[frogfish]

Just shy of 2 weeks until we bring DC4 to a close and the submissions I have already received are awesome!

I just finished up my part and although I drew on my favorite parts of the ride and surrounding area, some of you who are still working may be able to find inspiration in the Big Thunder Mountain backstory I found on Wikipedia. I knew the basic story; that its set in an abandoned mining town (which coinsidently is the name of my mini), but some of the things on Wikipedia were new to me (I'm assuming this information is correct). Do you know the whole story?

Although the details of the backstory vary from park to park, all follow the same general story arcs. Some time in the late 1800s, gold was discovered on Big Thunder Mountain in the American southwest. Overnight, the small mining town of Rainbow Ridges (at Disneyland), Tumbleweed (at the Magic Kingdom), or ThunderMesa (at Disneyland Paris) became a thriving mining town. Mining was prosperous, and an extensive line of mine trains was set up to transport the ore. Unknown to the settlers, the Mountain was a sacred spot to local Native Americans and was cursed.

Before long, the settlers' desecration of the mountain caused a great tragedy, which, depending on the park, is usually depicted to be an earthquake (Disneyland Paris, Disneyland), a tsunami (Tokyo Disneyland), or a flash flood (Magic Kingdom), which befell the mines and town, and the town was abandoned. Some time later, the locomotives were found to be racing around the mountain on their own, without engineers or a crew. The Big Thunder Mountain Railroad was founded in the old mining camp to allow tourists to take rides on the possessed trains.

--Wikipedia