what he's asking for from viewers ends up being, you know, let's kind of develop Heritage USA.
JohnHOST
Let's get it bigger and bigger and people can come and learn about Christ and have some fun on the water slide and then, you know, read some gospels and stay in the hotel and whatever.
Amanda HendersonHOST
Mm
Leah PayneGUEST
... a Christian theme park/water park/residential area called Heritage USA a few years later, I think it was in 1978.
Leah PayneGUEST
And it was meant to be a place where you could come and enjoy the kind of prosperous promise of a, of a Christian life that was fun and included a lot of recreation and joyful living and kind of like a Christian Disney World.
Leah PayneGUEST
Um, and they invited people to partner with them, and they raised millions and millions of dollars for this project.
Leah PayneGUEST
You know, if you think about it, television is a, especially in the 20th century, was a fantastic medium for this, 'cause this is before social media, this is before texting.
Leah PayneGUEST
Um, when it came to getting into the households of everyday Americans, there was nothing like TV for that.
Leah PayneGUEST
At, at the peak of Heritage USA, it was earning over a $100 million a year.
Leah PayneGUEST
Um, and it was a nonprofit at that time, so it had tax-exempt status.
Bob BiermannHOST
They were out of, out of the country.
Bob BiermannHOST
Jim Baker, remember him? Nice guy, very personable, thinks that he's the inventor of Christian television, but, you know, but, but he had Heritage USA overselling condos that never got built, went to jail.
Bob BiermannHOST
By God's grace, got out.
Bob BiermannHOST
And he's still marketing stuff, and he was trying to tell the other guy, "What you need is a warehouse full of stuff to sell.
72 more episodes mention Heritage USA.
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