Kampgrounds of America history

The first KOA franchise opened in Cody, Wyo., in 1964, the same year that Drum put together the first KOA franchise convention in Billings.

As the title of Bruce Davidson’s iconic 1966 photograph — Campground No.

FORT MYERS (1967) OPEN ALL YEAR $3.00 per car for two persons.

FT. MYERS (1969) OPEN ALL YEAR Closed for vacation Sept.

KOA Directory, 1970-71, featuring a recipe for creamed beef among the campground listings.

Drum left KOA in 1975.

FORT MYERS BEACH (1976) OPEN ALL YEAR Loc between Ft Myers & Ft Myers Bch, on Rt 865 1 mi S Jct 867.

New York City financier Oscar Tang, who was a major shareholder at the time, bought KOA after the 1979 oil crisis had tanked the stock price.

KOA's leadership changed hands again, following Booth's death in 1980.

Carl Fleischhauer, Boys Playing Football in Campground West of Arena (1983). [Courtesy of Library of Congress American Memory Project, Omaha Indian Music collection]

These rustic cabins, which provided beds, air conditioning, heat, and an eating space, had first been introduced by KOA in 1984, and the company rushed to add new ones to meet burgeoning consumer demand.

In 1985, KOA chose to enter a new area of business when it purchased Mid Pacific Air Corp. and its Mid Pacific Airline unit.

Chinese-born American financier Oscar L. Tang and his family have owned KOA since taking the company private in 1988.

A 1991 survey conducted by KOA revealed that over one-third of Americans who planned vacations that year intended to stay overnight in a campground.

In 1992, however, KOA signed a master franchise licensing agreement with investor Shinsuke Nikaido for the development of KOA campgrounds in Japan.

1993: First KOA franchise opens in Japan.

Two dozen more Japanese KOA campgrounds were scheduled to be built by 1994.

Furthermore, in June 1996, the company debuted its first 'family adventure ranch' near Butte, Montana.

As a spokesperson for the recreational vehicle industry explained in a 1997 press release, the 'vanguard of the great boomer generation [had] reach[ed] prime RV-buying age.'

In 1998, the company also opened Mexican KOAs in Puerto Vallarta and Tecate.

By March 1999, KOA had opened three boat and RV storage facilities.

The sale of the company in 2001 to Interactive Corp., which also manages Ticketmaster, Expedia, and hotels.com, further underscored the new reality that camping was now mass recreation, and could be bundled along with other forms of entertainment.

Conversation with professor of geography (Cal Poly, Pomona) and camping scholar Terry Young, March 22, 2010. ↩

Worldwalker06.02.2011 at 08:56 Not everyone drives a $100,000 RV to a place indistinguishable from the city and does exactly the same things they would do at home.