I can only speak for Chippewa Lake, but they have been planning to tear it down for years now. The land was bought and there are plans for a hotel/resort next to the lake, but the whole project is on hold for financial reasons. They brought in bulldozes and ripped out all the trees, but the rides are still standing in this flat muddy wasteland. It's been that way for probably two years now and I don't know when they expect to start up again, probably not until the economy picks up quite a bit.
Remoteness is a big reason you'll see a lot of defunct amusement parks in the Midwest. Before places like Cedar Point and Six Flags, lots of small towns each had their own tiny amusement parks. You'd find one every couple towns and they each had maybe one roller coaster and a few smaller rides and a midway, etc. When the big parks came along, all the community parks went out of business, but they're just tucked away in little pockets of these semi-rural areas where there's not a lot of development going on. Chippewa Lake, because it's on the lake, had more land value as a possible resort area, so it's one of the few areas that is being developed.
Remoteness is a big reason you'll see a lot of defunct amusement parks in the Midwest. Before places like Cedar Point and Six Flags, lots of small towns each had their own tiny amusement parks. You'd find one every couple towns and they each had maybe one roller coaster and a few smaller rides and a midway, etc. When the big parks came along, all the community parks went out of business, but they're just tucked away in little pockets of these semi-rural areas where there's not a lot of development going on. Chippewa Lake, because it's on the lake, had more land value as a possible resort area, so it's one of the few areas that is being developed.