A guy on X posted a clip of some homemade slides ripping down a Kansas hillside into murky green water, a zipline whipping people across a quarry, and dudes catching stupid amounts of air like they were launched out of a cannon. His caption was simple: sign him up for the Redneck Waterpark. No $100 gate fee. No FastPass line-cutting scam. Just raw adrenaline. That clip is not an exaggeration. This place is real, it is private, and it is the most unhinged backyard project in America.
Tucked in rural Greenwood County near Fall River Lake, south of the lake, north of Highway 400 sits an old mining quarry turned into a no-rules water park by a guy named Cody. He ranches cattle, builds furniture, and after a string of back surgeries that left him dealing with limited mobility, he decided Kansas was boring only if you let it be. So he and a crew of friends started welding, hauling scrap, and turning heavy equipment leftovers into slides, towers, and launch pads. The result is a collection of attractions that would give a Six Flags lawyer a stroke.
The video that blew up shows the main hillside setup. Long white slides snake down the slope. The middle one is the star, a steep drop that sends riders flying off the end with enough hang time to think about their life choices before they slap the water. People skip across the surface like rocks. Others hit handmade “slip and flies” specifically built to launch you as high and as far as humanly possible. There is a skipper slide that turns a cheap boogie board into a speeding boat. A beginner red slide exists for the faint of heart. Then there are the bigger, meaner versions. One used to be a near-90-degree vertical drop that guaranteed free-fall. They later dialed it back a bit, but it still delivers that stomach-in-your-throat moment most water parks ban on principle.
The structures look exactly like what they are: cobbled-together platforms, rusty metal, wooden docks, and scaffolding that would never pass a city inspection. That is the point. An 80-foot former cell tower stands over the water. You can high-dive from it, jump from platforms ranging 20 to 80 feet, or ride the zipline that stretches about 1,000 feet across the quarry with no harness. Drop from the top of the tower on that line and you are looking at an 80-foot fall before you even think about letting go. There is a trampoline over the water, a 30-foot rope swing good for any trick you can imagine, a Russian swing, diving boards, and even a blob and human slingshot in earlier versions of the park. People chain-slide 20-deep. They do gainers, flips, and whatever else they feel like because the only real rules Cody has mentioned are gravity and “don’t land on the boards or you’ll break them.”youtube.com
This is not open to the public and never will be. Insurance companies laugh when you mention it. Liability is the reason it stays invitation-only, more like a country club for people who actually want to have fun than a theme park selling $15 bottles of water. Cody throws a few gatherings a year for friends, family, and people who show up ready to help instead of just consume. YouTubers like Tanner Braungardt, the Funk brothers, Ryan Bean, and Michael Franko have documented it over the years after getting the nod. Their videos show the same thing the original clip captured: grown adults grinning like kids because nobody is blowing a whistle at them for going down a slide the “wrong” way.
The water is a quarry pond, not a chlorinated wave pool. The backdrop is open Kansas hills and blue sky. The vibe is sunburned, shirtless, and zero pretense. You will not find height restrictions printed on a laminated sign or a teenager in a red shirt telling you to keep your arms inside the ride. You will find people treating the whole setup like a giant playground they built themselves. That is why the clip hit so hard. Commercial water parks have turned into expensive, over-regulated holding pens. This one still feels like summer when you were 12, and nobody had invented waivers yet.
Cody has said he likes watching grown men smile. Fair enough. After watching that middle slide send a rider airborne, and that zipline carry someone across the entire property, it is hard not to want in. The only catch is you have to know somebody. Until then, the rest of us can keep watching the videos and pretending our local water park’s “extreme” slide is even in the same conversation. It is not.
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