The Bowling Green and Warren County area have broken their own records for tourism in the past two years, contributing close to $500 million of economic impact to the state.

Last year alone, more than $40 million of that comes from a 100 year old recreation area that now houses a racetrack, campground and amusement park.

Kelsey Starks goes on the road to Beach Bend, so what employs 400 people every summer and attracts close to a million visitors to this area every year.

Well, it's Beach Bend Park, and although this has been a recreation area here for over 100 years, it is the family that owns it now that takes credit for reviving it and making it the tourist destination it is today.

We do everything the big parks do, just on the smaller scale.

We have been slowly building since 1987 until we got, you know, over 30 rides here.

Now we get the miniature golf course here.

Now we've got lots of slides in the water park.

We have the lazy river, the wave pool, two children strokes and, plenty to do to keep you busy for a day or two.

If you want to do everything here.

Beach Bend Park has a long history sitting at the bend of the Barron River since 1898, when people would picnic on the sandy beach area here.

Then, sometime in the 40s, the Garvin family purchased the property and they started building the park, kind of as we know it today.

Started putting in, you know, rides and this big old swimming pool behind me.

It was built in the 50s, but it hasn't always been a straight path up.

The park fell into disrepair in the late 70s and 80s, leaving only the dragstrip open to visitors.

Enter the Jones family in my family, the Jones family.

We purchased the park in 1987.

I grew up coming here.

Honestly, my whole family did, so it was a labor of love to start rebuilding my family.

You know, we're not we weren't rich.

We didn't come.

We came from a modest background.

My parents were farmers and a beautician.

My mom.

So we started building at a pace we could afford to keep up with.

And now we've got a really nice park here.

Now, Beach Bend Park ranks right up there with the National Corvette Museum and Mammoth Cave as one of the top tourist destinations in the county.

We have two gates here.

You have the amusement park gate that does, you know, a couple hundred thousand a year.

And then the racetrack down there, we had some huge events at the racetrack that bring in about a half a million people every year.

And then you have a campground with 400 campsites.

So you put it all together.

We're over a million people a year in attendance.

The best amusement park ride would be Whitewater Express or Kentucky Rambler, and the best water slide is the blue tube.

You should probably try all the.

Yeah, and that's as much as you can in one day.

Yeah, it's pretty much impossible to do everything in one day beca We're literally 30 minutes from the Tennessee line, so we get a lot of traffic from Middle Tennessee.

But then you have people here all the time, you know, from Alabama or Indiana or Ohio or people are visiting relatives here around, you know, the area.

And so we get them here from California to, you know, the East Coast.

But no matter where they come here from, the goal is the same just to have a little fun.

What about.

I always found it really fun to take the kids and go places, because you laugh and have a good time, and nobody stuck on a phone or a computer.

You really have a good time together when you go places like this, and I think there's a huge need for that right now.

And it makes my heart and my heart feel good when I see families here having a good time and laughing and smiling together.

So that's why we're here for Kentucky Edition.

I'm Kelsey Starks.

Beach Park season runs early May through September 21st.