• Intro

The Heart of Darkness

Address:

5111 Osage Road
Waterloo, IA
United States

Tickets:

$6 for two haunts!

Website:

http://www.entertheheartofdarkness.com/200...

About:

2 Haunted Attractions We give the Cedar Valley more “Boo” for their buck by providing 2 haunted houses at the same location for the low price of $8.00 per body. Don't forget to use your coupon for a dollar off any night except Saturday to save a buck. If you are a student, any kind of student, show your student I.D.at the ticket booth and save $2.00 for any night but Saturdays. That’s only $6.00 for 2 haunts.

History:

The Halloween Traditions Group is a select few who have made it a goal to bring the Halloween spirit back into the Cedar Valley. The HT founders were born and raised right here in Waterloo, and are ensuring that the traditional haunted attractions will continue to provide Halloween entertainment to our hometown as well as the entire Cedar Valley. We reap our rewards for our many hours of hard work when we hear our visitors scream in horror while visiting the "Scariest Haunted Attraction in the Cedar Valley!!" It all started back in the late 1970's when as children we began to enjoy traditional Halloween activities. Visits to the pumpkin farm would lead us to the perfect pumpkin to carve for Halloween night. Deciding on who or what to dress up as for our rounds on Halloween night. Watching the TV Halloween specials, especially the late late monster movies! Trick or Treating back then was very popular. If you were a kid, you were out getting in on the candy and the spooky fun. Let's not forget those Halloween costume parties and contests of which we do not remember who invited us. But we will not forget who made our costumes. We would enjoy Halloween together with our family and friends. As we all got a little older, our family would allow us to go out with them on a dark, cool night in October. At first we were unsure of what was about to happen. We soon learned about something more scary than a black and white monster movie. It was a local haunted house conducted by the Waterloo Jaycees Club. Back then, these haunted houses were part of the Halloween tradition for the "older kids". Our family was not content with visiting just one haunted house on those nights. We would visit every show in Black Hawk County. Some years there would be three or four haunted houses operated by different organizations. We had fun being scared and realized that when you put all the pieces of celebrating Halloween together, it became our second favorite holiday! Times change, and for whatever reason, the way we celebrated Halloween began to change. Through the 1980's and 1990's the haunted houses were slowly reaching a peak and then fading away. The Waterloo Jaycees would continue to operate a haunted house each year. Gone was the popular "Scream in the Dark" haunted house, as well as other non-profit haunted houses in Black Hawk County. We began volunteering our help to the Waterloo Jaycees at the old Whittier school building back in 1989 - 1991. These were the best years for the Jaycees haunted house as the location was awesome! But by the year 1999, Waterloo was without a single haunted house. Our community lost a very important aspect of its Halloween history. It also had a negative impact on many people in the community. We made the commitment to form Halloween Traditions Group and bring the haunted houses (now called haunted attractions) along with the Halloween spirit back to Waterloo and the Cedar Valley. We started by building garage and backyard haunted attractions, getting a little bigger and better every year. We found other members of the community who also desired to bring back haunted attractions to the community. Together we operated a 2001 haunted attraction in Evansdale. We continued our partnership in 2002 by building a haunted attraction on the Cattle Congress Grounds in Waterloo. The 2001 and 2002 Halloween seasons were great haunted attractions, providing traditional haunted house entertainment for the entire Cedar Valley. The Halloween Traditions Group decided to move on to building a new haunted attraction. We left the haunted attraction at the Cattle Congress to our former partners to continue to bring the Halloween spirit back to Waterloo. In our pursuit of a new location in which to create an all new haunted attraction, we met and became friends of the Heartland Pumpkin Farm. After hearing what our groups goal is, and seeing what we are capable of creating, We partnered up to bring a really scary haunted attraction to the already popular family oriented Heartland Pumpkin Farm. Thus was created, "The Heart of Darkness" haunted attraction. "The Heart of Darkness" took over three and a half months of planning and hard work, along with additional months of designing and building new creatures for our show. Our goal of bringing haunted attractions back to the Cedar Valley is being achieved. In 2003, there were three haunted attractions, one haunted hayride and two pumpkin farms with family attractions in Black Hawk County. We are proud to provide "The Heart of Darkness" for the Halloween season. The attraction is designed and constructed to scare and entertain the brave. We continue to design and create new features for each new Halloween season, and the 2005" Heart of Darkness" will have new features to fright and delight!! The Halloween Traditions Group continues to learn how to create the creatures and scares. This will ensure that our visitors experience things that they will never forget, or see anywhere else!! Haunted attractions have become their own industry. All across the United States, technology is allowing some haunted attractions to reach theme park status. We are proud to give back to the community a form of Halloween entertainment that would have been left in the past, if not for the dreams and screams of a few handfuls of Cedar Valley residents... The Halloween Traditions Group will be back, along with Heartland Pumpkin Farm in October 2005, continuing to bring you the Cedar Valley's "One Stop" for Halloween season entertainment including the Cedar Valley's "Newest and Scariest" haunted attraction...