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Stories behind defunct and abandoned theme parks and amusementsSat, 12 Sep 2020 18:43:28 +0000en-US
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1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.0.3161275891Racism, Riots, and Euclid Beach Park
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https://theabandonedcarousel.com/racism-riots-euclid-beach-park/#respondWed, 29 Jul 2020 10:00:00 +0000https://theabandonedcarousel.com/?p=161252Urban theme parks were often shuttered in part due to racist discrimination. This episode of The Abandoned Carousel talks about a broad overview of recreation riots and urban theme park... Read more »
]]>Urban theme parks were often shuttered in part due to racist discrimination. This episode of The Abandoned Carousel talks about a broad overview of recreation riots and urban theme park closure, focusing on Euclid Beach Park in Cleveland OH as an example.
Originally, this episode was going to be an easing back into The Abandoned Carousel after an extended period of time off to attend to family matters during the covid19 quarantine.
However, I’m sure you can see the state of the world around you. As I was researching my proposed next topic, a group of rides which moved together through three different theme parks, all now defunct, I couldn’t get past the reasons for the downfall of the original park. And of course, it’s July of 2020 – the world is awash in pandemic, police brutality, black lives matter, and the desperate need for people to confront their inner biases.
So instead of doing a light-hearted chat, I’m going to talk about some reading I’ve been doing to educate myself. What I’ve learned is a lot about how racism is responsible for quite a few of the urban theme park closures that occurred in the 1960s and 1970s. My episode today will draw heavily from the excellent book “Racism, Riots, and Roller Coasters” by Victoria Wolcott. This book can be found for free online through Project Muse at Johns Hopkins University: https://muse.jhu.edu/book/17151
I am still learning. So let’s learn together about this topic. It might be uncomfortable and that’s okay. And I will probably make some mistakes and that’s okay too.
In the past on this show, I’m sure I’ve mentioned how a number of parks seemed to close in the late 60s and early 70s. Well, the unspoken reason, in many cases, was: because racism. I’m going to talk about this in the context of one park in particular, but racism was a factor in the decline and closure of many urban theme parks.
A Brief Discussion of Civil Rights
We begin towards the beginning.
Early amusement parks at the turn of the century were often trumpeted by owners as being spaces for cleanliness and order, but they accomplished this by putting in place the exclusion of Blacks.
It’s perhaps a thesis-level work to try and condense this into a small format. However, we do need to have a few landmarks. You may or may not remember landmark cases from your US history class. Here’s a few relevant points:
America was built on racialized slavery, from the very beginning. For more than you learned in school and less than you should know, please listen to or read the Pulitzer-prize winning 1619 Project.
Slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment, just after the Civil War, in 1865. This was only 155 years ago. (To really place this in context for the podcast, Charles Looff’s first carousel was built only 11 years later, in 1876, and his contemporary Charles Dare built a carousel around the same time that still operates to this day.)
The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was a federal law calling for equal rights for all people, particularly access to accommodations, transportation, and theaters, regardless of race.
A group of Supreme Court cases collectively called Civil Rights Cases of 1883 dismantled the 1875 act, ruling that Congress could not outlaw racial discrimination by private individuals.
As a result, Southern states began passing laws now called Jim Crow laws, codifying racial discrimination in public amenities.
1896 saw a landmark Supreme Court case, legally establishing the principle of “separate but equal” in Plessy v. Ferguson. This applied to all public facilities.
As a result, individual states passed civil rights laws to ban racial discrimination in these public amusements and amenities. In the South, Jim Crow laws remained in place.
1954 saw the desegregation of education (Brown v Board of Education).
1964 and 1965 saw the Civil Rights Act of 1964 and the Voting Rights Act of 1965, which broadly outlawed discrimination based on “color, religion, sex, or national origin”.
Despite this, today in 2020, racial discrimination is still rampant in hiring practices, housing, healthcare, and police brutality, among every other aspect of life.
Given this context, let’s focus on one urban amusement park in particular as we move to look at how racial discrimination affected urban amusements over the last century.
Euclid Beach Park in Cleveland, OH
Our park is Euclid Beach Park, located on the shores of Lake Erie, in the Cleveland, OH area. Euclid Beach Park opened its doors for the first time in 1895. A group of businessmen wanted to capitalize on the booming popularity of Coney Island, so they purchased land outside of Cleveland, OH and opened an amusement park.
In the late 1800s, amusement parks and carnival midways were still often seen as hotbeds of sin and salaciousness, crime and immorality. The sexes were allowed to freely intermingle, to experience freedom from crowded housing conditions in devastating summer heat, and they were a place for the working class to experience leisure activities for the first time.
For Black people, it appears Cleveland was a good place to be, socially and economically, for most of the 19th century. By this, the subtext is: it was better here than most places, but probably still not as good as it should have been. Cleveland was a center for abolitionism prior to the Civil War, and local Black leaders in the community fought for integration rather than segregated, separate Black institutions.
To really put a pin in it: slavery was abolished by the 13th Amendment, just after the Civil War, in 1865. This was only 155 years ago. (As I stated earlier, there are carousels contemporaneous to the abolition of slavery that still operate today in 2020.) On the surface of glossy history textbooks, things seemed to go swimmingly. The Civil Rights Act of 1875 was a federal law calling for equal rights for all people, particularly access to accommodations, transportation, and theaters, regardless of race. We of course all should know the undercurrents yet to come.
Euclid Beach Park: the Early Years
In its initial years of operation, managers William R. Ryan and Lee Holtzman modeled Euclid Beach after the best in the business at the time. The beach was obviously a large draw, along with other typical period amusements: vaudeville, sideshows, concerts, gambling, beer. High walls surrounded the property, blocking views of the rowdiness, and an entrance fee was charged. There were even some rides, like one of LaMarcus A. Thompson’s groundbreaking Switchback Railways (the tldr version – he’s called the Father of the American Rollercoaster, and Euclid Beach Park’s Switchback Railway was the sixth of his design ever).
Unfortunately, despite the draws of the opposite sex, pleasures, and beer, the park didn’t do well in those early years – it was seen as a skeevy, sleezy place to be. And the city, formerly seen as well-integrated for most of the 19th century, had become more segregated. The Civil Rights Cases of 1883, ruling that Congress could not outlaw against discrimination by private individuals, and the 1896 Supreme Court Plessy v. Ferguson, meant that separate but equal was now legal, heralded from the highest court in the land. This applied to all facilities open to the public, including Euclid Beach Park, and meant that individual businesses could chose to exercise racial discrimination.
It’s said that the earliest discrimination suits at Euclid Beach Park can be traced back to around this time.
By late 1899, Euclid Beach Park had been open for a handful of years, but was reported in the newspapers as a failure, said to be losing over $20,000 a season (over half a million dollars a season in 2020 money). Investors were facing the loss of over half their investment funds if they sold the land for development, but they saw no other choice. In 1901, they put the land up for sale.
Euclid Beach Park’s Glory Days
In 1896, a year after Euclid Beach Park opened, a man named Dudley S. Humphrey II opened a popcorn stand at Euclid Beach Park. He’d built a name and a living for himself, having been popping popcorn in the greater Cleveland area since 1891, having patented a type of popcorn popper which seasoned the popcorn as it was popped (this sentence is a tongue twister). For three years, he and his family operated a stand at Euclid Beach Park, popping corn amidst the drunkenness and debauchery of the early park. In 1899, however, he closed his stand, unhappy with the atmosphere and park management.
However, in 1901, when the park went up for sale, Humphrey and six other members of his family got the funds together and purchased the park. They had in mind a new direction.
Immediately, changes were made. Gone were the high walls, gone was the admission fee. Money was charged at the attractions, with the goal of allowing anyone who wanted to visit the park, free of charge.
Gone too was the rowdy behaviour. Humphrey wanted a family-friendly park and a family-friendly atmosphere. Gone was the beer garden, and patrons were strictly prohibited from entering the park if they consumed any alcohol, as well. Bathing garments had to be modest, and “definitely not gaudy in color”.
This type of attitude was a contrast to the majority of amusement parks at the time, known for being rowdy, raucous places. But it was a strategy that worked for Humphrey. The slogan was “one fare, free gate and no beer”, since the average person only needed to pay a single streetcar fare to get to the park.
It was a place suddenly very accessible to youths of all colors. Unfortunately, the park’s long history with banning Black admittance on certain days or on certain attractions is said to have begun around this time. This was done in direct violation of the standing 1894 Ohio state law barring discrimination in public facilites.
The quote from the park’s leadership was that everything at Euclid Beach Park should be “of a highly moral and elevating character”. And as many sources describe, advertising for the park at one time included promises that Euclid Beach Park would “present nothing that would demoralize or depress,” and that visitors would “never be exposed to undesirable people”. Saying the quiet part out loud, the management, in a not uncommon opinion at the time, wanted to keep Black people out.
Racial Discrimination in Theme Parks Before World War II
Commercial recreation (theme parks, swimming pools, etc; distinguished from non-commercial recreation such as public parks and picnic grounds) arose at the same time as the Jim Crow laws, which codified racial discrimination in public places both before and after the 1896 Plessy v. Ferguson case. While the South saw “whites only” signs and policies quickly enacted, the Northern states, such as Ohio, were slower to enact any sweeping measure prior to World War II. However, there was little public taste for “mixing” in the shiny new arena of a theme park.
Forrester B. Washington, a Black social worker and activist, is quoted as saying that the young Black migrants “found the wholesome agencies of recreation either closed or closing to him”. Between Northern states and Southern states, the difference was one of degree. While a Southern swimming pool might be whites only, exclusively, a swimming pool in the North might have Blacks allowed only on a single day, with a more subtle “Members Only” policy.
Theme parks did the same thing. Wolcott’s book lists the policies off: Lakewood Park and Idora Park allowed Blacks in only at the beginning or end of the season – once a year. Bob-Lo Island in Detroit allowed Blacks every other week.
And by 1915, Euclid Beach Park followed suit, as did local competition Luna Park: Blacks were only admitted on certain days of the week, and were strictly prohibited from interacting with white people while they were at the park. On the other days, the park’s private police force ensured that no Black person was admitted.
More to the point, it’s noted in Wolcott’s book that once admitted to the park, a Black patron was not allowed to enter the restaurants, the bathhouse, the dance hall, or the roller rink except in rare circumstances. Again, it was all about keeping that family-friendly image. Popular culture had wrongly painted Blacks as harbingers of disease and violence, so in the eyes of management, the park was perfectly justified in admitting only people who would uphold that “high moral character”.
Again, this was a common tactic for many theme parks in the early 20th century: racial discrimination was their way of establishing their business as a safe space, a twisted marketing tactic. Over in nearby Cincinnatti’s Coney Island, and in Youngstown’s Idora Park, similar policies were in place. Blacks were admitted on very few days, and private park police were used to eject anyone management deemed inappropriate. And even on the days Idora Park was open to Blacks, days when the popular Homestead Grays Negro League baseball team played there, many of the park’s more popular attractions were inexplicably closed or under repairs.
Harlan’s view was that segregation caused violence, not that violence required segregation. Again and again throughout history, we have seen this born out.
In the arena of public amusements, this violence was most often seen at the swimming pool. With women and children present, the specter of not only males and females gathered in less clothing than usual, but also miscegenation, interracial relations. It was seen as taboo and often illegal. With emotions of one sort already high, it’s unsurprising that emotions of another sort also exploded.
The early 20th century is littered with violence and murder tied to racial discrimination at swimming pools and beaches. Spontaneous protests regularly arose in small groups, given the increasing segregation of public recreation. Public policy, especially in large urban cities like Chicago, was that racial segregation would lead to racial peace. However, this was not the case – from minor antagonism like angry words, to unsafe recreation conditions, to actual bloodshed, violence, and death – there was no peace.
Back to Euclid Beach Park
Back at Euclid Beach Park, similar policies were still in effect. The park banned Black schoolchildren from using the dance hall in the 1930s. After pushing from the NAACP, the Cleveland School Board resolved that no schools would visit the park until all children were “accorded the full and equal enjoyment of the accommodations”.
However, the private park police force and the constant threats of violence were wielded most commonly against Black patrons whose only “crime” was to attempt to enjoy the recreations.
Rides of Euclid Beach Park
Here we’ll take a quick diversion, for what wonderful recreations they were. My original discussion about Euclid Beach Park, before I learned more about it, was going to be about the enduring rides, a group of which passed from Euclid Beach Park to Shady Lakes Park to Old Indiana Theme Park over several decades. There were some really fantastic rides. Groundbreaking coasters: 1913’s Derby Racer, aka Racing Coaster, a John Miller-designed moebius style coaster which gave the effect of racing cars when multiple trains ran on the track. 1924’s Thriller coaster, at the time the tallest and fastest coaster in the world, designed by Philadelphia Toboggan Company and Herbert Paul Schmeck. (If you’re a long time The Abandoned Carousel listener/reader, you might remember him as the designer of Joyland’s iconic Roller Coaster, as well as Little Amerricka’s classic Meteor coaster.)
1930 saw a unique one, the Flying Turns, a trackless coaster, more like a wooden bobsled course than a traditional “coaster”. Designed in partnership between (yet again) John Miller and British WWI ace John Norman Bartlett, Euclid Beach Park’s Flying Turns was the second ever built, and the tallest. Two-person sleds, designed to look like airplanes, were chained together in three-car trains, winched up to the top, and then let go, much like a waterless waterslide. There are some videos of this ride on YouTube, and it looks very fun indeed. In fact, the Flying Turns made it into a Beach Boys song. Euclid Beach Park is one out of five parks mentioned in Amusement Parks USA: “At Euclid Beach on the Flying Turns I’ll bet you can’t keep her smilin’” the lyrics go.
And of course, the carousels: 1904 saw the installation of Philadelphia Toboggan Company #9. This carousel was a work of art, a three-row menagerie with a magnificent lion, dancing horses, a giraffe with a snake draped around its neck, and my favorite, a proud golden retriever. In 1909, the original PTC carousel #9 was sold to Laurel Springs Amusement Park in Hartford, CT. The next year, 1910, PTC installed a new carousel at Euclid Beach Park: PTC #19, a 58 horse carousel with two chariots. The horses were replicas of famous horses ridden by characters such as Sitting Bull and Lady Godiva. Along with the carousel came an beautiful band organ from North Tonawanda Musical Instruments, all to the tune of $7,734.
There were dozens of other popular rides and attractions. Things like the Rocket Ship stood out. Designed and built by the park’s welder, this classic swinging car ride was built with classic futuristic Buck Rogers-style lines. Riders boarded the cars at the platform, and were swung high enough to touch the trees when the ride was at its peak. The shiny silver steel cars were some of the park’s most memorable, even made into a two-rider Kiddie version at one point. Of course, the ride was the subject of urban legend. Rumors say that one car broke off its cables and landed in Lake Erie. (This is not physically possible and never happened. Rumors, however, persist.)
The iconic arched entryway was built in 1921. With stone pillars on either side of the roadway, beautifully styled letters spell out “Euclid Beach Park” to entice patrons in.
Only the right kind of patrons, of course.
Racial Conflicts at Euclid Beach Park
As discussed, recreation riots were a huge part of the early 20th century. Constant activism began to pay dividends by the 1930s. Also in effect was the Great Depression – with nothing but time on their hands, there was plenty of additional time for leisure and protesting.
(In a time before our modern era of June 2020, this fact was probably counterintuitive. Now, I think it is probably quite clear how even in lean financial times, a lack of work means time can be spent on recreational and leisure activities.)
Government-sanctioned segregation, including New Deal-era segregated housing and hundreds of segregated swimming pools, led to a rising tide of anger. Black youth continued to protest racist policies at local swimming pools across the United States. White people, in turn, fought the rightful access of Black people to recreational spaces, among others, at every turn. “Mild” violence, including hateful words and harmful pranks, up to life-threatening violence, including rocks, fists, and more, were what faced Black people trying to access the theme park or swimming pool in their neighborhoods, paid for by their own taxpayer dollars in many cases.
Demanding access to recreation was seen as central to an assertion of citizenship and consumer rights, so the fight went on.
In the 1940s, race relations was increasingly a hot topic in a way it hadn’t been since post-Civil War Reconstruction era. Before and after the war, discrimination in housing and employment were huge areas of focus, and so was recreation. Recreation segregation was a huge focus if only because it was so visible, whereas discrimination in jobs and housing could be hidden away. Activists began to focus on nonviolent protests in recreational spaces. A 1944 book of essays by Roy Wilkins entitled “What the Negro Wants” laid it out, stating that what Blacks wanted was “to be able to go to parks, playgrounds, beaches, pools, theatres, restaurants, hotels, taverns, tourist camps, and other places of public amusement and accommodation without proscription and insult.” Seems perfectly reasonable, but we’re still fighting this fight here in 2020, so…?
In the 1940s, organized “nonviolent direct action” was the innovation, defined by Greg Houser as “group action against injustice by challenging directly the right of that discrimination to exist” in contrast to the reliance on states or courts. There were two movements that came out of this: A. Philip Randolph’s March on Washington Movement (MOWM), which led to the Congress of Racial Equality (CORE).
CORE’s first use of the nonviolent direction action came in response to an Illinois skating rink in 1946 that used a fictitious “club” to keep Blacks out and circumvent the Illinois civil rights laws. Physical pickets blocked and slowed access to the club, and picketers touted their military veteran status, with signs reading “The draft boards did not exclude Negroes”. Larger crowds joined the picket each weekend, and from January to March, the aptly named “White City” skating rink lost 50% of their business. Ultimately, White City began allowing Blacks entrance to the skating rink, else they go out of business entirely. A local paper wrote “The fight against White City is considered to be the opening gun in a campaign to smash discrimination in all skating rinks and amusement centers in Chicago.”
The fight for equality was then taken to further North to other so called “civil rights states”, where there were discrimination statutes on the books that were not enforced. Ohio was one of these states, and the place most heavily-targeted by activists was Euclid Beach Park.
The Euclid Beach Park “Riots”
By this time, Euclid Beach Park was solidly established as a popular, family-friendly amusement park with many exciting rides, roller coasters, shows, and of course, the beach and pier. All of these were still only open to white visitors; Blacks could visit only on the designated days, and were kept under tight watch from the park’s private police force.
In 1946, a young woman named Juanita Morrow established a new chapter of CORE. She began spearheading nonviolent protests to challenge Euclid Beach Park’s discriminatory policies. July 21, 1946 saw a protest where a young group of activists were harassed by the park police and then roughly evicted from the park when they tried to enter the dance hall. The activists subsequently filed lawsuits and began picketing the park.
A month later on August 23, 1946, twelve activists again visited the park to nonviolently protest by playing Skeeball in an integrated group. Park police didn’t allow the activists to attempt rollerskating or dancing, and roughly evicted them from the park. Albert T. Luster was separated from the group and violently beaten.
The summer of activism at Euclid Beach Park was not over, however. The dance pavilion was the most carefully guarded (read: discriminatory) space at the park. Two off-duty Black police officers escorted two couples to the pavilion, one white and one Black. When the Black couple were prevented from entering by park guards, the police officers attempted to arrest the guards for violating state civil rights laws. The resulting brawl caused an accidental gun misfire, with an officer badly injured as a result.
Subsequently, the mayor shut down the dance hall a week earlier than the season closure. Activists pushed in city council meetings for a change to public accommodation laws in include antidiscrimination language. After months of debate, the mayor publicly expressed his unease but signed the law.
Unfortunately, his unease paved the way out for Euclid Beach Park.
The 1947 season opened with the dance hall, skating rink, and bathhouse closed. They would later reopen under private management as “private clubs”, no longer part of the park and therefore circumventing the public licensing laws.
And Euclid Beach Park wasn’t alone. Wolcott’s book cites at least two more incidents of theme parks closing in order to avoid desegregation. Nonviolent protesting worked, though, as the 1949 Freeman Civil Rights Act in New Jersey proved – laws surrounding all commercial amusements were rewritten following increased public support for desegregation after highly visible nonviolent protests at places like Palisades Park. This was the first civil rights statute for public accommodations since 1931. Public actions by CORE forced Palisades Park to desegregate officially by 1952, although discriminatory policies were reportedly upheld throughout the 1960s.
Closure of Euclid Beach Park
While officially, Euclid Beach Park was required to comply with public anidiscrimination laws after the 1947 season, “private clubs” for the bathhouse, dance hall, and skating rink were used to skirt that law, and discriminatory policies continued.
The park ultimately closed 22 years later, in 1969.
Discrimination persisted for the rest of Euclid Park’s operation, despite nominal desegregation. Chroniclers of the park’s history cite “racial tensions” and “gangs and undesirables” that were attracted to the park because of the open-gate policies, thereby “[scaring] off the patrons with money to spend.” Other descriptions of the park from different sources, however, tell a different story, with facilities were continually being closed to Black people in the years prior to the park’s 1969 closure. A native Clevelander wrote of the park’s closure, saying that society “treat[s] the park’s financial failure in 1969 as an unfathomable mystery. It’s no secret in this town that it was due, in large measure, to racial bigotry.”
Taxes continued to increase on the park’s land, making the land almost more profitable than the business. At the same time, profits began to decrease; a familiar theme park story, now with additional context.
1963 saw the city cutting public transportation, with bus routes no longer running to Euclid Beach Park. In 1964, the park began to operate in the red, losing money.
Reportedly, management began to abandon the park little by little, apparently a common practice for small urban parks in this time period. One author writes “The vacant, darkened spaces on the countenance of Euclid Beach Park were like teeth absent from an aging face.” Rides were shuttered and sold off, exhibits were closed. Rides were demolished, like the Aero Dips coaster which was destroyed in 1964 or 1965.
The guests who could, largely the middle-class white patrons, went in increasing numbers to Cedar Point (an hour west) or the Geauga Lake (40 minutes south). Mass suburbanization meant both were increasingly accessible from the highway, by car. Cedar Point, indeed, implemented a massive improvements campaign beginning in 1959, billing itself as the Disneyland of the Midwest, with single-price admission instituted on certain days beginning in 1964. This policy kept out lower-class patrons who visited to bring their own picnics, gather and people watch, and otherwise spend little money, riding few rides. Reality or perception, the idea that urban parks were “dangerous” and suburban/remote parks were safer was an idea, rooted in racism, that ultimately spelled the downfall for many central urban amusement parks.
Finally, in 1969, Euclid Beach Park was an unprofitable shadow of herself, and closed.
Remnants of Euclid Beach Park
I originally chose this park because I was fascinated by its rides. A large bulk of the Euclid Beach Park rides moved to the Humphrey family’s second take on Euclid Beach, called Shady Lake Park down in Streetsboro OH. This short-lived park operated for only a few years, from 1978-1982. After Shady Lake Park, the same bulk of rides moved to Old Indiana Fun Park, down in Thorntown, IN. The rides operated there until 1996, when two guests were killed after the miniature train derailed. The park quickly shuttered and the rides were liquidated; additionally, the incident forced changes in the state safety and inspection laws for amusement park rides.
From here, rides were quite dispersed – the Giant wheel is notable for heading to Geauga Lake, where it had to be completely rebuilt. (Most of the rides were said to be in quite poor shape at this point.) Still operating today are the Turnpike Cars, which operate at Idlewild Park today. These are notable for being the same limited-run model as Disneyland’s first Autopia, and there’s an excellent article about them. The Great American Racing Derby, sold early from Euclid Beach Park in 1967 to Cedar Point, where it still operates today as the Cedar Downs.
After the closure of Old Indiana, Six Flags parent company Premier Parks purchased the property, storing several dismantled coasters onsite as late as 2006 (for images of these coasters, visit the park page at the incredible RCDB). No new theme park ever operated there, and today the land is a hops farm.
Shady Lake Park had an entrance modeled after Euclid Beach Park’s, which remained until 2004. Today, the area is apartments and a bank.
And Euclid Beach Park? The famous arched gateway was made a Cleveland landmark, and still stands. Apartment buildings occupy much of the former amusement park site. The remainder is park land, including the Euclid Beach Park Pier, which was recently rebuilt and rededicated. You can still purchase Humphrey family popcorn today.
And of course, the beautiful PTC Carousel. When Euclid Beach Park closed, the carousel went to Palace Playland in Maine, where it operated for several decades, until 1996. Subsequently, the Trust for Public Land repurchased the theme park at $715,000. A quote on the matter said, “they don’t normally bid on carousels, but they realized how important it was to Cleveland history.” By 2014, Philadelphia Toboggan Company carousel #19 was fully restored, and opened to the public under the operation of the Western Reserve Historical Society.
Conclusions
Although I focused on the story of Euclid Beach Park here, it’s important to remember that they were in no way unique or out of step with other theme parks at the time. While Euclid Beach Park of the past made their own decisions, similar stories can be told in both the North and the South.
“We have waited for more than 340 years for our constitutional and God given rights,” Martin Luther King Jr wrote in his 1963 Letter from a Birmingham Jail, speaking of racial injustice. Among them, he spoke of his daughter. “[W]hen you suddenly find your tongue twisted and your speech stammering as you seek to explain to your six year old daughter why she can’t go to the public amusement park that has just been advertised on television, and see tears welling up in her eyes when she is told that Funtown is closed to colored children,” he wrote, “then you will understand why we find it difficult to wait.”
This is a podcast about theme park history and theme park nostalgia. We also need to acknowledge the implicit perspectives we bring to the table: some bring nostalgia for glimmering childhood experiences and joys long-gone, and others remember sad longing for something that was closed for too long. The memories are as segregated as the parks were.
I hope you all are taking covid19 precautions, and wearing a mask. A mask is not political, it is a common sense piece of science that shows respect for the people around you. Masks decrease your risk of covid by something like 5-fold. Wear a mask, stay at home.
I’ll be back with another episode of The Abandoned Carousel as soon as time allows. In the meantime, stay safe. Remember what Lucy Maud Montgomery once said: nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.
References
The resources used when researching the topic are included below.
Morris JA. Disney’s Influence on the Modern Theme Park and the Codification of Colorblind Racism in the American Amusement Industry. In: Kokai JA, Robson T, eds. Performance and the Disney Theme Park Experience: The Tourist as Actor. Springer International Publishing; 2019:213-227. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-29322-2_11
Kokai JA, Robson T, eds. Performance and the Disney Theme Park Experience: The Tourist as Actor. Springer International Publishing; 2019. doi:10.1007/978-3-030-29322-2
Wolcott VW. Race, Riots, and Roller Coasters: The Struggle over Segregated Recreation in America. University of Pennsylvania Press; 2012.
]]>https://theabandonedcarousel.com/racism-riots-euclid-beach-park/feed/0161252The First Ferris Wheel
https://theabandonedcarousel.com/the-first-ferris-wheel/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=the-first-ferris-wheel
https://theabandonedcarousel.com/the-first-ferris-wheel/#respondWed, 15 Apr 2020 10:00:00 +0000https://theabandonedcarousel.com/?p=116351Literally nothing but a constant rise and fall, today I’m going to tell you about the story of a classic theme park ride: the very first Ferris wheel. Intro How’s... Read more »
]]>Literally nothing but a constant rise and fall, today I’m going to tell you about the story of a classic theme park ride: the very first Ferris wheel.
Intro
How’s it going, theme park aficionados? Life’s a lot right now, so let’s distract ourselves from it. Today I’m going to go narrow, and tell you the story of a single ride. A beginning, and an end.
So instead of talking about a theme park meeting its tragic end, let’s talk about a beginning. Today, I’m going to tell you about the first Ferris wheel.
Before the Ferris Wheel: the Eiffel Tower
Two hundred and thirty one years ago, a French mob stormed the Bastille Saint-Antoine in Paris, France. This was the flashpoint, beginning the French Revolution, marking a period of extreme social and political upheaval in France over ten years. The French Revolution accelerated the rise of modern republics and democracies, and is widely considered one of the more significant events in human history.
ONE hundred and thirty one years ago, the Exposition Universelle of 1889 was held in Paris, France, to commemorate the 100th anniversary of the Storming of the Bastille.
World’s Fairs
This was a classic world’s fair. As I talked about last time during my Carousel #15 episode, a world’s fair is a generic term used to describe an event where many nations come together to showcase achievements, technology, products, etc.
Consensus is that the first world’s fair was held in 1851 in London, an idea of Prince Albert (Queen Victoria’s husband). It was called “Great Exhibition of the Works of Industry of All Nations” and was based on an already-extant French tradition dating back to 1798, titled “Exhibition of Products of French Industry”.
Wikipedia tells me that there have been three periods of world’s fairs so far.
Industrialization (through 1938), where the fair focused on trade, technological advances, and inventions
Cultural exchange (1939-1987), where the fair focused on social and cultural themes likes “Building the World of Tomorrow” and “Peace Through Understanding”
Nation branding (1988-present), where the fair focuses on improving the images of each nation, almost as in an advertising campaign.
Exposition Universelle of 1889
The 1889 Exposition Universelle, then, was about industry, trade, technology, and inventions. The last may strike a chord with you, for an invention is the reason we’re bringing up this particular world’s fair at all.
In interesting trivial tidbit time, apparently all of the European countries with monarchies officially boycotted the fair, since it was celebrating the French Revolution (otherwise known as the overthrowing of the French monarchy). (Despite being officially boycotted, however, the manufacturers from these countries still wanted to participate, and were sponsored by private industry in order to do so.)
The exposition was filled with exhibits of science and technology, many located within the massive Gallery of Machines, a building with the longest interior space in the world at that time. There were showcases of improvements in telephones and phonographs, maritime navigation and military technology, and the elevator, with miraculous new safety brakes from the American Otis Elevator Company.
There was the Palace of Fine Arts, the fountains and the various side streets designed to look like places around the globe. There was good food, there were hydrogen balloons in which spectators could view the fair from on high, there was a train (choo choo, Abandoned Train fans – this one was called the Decauville Railway, which utilized many different narrow-gauge steam locomotives over its short 6-month run).
Gustav Eiffel and the Eiffel Tower
But. All of this stood in the shadows, literally, of the spectacle of the 1889 Exhibition.
The centerpiece for the exhibition was to be simply a three hundred meter tower. At the time, tall buildings were reserved only for religious buildings, and these were half the height of the proposed tower – the Notre Dame cathedral with its 40-meter high spire, for instance, claimed a total height of 151 meters. It was the mastery of iron that allowed something twice this height to even be considered.
The man to do it was Gustav Eiffel, born in 1832. He made a name for himself in France, building highly regarded bridges and aquaducts across the country. He firmly established himself with his successful building of several of the 1878 Exposition buildings. And of course, he was responsible for the metal interior of the Statue of Liberty, around 1881. (Beyond the scope of this story, but worth looking into if you have the time – an incredible amount of engineering went into this structure and it’s one of the earliest examples of “curtain wall” construction!)
By 1884, three men at Eiffel’s company had come up with a design for a novel tall tower, inspired by something from a previous world’s fair, the 96-m tall Lassing Observatory built for the 1853 New York exposition. Eiffel bought the rights to patent the design from his workers, and began to promote the tower’s design in engineering circles.
In 1886, a competition was formally announced for the centerpiece of the forthcoming fair, and it was written in such a way (a 300 meter tall four-sided metal tower!) to make the choice of Eiffel’s design the foregone conclusion.
Construction began in 1887. Surprisingly to me, all of the Tower’s 18,037 individual parts were prefabricated at the factory and assembled onsite. Eiffel’s tower was roundly critiqued as it was built, both by people who thought it was not a feasible project and by people who thought it was going to be an ugly eyesore and a blight on the Parisian landscape.
By March of 1889, the structure was complete, and it sounds that critics quickly changed their tune as the popularity of the structure grew. In the short period when the Tower was open to the public but before the elevators were operational, over 30,000 people climbed the twisting stairs up to the top.
In terms of ricky-ticky details: The Eiffel Tower is said to be the most-visited paid tourist attraction in the world. The Tower is 1063 feet tall, or roughly 81 stories, and was the first manmade structure to surpass 300 m.
The Tower was stunning for every visitor to the 1889 Exposition, as well as being incredible advertising for the Expo and for Paris in general.
The Ferris Wheel
As you may be saying, why am I telling you about the Eiffel Tower instead of the Ferris Wheel? The reason we must care about the Eiffel Tower in this context is because of how inspirational it was – without the idea of the Eiffel Tower and how breathtaking it was for the 1889 Exposition, we wouldn’t have the subsequent idea of the Ferris Wheel to try and top the Tower.
There was a guy. He wanted to “Out-Eiffel Eiffel”.
George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr.
His name was a real mouthful – George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr. He had a very nice mustache in his prime. He was an American, born in Illinois, and he was the guy who invented the Ferris wheel.
George Ferris, because I’m neither going to say nor type all of that, was 32 when he came up with the idea for the Ferris wheel, to really make you feel terrible about your personal accomplishments. He had some very slicked-back hair and a truly spectacular droopy mustache, perfect for his time. Prior to building one of the most iconic rides and structures ever, Ferris was a fairly typical 19th century dude. He went to military school, he went to college for engineering, he was in a frat, and then he started his own company, because they didn’t have podcasts for white guys to start back then.
Ferris’s company inspected metals in bridges, so at least tangentially, he was positioned for his big breakthrough. He also designed and built bridges.
The 1893 Columbian Exposition
1893 saw the biggest World’s Fair held to date at that point, designed to celebrate the 400th anniversary of the famous voyage of Christopher Columbus. The primary “Director of Works” for the Columbian Exposition was Daniel Burnham, an architect known for many skyscrapers and shopping centers, including New York’s Flatiron Building. He took primary charge of the fair’s development after his business partner died early in the planning process, and much of the success of the fair is contributed to Burnham’s action and effort alone.
The fair was to be held in Chicago, and the Americans desperately wanted to surpass the Eiffel Tower. That was *so* a few years ago, after all, and the Eiffel Tower was still the star of the global tourism scene.
In 1891, Burnham and his team announced a challenge for American engineers. The challenge was to come up with something which would surpass the Eiffel Tower, *so* two years ago. The directive was “make no little plans”. They wanted something original, daring, and unique, something that would blow the socks off the Eiffel Tower.
A space was left blank in the map for the exhibition’s exclamation point. Ferris, our friend with the long named, took to the drawing board. Or, well, to the paper nakin that accompanied a meal at a steakhouse. In a newspaper interview, he’s quoted as saying ““[B]efore the dinner was over I had sketched out almost the entire detail, and my plan has never varied an item from that day.”” He had an idea for a wheel that would take guests spinning higher than even the Statue of Liberty.
A Ferris wheel in general concept wasn’t new, though.
The Somers Wheel
The thing is, Ferris copied the idea of the Ferris wheel from someone else. Ferris was “just” the guy who made the wheel famous.
Now with our entire world in lockdown, I don’t have a copy of the book I really need, “Ferris Wheels: An Illustrated History” by Norman Anderson. So I’ll have to make do with digital-only references. It seems that Ferris wheels, in fact, go back over a hundred years before even George Ferris. The earliest wheels were apparently in Bulgaria in the early 17th century, and were turned by very strong men while guests rode around. Similar contraptions existed in many different countries.
The connection to the US was said to have been a Frenchman named “Antonio Manguino”, who built a pleasure wheel for his fair in the little town of Walton Springs, Georgia. From here, the wheel caught the eye of a man named William Somers. And with names like Epicyloidal Diversion and the Cycloidal Chariot, why wouldn’t they?
Now, there are at least two patents for Ferris wheel type devices prior to Somers’ wheel, but William Somers was the first American to patent a Ferris wheel type design, sometimes called “vertical swings” or “Roundabouts”. Somers’ first wheel was built in 1891 in Atlantic City, two years prior to his patent. It was called the Observational Roundabout, and it towered over the boardwalk. People loved it – it was the effect of looking down on the world for people who’d never been near a skyscraper before.
Unfortunately, the wheel was made out of nice solid wood, and in June of 1892, caught fire when a gasoline lamp exploded. He rebuilt an even better “double” wheel there in Atlantic City, and then built another at Asbury Park in NJ and another at a little place called Coney Island in New York.
The wheels were unsurprisingly immensely popular, despite their flammability and incredible noise. Being steam powered, Somers’ wheels spewed smoke and were said to be as loud as a locomotive. It’s said that George Ferris rode the Atlantic City Somers Wheel. Some time after his ride, Ferris came up with the idea for the Ferris wheel.
The Chicago Wheel
Ferris’ idea for the Columbian Exposition was a great wheel. The directors weren’t immediately convinced, reportedly fearing that it would topple over in the middle of the park on the guests. Director Burnham took one look at the slender spokes and described the whole thing as “too fragile”.
Additionally, the country was in the middle of a severe financial Depression with 25-40% unemployment, depending on the city, so financing for such a project wasn’t the easiest to come by.
Ultimately, the directors relented, putting their faith in Ferris and his network of connections. Ferris began construction on his massive wheel right away.
And massive it was.
Ferris’s Great Chicago Wheel:
Was 250 feet in diameter
Had an 89,000 lb axle, 45.5 feet long
Carried 36 cars
Carried over 2,000 people at once
When the directors finally gave Ferris the green light, it was the middle of winter, and Ferris was already under a tight deadline. It was the middle of one of the most severe winters Chicago had experienced in years. The ground there in Chicago was already frozen something like three feet deep, and underneath were another 20 feet of slushy quicksand-like sand, adding another manufacturing dilemma to be solved. And the fair would open in four months.
Pumps were running constantly. Hot steam was piped in to thaw the frozen sand, and to keep the newly-poured concrete from freezing before it set. March 20, 1893: with the tall towers prepped, the massive 89 thousand pound axle, six times larger than strictly necessary for safety reasons, was hoisted 140 feet in the air to its resting place. The wheel was nowhere near complete, but it was a good step.
The power plant which drove the wheel was located 700 feet away from the wheel itself, and the steam to power the wheel’s engine was carried through long pipes. For the wheel, there were many parts to be added before the big wheel would be anywhere near recognizable. And time was ticking, for the 1893 Columbian Exhibition opened to the public on May 1, with the Ferris wheel still incomplete, steelworkers atop the growing structure barely pausing to watch the influx of new crowds nearby.
Parts were manufactured all over: Detroit, Pittsburgh, Youngstown, Cleveland.
Indeed, it wasn’t until June that the structure was fully assembled, but it was indeed finally complete, and on the evening of June 9th, the great Chicago wheel, san cars, was turned on for the first time. It’s said the wheel moved with only the soft clink of metal upon metal, nearly silent in the twenty minutes it took to make a full revolution.
The sight of this great wheel, finally slowly moving on a warm early summer’s evening…it must have been something else for the patrons of the world’s fair and the locals. Two hundred and sixty four feet up in the air, nearly the height of the Statue of Liberty, with two concentric circles. Despite the notion Ferris had liberated from Somers, there was little similarity between Somers’ angular design and Ferris’ sleek circular design – more like a bicycle wheel than the triangular shapes of the smaller design.
Ferris, by the way, was ecstatic about the successful test, and immediately ordered the cars hung. Now when we think of modern Ferris wheel cars, we might think of two to five people per car. Ferris’ wheel? Huge. The cars were like buses, holding upwards of 60 people each. Inside, 40 chairs. Plate glass windows, and steel mesh on the doors. Firefighting equipment, just in case. And a personal conductor was stationed in each car. To speed loading and unloading, platforms were designed and arranged such that six cars were loaded and unloaded at a time. Efficient!
Between June 10th and Jun 13th, the majority of the cars were attached to the wheel. On June 11, when there were only six cars attached, Director Daniel Burnham and Ferris’ wife Margaret took a ceremonial ride on the wheel. By June 21st, all 36 cars were on.
Operation of Ferris’ Chicago Wheel
On June 21st, 1893, with the Columbian Exposition already seven weeks open, the Ferris wheel was given its grand opening. There were speeches galore, the band played, and a golden whistle marked the official opening of this giant wheel.
It was an incredible experience.
As I noted earlier, the cars were gigantic, and you could board at one of six platforms. The ride consisted of a single revolution with six stops, as cars were loaded and unloaded. Then came nine minutes of non-stop revolution.
Guests could see incredible distances. On cloudy or dark days, Edison’s fancy new electric lightbulbs kept the wheel illuminated in cheerful patterns.
And millions rode the wheel. During the roughly six months in operation, approximately 1.5 M people were marked as riding on the wheel, simply enjoying the novelty of the amusement ride, so very high up in the air. It cost the same to ride the Ferris Wheel as it did to even enter the Expo.
Famous people rode the wheel, even our fierce friend Helen Keller, who wrote to a friend of her experience at the fair, saying “I saw a great many of the most wonderful and interesting things at the Fair. ” and “ Of course I rode in the Ferris-wheel. Just think of being swung two hundred and fifty feet in the air ”.
The Columbian Exposition closed after six months of operation, on November 1, 1893. The great Ferris wheel had a perfect safety and mechanical record during this time, despite gale-force winds, storms, and lightening strikes, and reportedly made approximately $400,000 net profit.
Chicago Wheel Post-Exposition
Ferris had high hopes for the future of his wheel. Weather wasn’t on his side yet again, with another Chicago winter coming on. The wheel stood silent and shuttered until the end of April, 1894, after the thaws had begun. From there, it took 18 days and almost $15,000 to disassemble the wheel. The pieces were kept in flatcars off a Chicago railroad siding. (Interestingly, I read that some of this original concrete foundation was still present as late as 2015, according at a Hyde Park History article. Long time!)
It was another year before the company found a new home for their disassembled giant wheel. They began reassembling the wheel in July of 1895, adjacent to Lincoln Park, some 11 miles away from the Expo site on the other side of Chicago’s city center. By October 1895, the wheel was open to guests.
The company’s directors had grand plans for the new site. It was about 20 minutes (at the time) away from railway stations and hotels, and the directors began selling bonds in an attempt to finance additional development. Things like painting the wheel and cars, landscaping the area, adding a bandstand and restaurant, etc.
One contemporaneous article did describe its location as “an amusement park at North Clark Street and Wrightwood Avenue”. I was all set to tell you that I couldn’t find any info on this, but Google made me a quick liar. It was actually called “Ferris Wheel Park” – a name we might think generic today, but pretty groundbreaking back then.
Ferris Wheel Park was…a trolley park. It was the end of the line for the nearby streetcars.
Unfortunately, it seems as though the site was poorly chosen. See, it was in the middle of a residential neighborhood, a wealthy one. And the wealthy neighborhood wasn’t particularly excited to have an amusement park nearby, nor were they big fans of the streetcar owner Ferris had partnered with. “ Charles Tyson Yerkes, Jr., who owned the Chicago Electric Street Railway” was Ferris’ partner in the endeavor. Legal battles held up the project, and community votes banned the sale of alcohol, dooming on of the major sources of revenue in a proposed beer garden.
At the same time, too, we have the legal side of things.
Somers sued Ferris for copyright infringement. The legal suit went on for several years.
Ferris sued (or discussed suing, it’s not clear) the directors of the Columbian Exposition, saying that they’d robbed him of his share of the profits from the fair.
On a personal level, Ferris’ wife left him in 1896. Ferris was said to be hugely depressed as a result, and his life quickly went downhill. He died alone in November of 1896, penniless and bankrupt, effectively ending all his legal battles.
Well, most of them. His ashes stayed in the care of a local funeral director for more than a year, because no one wanted to pay the money for his ashes and funeral.
By 1900, the small Ferris Wheel Park had to file for bankruptcy, now under the ownership of the unpopular Yerkes. Vocal opposition from the community meant that patrons never turned up to the park in the numbers needed to make it a success. The wheel continued to operate even as it went through several rounds of receivership. At one point, local William Boyce, who later founded the Boy Scouts of America, filed a lawsuit against the wheel. This page goes into detail of the various suits, including original newspaper articles.
The wheel lingered there at Ferris Wheel Park, with its quite charming castle facade entrance, as Yerkes tried to wrest control from the locals one way or another. But ultimately, it was put up for sale.
(Interesting sidebar: during its time here, the Lumiere brothers, the famed groundbreaking filmmakers responsible for the first motion pictures, took some footage of Chicago, including the wheel. Their film here was 1896’s Grande roue.)
Chicago Wheel Moves to St. Louis
In July of 1903, the Chicago Tribune wrote a story about the old wheel. Headline: “Ferris Wheels Lives Anew” Subtitle: “Though sold as junk it will revolve again”.
See, the wheel was doing worse and worse and worse. By 1903, the company was $400,000 in debt. All those lawsuits, not enough visitors from a hostile neighborhood.
I liked this quote from the article: “Once the incarnation of a wondrous feat of engineering, the old World’s Fair relic now seems to be inevitably approaching the final dissolution which has threatened it periodically for ten years… A wrecking company has agreed to remove the structure. Immediately? 0 not they-in five months. Sentimental persons who would drop a tear for the passing of the wheel, and other citizens who have procrastinated the adventure of a run about its axle may take heart. It is understood that rural excursionists in search of thrills may still be accommodated if they can guarantee 30 cents in receipts and wait for the engineer to get up steam.”
The wheel was sold at auction for a junk price: $1800. Remember, it made over $400,000 in profit back in the World’s Fair days. But still, it had one more life left in it.
Despite the $1,800 price tag, it’s said to have taken over $150,000 to move the wheel, in pieces, in 178 freight cars, down to its final home.
By July of 1904, the wheel was again turning at a World’s Fair, this time the 1904 Louisiana Purchase Exposition down in St. Louis, MO. The theme for this fair was another celebration, nominally for the centennial of the 1803 Louisiana Purchase. It was located on the present-day grounds of Forest Park, near the Saint Louis Zoo and the Saint Louis Art Museum. (In fact, the Saint Louis Art Museum is one of the original buildings from the fair, the former Palace of Fine Arts. Image then and image now. This fair was to a much larger scale than Chicago’s Columbian Exposition, but the great wheel still stood out.
It’s said that the wheel recouped its moving costs handily in less than four months. People loved the wheel once again – there were over 50 weddings performed on the wheel, and reportedly there was enough of a market that they installed a piano in one car for the express purpose of ceremonies. One daredevil named Maud Nicholson actually rode on top of one of the cars as the wheel revolved.
The Louisiana Purchase Exposition ran until December of 1904.
1904 image of the wheel at the Louisiana Purchase Exposition in St. Louis. Image is now public domain, via Library of Congress, USZ62-57681.
The End of the Ferris Wheel
After the Exposition, it’s said that there was some talk of moving the Ferris wheel to Coney Island in New York. After all, a huge wheel, a huge amusement area, and the wheel had already demonstrated that it could be moved once.
However, the move ultimately never occurred. It was determined that it would simply be too expensive to move the wheel all the way to New York.
And so, the wheel needed to come down, destined solely for the scrap heap and the metal shop. It was too expensive. It couldn’t stay there, but it had no other home to go to.
From a 1906 Chicago Tribune article titled “Ferris Wheel is Blown Up” we have a blow by blow account: “It required 200 pounds of dynamite to put it out of business. The first charge… wrecked its foundation and the wheel dropped to the ground… as it settled it slowly turned, and then, after tottering a moment like a huge giant in distress, it collapsed slowly. It did not fall to one side, as the wreckers had planned… it merely crumpled up slowly. Within a few minutes it was a tangled mass of steel and iron thirty or forty feet high. The huge axle, weighing 45 tons, dropped slowly with the remnants of the wheel, crushing the smaller braces and steel framework.”
The first Ferris wheel, demolished in St. Louis. Public domain image via the St. Louis Public Library.
The first Ferris wheel, demolished in St. Louis. Public domain image via the St. Louis Public Library.
For many years, the whereabouts of the huge axle was unknown. Did they chop it into pieces? Unlikely, it was simply too big – remember that this was the largest single piece of forged steel at the time. Did they drag it to the river? Maybe. Did they just bury it? Maybe. There are two sets of rumors after this point. One story says that the giant axle was put on the train back to Chicago, where it was taken to a scrap shop and cut into tiny pieces.
The other story is that the axle was buried in place, or buried in a nearby landfill. In 2007, a man named Sheldon Breiner decided to put it to the test, building on an earlier 1996 study that just looked for the former Ferris wheel base. He used a cesium magnometer and simply walked around Saint Louis, scanning for anomalies in the ground. Being made of steel (therefore permanently magnetized) and likely being in one piece, the axle would probably register even from such a crude search. And it did. In the middle of a modern day road, roughly 200 feet south of where the wheel once stood, Breiner noted the presence of a 45 foot anomaly, which would correspond exactly to that gigantic hunk of steel. Take a look at the link above for some cool photos showing the original wheel location and the presumed modern axle location, worth checking out.
Conclusions
Though Ferris personally met a disappointing end, his legacy is incredible. Literally everyone knows what a Ferris wheel is, and they stand across the globe as a testament to his attitude in pursuing and expanding on ideas he thought valuable. The original Ferris wheel was 80.4 meters (264 feet); today, the current tallest wheel is the Las Vegas High Roller (167.6 m / 550 ft), over double the height of the original wheel. (Despite the size, the Vegas wheel has a max capacity of 1120 people, compared to the 2160 of the original wheel.)
In a eulogy, his former business partners wrote of Ferris: “He was always bright, hopeful and full of anticipation of good results from all the ventures he had on hand. These feelings he could always impart to whomever he addressed in a most wonderful degree, and therein lay the key note of his success. In most darkened and troubled times… he was ever looking for the sunshine soon to come…”
In a personal note – I know it is a time of uncertainty right now, to say the least. Even if you’re healthy and stable, everything is hard. Do you find things harder to focus on? I do. Everything is harder to focus on – the research for this episode took twice as long as usual.
If you are listening to this or reading this, please know that I am wishing you continued good health and happiness. Remember too that although things might be scary, take time to enjoy yourself, even in the smallest way. Be kind to yourself, follow health guidelines, and take it easy.
Remember that what you’ve read is a podcast! A link is included at the top of the page. Listen to more episodes of The Abandoned Carousel on your favorite platform: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RadioPublic | TuneIn | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Castro. Support the podcast on Patreon for extra content! Comment below to share your thoughts – as Lucy Maud Montgomery once said, nothing is ever really lost to us, as long as we remember it.
Biggest wheel on earth (240 ft. diam.) with heaviest axle ever forged (56 tons), World’s Fair, St. Louis, U.S.A. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. https://www.loc.gov/item/2005677972/. Accessed March 29, 2020.
Captive balloon and Ferris wheel, World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. https://www.loc.gov/item/99400269/. Accessed March 29, 2020.
Ferris wheel and corner of California State Building, World’s Fair, St. Louis, Mo. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002706249/. Accessed March 29, 2020.
Ferris wheel at the World’s Columbian Exposition, Chicago, 1893. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. https://www.loc.gov/item/2002718798/. Accessed March 29, 2020.
Large ferris wheel at the World’s Columbian Exposition [Chicago, Ill.]. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. https://www.loc.gov/item/2006680018/. Accessed March 29, 2020.
Letter from Helen Keller to Mabel Hubbard Bell, August 20, 1893. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. https://www.loc.gov/item/magbell.12400303/. Accessed March 29, 2020.
[Panormic view of a section of the Chicago World’s Fair with Ferris wheel]. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. https://www.loc.gov/item/2018695424/. Accessed March 29, 2020.
The Chinese Pavilion [large pagoda], Louisiana Purchase Exposition, St. Louis, Mo. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. https://www.loc.gov/item/2005684834/. Accessed March 29, 2020.
Ph.d NG. The Digital Research Library of Illinois History JournalTM: Ferris Wheel Park at the 1200 block of N. Clark St. (today, 2600 block of N. Clark St.), in Chicago, Illinois. (1896-1903). The Digital Research Library of Illinois History JournalTM. December 2016. https://drloihjournal.blogspot.com/2016/12/ferris-wheel-park-1298-n-clark-street.html. Accessed April 13, 2020.
Ph.d NG. The Digital Research Library of Illinois History JournalTM: The History of George Washington Gale Ferris, Jr., inventor of the 1893 World’s Columbian Exposition Observation Wheel. The Digital Research Library of Illinois History JournalTM. November 2017. https://drloihjournal.blogspot.com/2017/11/the-history-of-george-washington-gale.html. Accessed April 13, 2020.
World’s Fair, St. Louis: The great ferris wheel. Library of Congress, Washington, D.C. 20540 USA. https://www.loc.gov/item/2005686728/. Accessed March 29, 2020.
]]>https://theabandonedcarousel.com/the-first-ferris-wheel/feed/0116351Carousel #15
https://theabandonedcarousel.com/carousel-15/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=carousel-15
https://theabandonedcarousel.com/carousel-15/#commentsWed, 25 Mar 2020 10:00:36 +0000https://theabandonedcarousel.com/?p=106339This week, we’re going to refocus ourselves from the external chaos. Let’s set aside a space where we can go back in time, one hundred and thirteen years ago, and... Read more »
]]>This week, we’re going to refocus ourselves from the external chaos. Let’s set aside a space where we can go back in time, one hundred and thirteen years ago, and maybe even a bit before that, too. This is a story about a survivor. Can we call an inanimate object ‘plucky’? Maybe. Today, the history of Philadelphia Toboggan Company’s Carousel #15.
(This is primarily a podcast! Click play on the player below!)
Philadelphia Toboggan Company
When last I focused heavily on carousels, it was October of last year, and I was telling you about the amazing Dentzel/Looff Carousel down at Seaside Heights in Florida. Well, that was a different time. It’s now March, we’re all inside, and recent updates are that the Dentzel/Looff Carousel has been disassembled for storage and refurbishment.
This turned my mind to other carousels out there, so I went digging, and I found the subject of today’s episode: PTC #15. To explain, we must start at the beginning, and to start at the beginning, we must begin.
It starts with a guy, as always. Two guys. Henry Auchy, and his buddy, Chester Albright. In 1904, the two joined up and started a company. That’s what you did back in the day, you started a company instead of a podcast. They wanted to “build finer and better carousels and coasters”. These two guys did something smart, which was to purchase inventory from the E. Joy Morris Company.
E. Joy Morris
Now E. Joy Morris was a small carousel manufacturer right around the turn of the century, really lesser known, even in carousel circles. If you recall from the last carousel episode, there are three major styles of carousel carving: Coney Island style, Country Fair style, and Philadelphia style. It’s the latter that we’re going to talk about today, possibly unsurprising given the name.
So EJ Morris Jr. was a Philly man, born in 1860. Interesting tidbit, his father EJ Morris Sr, was US Minister to Turkey under Abraham Lincoln. With the family money, because of course there was family money, Morris was able to get in on the nascent amusement park trade. He patented a roller-coaster related invention in the late 1890s, and established his own company to build figure 8 toboggans (rollercoasters), carousels, and water chutes. Morris loved animals, loved children, and wanted to make them happy.
The famed Gustav Dentzel was Morris’ direct competition, and Morris aimed to outdo him by embellishing and adding incredible small whimsical details, perhaps also in a nod to his own playful nature. Morris also did something unique by keeping an inventory on hand. Prior to this, carousels were built on demand, but Morris’ firm built many carousels at once, perhaps as a way to keep the craftsman retained during slower months, or perhaps as a way of getting a leg up on Dentzel by being able to deliver carousels to customers faster.
Late in 1903, after building and selling well over 20 carousels and/or coasters, Morris’ business plans changed. For the sum of about $30,000, EJ Morris sold over 200 completed carousel figures to Auchy and Albright, allowing them to build four carousels outright and to jumpstart their business, recouping their investment almost immediately.
Why’d EJ Morris sell his business? It appears to have been health problems – it’s said he was in the hospital shortly before he sold the manufacturing business, and though he lived another 20-some-odd years afterwards, it seems his health was always in decline. Though he divested himself of the manufacturing side, he did remain active in the business end of the amusement rides he already owned through about 1920.
Philadelphia Toboggan Company
Morris then was a huge inspiration and jumping off point for the newly-formed Philadelphia Toboggan Company. As I said earlier, they quickly established themselves as a company after their inception in 1904, building four carousels in short order with their acquired E.J. Morris stock. Interestingly, this is why Morris isn’t as well known these days – his work is often mistaken for PTC work. Neither Auchy nor Albright were carvers, unlike most other carousel companies at the time, so their house style varies quite a bit based on who was head carver at the time.
I loved this quote from a 1904 Topeka State Journal article about Vinewood Park, one of the first PTC locations in the world. “The word carousell is probably a new-one in the west. The machine, which bears the name as its “official title,” is a revolving, circular platform about 80 feet in diameter, upon which is built a regular modern menagerie. All of the animals are fitted with saddles, and one can get a ride on anything from an elephant to a jackrabbit. The scheme is a new one, and has only been out of the factory for a few years. A number of the eastern parks have put in carousells, and they are proving very popular.”
Vinewood Park, interestingly, was one of the first Philadelphia Toboggan Company locations: carousel and rollercoaster #2 were both shipped to the same park. In fact, the first ten carousels and the first ten rollercoasters manufactured by PTC went to the same theme parks (ie, the park ordered both at once).
The carousel we’re interested in wasn’t built until 1907 – PTC #15. The PTC carousels are fairly unique in that each was numbered on their massive central poles. For historians, the numbering system did become confusing, as sometimes a new number was assigned to the same carousel after it went back to the factory for refurbishing. However, overall, it appears that the company kept excellent records based on the articles I’m reading.
PTC #15 was built in 1907. This was PTC’s first four-row machine, as well as PTC’s first all-horse carousel (no other animals, no “menagerie” in carousel parlance). And, all the horses jumped (traditionally, the outer row of most beautiful carved horses were “standers” – stationary) – another first. Master carver Leo Zoller, head carver at PTC from 1906 to 1910, is said to have been responsible for many of the carved horses, as well as carver Daniel Muller, who often worked at Dentzel’s shop.
PTC #15 was gorgeous, featuring large and highly animated figures with exquisitely-carved details. From the National Register of Historic Places entry, the horses on this carousel are “among the most realistically carved pieces ever done anywhere”. The carousel also featured two large, rare, well-carved lovers’ chariots, and handpainted rounding boards depicting animals frolicing in a mythical landscape. (Rounding boards, if you’re uncertain, are the painted boards decorating the tops of carousels – they hide machinery, and attract guests with both paintings and lights. Since they go “around”, the name is rounding boards.)
PTC #15 was built in 1907. (You already said that, I hear you saying.) That was one hundred and thirteen years ago. How many different places do you think this carousel has been since then? Let’s find out.
Fort Wendell / Fort George Amusement Park (New York, NY)
PTC #15 was initially delivered to Fort George Amusement Park in New York. This was located in New York City along the Harlem River, around West 190th St. This location is the northernmost tip of Manhattan, what is now Highbridge Park and George Washington Educational Campus, where George Washington fought the British during the Revolutionary War two hundred and fifty years ago. At the time of its construction, the park was of course, a trolley park, at the end of the Third Avenue Trolley Line.
Fort George was known as Harlem’s Coney Island, and did its best to rival its Brooklyn amusement counterpart. This was a classic turn of the century amusement park resort, full of dance halls, roller rinks, fortune tellers, gambling, beer halls, restaurants, hotels, and of course, the latest in amusements: Ferris wheels, roller coasters, and carousels. It was less of an amusement park as we might think of today, and more of an amusement district, with many different owners and operators and many different smaller “parks” within the area.
PTC #15 was actually not the first carousel at Fort George. In fact, 1905’s PTC #8 was the first carousel there, at Paradise Park within Fort George. (And though the RCDB lists the Fort George rollercoaster as “unknown”, a 2010 Carousel News and Trader article confirms that the first ten PTC carousels and coasters operated at the same parks. So PTC coaster #8 also would have operated here at Paradise Park at Fort George, a classic Figure 8 coaster similar to Leap-the-Dips, a coaster still operational today.)
Paradise Park was opened by two brothers, Joseph and Nicholas Schenck, who saw the potential in the area and wanted to develop it further with this separate, extra-admission park. They indeed made the park a huge success for the time – estimates in contemporaneous articles state 50,000 people in one evening in June 1906. The park was located on a hillside, and I saw an anecdote that in the earliest years, some guests had to climb unsafe ladders up the hillsides before more permanent stairs were added.
Different places will describe the location for PTC #15 differently: Wendell’s Park, Fort Wendel, and so forth. This was actually a small resort hotel owned by one Captain Louis Wendel, famed for its rooftop panorama views across the river. Here is where PTC #15 was said to have lived, a few years after its sibling began operation, and was operated by Henry and Frank Kolb. A contemporary photo from the Museum of the City of New York shows Fort Wendel located just across the street from the large Paradise Park entrance. A large faux castle turret facade stands atop the hotel roof, hoisting a big sign labeled “Wendel”.
It all must have been very glamorous at the time, especially on a hot summer night – feel the breeze off the river to cut some of the summer heat, have a drink, go dancing or roller skating, buy an ice cream or a beer, and ride an amusement ride: a coaster, a ferris wheel, a chair swing, a carousel.
By 1910, however, public opinion of the locals was souring. Newspaper reports had headlines like “police will have their hands full there”, and other references talk about Fort George’s history describe “public drunkenness, noise, crime, and racial tensions”. Neighbors began pressuring the various local authorities and committees to shut down the amusement district.
The next year, 1911, saw an arson attempt. Perhaps related to the neighborhood sentiment, but who’s to say. The district reopened in 1912 after repairing the damages. Unfortunately, then came 1913. In June of 1913, another arsonist started a fire. Damages were reported at over $100k, with the entirety of the Paradise Park section destroyed completely by fire.
This time, Fort George Amusement Park couldn’t recover. The local political groups ultimately took over the property and incorporated it (at the time) into Highland Park.
Now luckily, our hero, PTC #15, was located at Fort Wendel, across Amsterdam Avenue. Though the fire was said to have jumped across the street, where it destroyed a “four story frame building”, it did not apparently destroy PTC #15.
With the destruction of Paradise Park and the generally unfavorable neighborhood sentiment, any remaining amusements likely moved out over the next few years.
(Oh, and remember Joseph Schenck? He ultimately moved to California, became president of a little company called United Artists, created the company Twentieth Century Pictures (which of course became Twentieth Century Fox), and then was said to have played a key role in launching Marilyn Monroe’s career.)
Summit Beach Amusement Park (Akron, OH)
Park #2 for our carousel is a bit of a question mark, in that it’s uncertain when exactly PTC #15 moved to Summit Beach or when it left.
Summit Beach Amusement Park was located in Akron, Ohio. It went by the names “Akron’s Fairyland of Pleasure” and “Akron’s Million Dollar Playground”. Local businessmen conceived of the idea in 1914, and had incorporated an amusement company by 1916. They took applications from independent concessionaires to fill the park: the Dixie Flyer, a huge coaster; a Whip and a Ferris wheel and a motordrome, for racing. And of course, a carousel.
Now here is the point of contention, because the recent 2017 retrospective newspaper article about Summit Beach claims that the carousel at the park was a Dentzel menagerie from 1917 with a Wurlitzer band organ. Indeed, another article (Akron Beacon Journal, 2010) shows many pictures of the carousel, and it’s definitely a menagerie – black and white photos show children gleefully perched atop lions and pigs, neither of which are on a equine-only PTC #15.
One possibility is that PTC #15 went not to Summit Beach, but to the adjacent Lakeside Park, which was later absorbed by Summit Beach as it grew. Lakeside began as a trolley park and picnic grounds back in 1886, and was primarily known for its casino theater. One image, which I’ve only been able to find in a Google Books preview of a vintage Ohio postcards book, does show this carousel – located not far from some canoe rentals, next to an open air building. The carousel is decently visible, with at least one horse in the outer row. The scan or photo aren’t clear enough, but it’s possible that this was in fact a four-row all-horse carousel.
However, the provenance on PTC #15 at Summit Beach is not very clear at all. So let’s not dwell on it. We’re all tired, it’s March of 2020. Let’s call it a mystery and come back to it another time.
(Summit Beach was ultimately quite successful, absorbing Lakeside Park and operating for about 40 years before shutting down in 1958. It was primarily notable outside of the local amusement scene for the 1918 coaster derailment that killed several.)
State Fair Park (Milwaukee, WI)
From here, PTC #15 moved to Wisconsin for a while, heading in 1924 to the newly-opened permanent amusement park at the state fair in Milwaukee. Land of some of my favorite food groups, beer and cheese!
To talk about the Wisconsin State Fair, we’ve got to go back – way back. The first fair was held in 1851! That year, the fair had between 13,000 to 18,000 guests, and was the largest gathering in Wisconsin at that point. Abraham Lincoln delivered the annual oration at the 8th annual fair, in 1859, and spoke about free labor. For many of the early years, the fair rotated through Wisconsin’s bigger cities: Madison, Milwaukee, Janesville, and Fond du Lac. In 1892, the fair’s 40th year, a permanent home was chosen: West Allis, a Milwaukee suburb. Apparently this was a controversial choice, as many at the time were campaigning instead for a home in Madison, where Camp Randall Stadium is today – right on the university campus, in the middle of the crowded downtown isthmus. By contrast, West Allis was out in the middle of nowhere (at the time) near Milwaukee. It’s interesting to think how that one simple choice could’ve drastically changed an entire city’s downtown!
Interesting anecdote for the football fans – apparently for several decades (between 1934 and 1951), the Green Bay Packers played several of their regular season games at the State Fair Park, including the 1939 NFL Championship.
1924 saw the introduction of the signature Wisconsin State Fair food: the cream puff. But it was predated by a few years by the Midway, in 1922, the “old State Fair Midway” (https://www.westalliswi.gov/DocumentCenter/View/362/Historical-and-Architectural-Resources-Survey—Volume-1-of-2?bidId=) and the PTC #15. The midway was “Disneyland before Disneyland”, according to Jerry Zimmerman, the state fair historian, in a Milwaukee Journal Sentinel article from 2007. This new midway was a spot for permanent rides, operating under the care of a guy named Charles Rose, and supplemented by the annual travelling shows. Rides were open from Memorial Day to Labor Day. By some accounts, the area was called Fun City.
“”It had a great roller coaster that ran from the front of where the Expo hall is now down to Greenfield Avenue. There was a Ferris wheel, the bug, the hammer, the whip, the octopus, the electric scooter and the old mill that was a tunnel of love, and a great penny arcade,” Zimmerman said.
As these things always go, the old State Fair midway didn’t last. The fair saw a downfall in attendance after World War II, and it was nixed. The fair is still there in West Allis today, but the “old” permanent midway closed at State Fair Park after the 1960 season.
Dandilion Park / Muskego Beach Park (Muskego, WI)
Following the closure of the permanent midway at State Fair Park, rides were sold to new homes. Our friend Carousel #15 didn’t go far – only about 15 miles southwest, in what is today an outer suburb of Milwaukee, a town called Muskego.
At that time, the carousel’s new home was called Muskego Beach Amusement Park, or Muskego Beach Resort.
Muskego Beach Amusement Park had been in operation almost as long as the Wisconsin State Fair itself – since 1861! Not much information is available about the earliest years, but regular listeners could probably make a safe guess: that it started out as a picnic grounds type of park. It was opened by Civil War veteran John C. Schuet in 1861, a man called the “King of Muskego” in 1880s politics.
Back then, it was called Muskego Lake House and Beach Resort, where visitors could partake in “picnicking, fishing, boating, swimming and dancing”. (Here’s an interesting tidbit for you – the Muskego Center Cemetery was established on that property in 1881, bordered on three sides by the park. The little pioneer cemetery weathered poorly, stones weather-worn and indecipherable, described in an article as “a nuisance to the community.” Validity of that opinion is up to the individual, but it does seem the small cemetery had lost most interest. It wasn’t until 1955 that all the bodies in the cemetery were exhumed and moved to a different cemetery, Prairie Hill Cemetery in Waukesha.)
Schuet owned the park for over 60 years, selling it in 1928 to its second owner, a guy named William Boszhardt. The details are vague, but Boszhardt definitely added to the amusement park side of things, and is credited with changing the name to Muskego Beach Amusement Park. And while Boszhardt was the owner, a familiar name did the managing: Charles Rose, the same guy from the state fair.
Here’s the connection for you, and likely the reason that the carousel went where it did. In 1944, in the middle of the war, Charlie Rose bought Muskego Beach Amusement Park from its then-owner, the recently widowed Mrs. William Boszhardt – birth name Nellie Lou Krebs. The park was shut down for the war, but Rose reopened and renovated it afterwards.
For the better part of two decades, then, he owned both the midway at State Fair Park as well as Muskego Beach Amusement Park. When the midway shut down, it was a simple decision that most of the rides would be acquired by Muskego Beach Amusement Park (which Rose also owned), replacing the older and smaller rides at this regional park with bigger rides worthy of a state fair. And Muskego was a short electric rail ride away from downtown Milwaukee, too.
Under Rose’s ownership, the park expanded and developed further. There was a ballroom for dancing operated under private ownership called the Starlight Ballroom, operated by Elsie and Robert Schmidt. Open only on the weekends, it held an air of mystery for younger daytime park visitors. During the weekend days, the ballroom was used as a rollerskating rink. Weekly dances and regular bands were hosted there, and it was said to be a popular evening event. Big names like the Everly Brothers performed, all the way down to smaller local bands.
Other items around the park were upgraded as well. There was an even larger beach for bathing. New rides like the Rolloplane were added, and massive increases made to concession stands and other outbuildings. A man named George gave boat rides on the lake in a fancy Chris-Craft boat from Dandilion Park that were fondly remembered.
TailSpin Coaster at Dandilion Park / Muskego Beach Amusement Park (WI)
The Cyclone coaster closed in the 1950s. I did see one news report of a death on the ride due to a rider standing up while the coaster was in motion and falling off. However, a line from another newspaper article indicates the Cyclone was damaged irreparably in a storm, so this may be the reason for the closure. Indeed, another short blurb from a 2015 issue of Amusement Today notes that the Cyclone was damaged twice in 1950 by wind, with some saying that it “fell over like a set of playing cards”.
Most of the broken ride was removed by the beginning of the 1951 season, according to Amusement Today. Rose was savvy, though, and 700 feet of the Cyclone’s easternmost turnaround was retained and incorporated into the newly-built TailSpin coaster, which opened in 1955. Rose himself designed the TailSpin, built to the tune of about $75,000.
TailSpin had a rough start though. A huge windstorm knocked over 250 feet of the TailSpin tracks, crushing the new Whip and Caterpilar rides in the process, two weeks before the park was set to open for the season and debut the coaster. Damages were estimated at around $125,000, but all save for the coaster were able to open on time two weeks later. When TailSpin finally did open, it was worth the wait. This coaster is the park’s most famous and memorable. Remembrances online indicate this was a very good coaster – said to be one of the fastest and the steepest for its kind. The drop was a very high 75 feet!
Decline and Closure of Dandilion Park / Muskego Beach Amusement Park (WI)
In or around 1968, the park was sold to a man named Willard Masterson, who changed the name to Dandilion Park. It continued to be a popular place with local school groups, employer celebrations from small businesses and giant Milwaukee area manufacturers alike, reunions, and so forth.
Around the same time, we had another addition to the park – choo choo, it’s time for The Abandoned Train! Yes, Dandilion Park rode the wave of all of the other theme parks in the mid-1960s and got itself a miniature steam train. Not only a generic train. Nope, Dandilion Park purchased a Chance C. P. Huntington direct from the factory in Wichita, serial number #61. It ran for the remaining years of the park’s operation.
Trouble started brewing in the early 1970s, though. A young boy fell from the Ferris wheel and died, which may have led to rumors about the park’s safety. Additionally, rumors of a new, massive park being built only an hour away in Gurnee, IL. See, Marriott, the hotel chain, wanted to branch out in the tourism industry. They had three different regions planned: Chicago-Milwaukee, San Francisco, and Baltimore. The Baltimore park was to be the flagship park, but faced a series of bueracratic and local opposition. Ultimately, it was canceled.
And in 1976, Great America opened, a park you now know as Six Flags Great America. With only two months separation, Marriott opened a Great America park in California and a Great America park in Gurnee, IL. The park was an immediate success, both due to the timing (the 1976 bicentennial) and the use of the licensed Looney Toons character theming.
And Dandilion Park, only an hour away, felt the pinch. Milwaukee and Chicago residents started going to Great America over Dandilion Park. Why did Dandilion Park / Muskego Beach Amusement Park close? The inevitable economic cycle began – lowered crowds, less money, maintenance falters, crowds stay away, and eventually it became unprofitable to continue operating Dandilion Park.
(That’s not entirely true – the sign from the TailSpin was recovered, restored, and today is owned and displayed by the Muskego Historical Society. The CPH also did not get burned. It was sold to the Tulsa Zoo in Tulsa, OK, where it still operates today, with CPH #90 and #358.) At one point around 2010, a proposal went around to potentially rebuild a beach park at the lake. I’m not sure if that actually went forward or not. And as I said earlier, the land where the park used to be became condos. So it goes.
Lost Years for Carousel #15
You might be saying, where did the carousel go?
Don’t worry, it didn’t get burned up. That sucker is 70+ years old by this point in our story and has already survived multiple theme parks and at least one fire. This little planned fire wouldn’t stop it.
Carousel in Oshkosh
No, our friend PTC carousel #15 survived. It was purchased prior to the fire by a private group in Oshkosh. At the time, the trend was for carousels to be broken up, selling the desirable horses at higher individual cost to private collectors. The Carousel of Oshkosh, Incorporated group was formed to prevent Carousel #15 from being served the same fate.
The goal was for the carousel to become part of a park in Oshkosh, WI, home of a very good chocolate shop, Oaks Candy. This was to be a new park located near the Oshkosh Airport, to open in 1980. “Scheduled to open in May, 1980, the park will be themed to the turn of the century and will include other amusement rides and attractions typical of that era.”
I’m sure it will come as no surprise to you that this never happened. Oshkosh is an incredibly small town, and the startup costs for a theme park are very large.
Carol and Duane Perron of the International Carousel Museum of Art bought the carousel in 1984 from the defunct Carousel Oshkosh park company to the tune of $150,000, and began restoring it – almost 80 years old at this point, and the big carousel could certainly have used a day at the spa by then.
The Perrons lived on the West Coast, so the carousel got to take its biggest trip yet by this point, all the way to Oregon. Between 1984 and 1986, they restored the carousel fully to perfect working condition.
Touring with Carousel #15
1986 saw the carousel being sent out of country for the first and only time, up to Vancouver, British Columbia for the Expo ‘86. Interestingly, this move resulted in the carousel being removed from the National Historic Register, as the move was done without consulting the Register first.
I had to Google this one, but Expo ‘86 was another classic World’s Fair, held in fall of 1986 in Vancouver. World’s fairs are designed to be places for nations to showcase their achievements for one another, and may or may not be themed. (These World’s Fairs are still a thing, by the way, if you didn’t know. I didn’t. The 2020 Expo will be held in Dubai, UAE in October of this year, 2020, should gatherings of more than 10 people be allowed by then.) The very first Ferris wheel was invented for the 1893 World’s Fair in Chicago, for instance, as a rival for the previous stunner, 1889’s Eiffel Tower.
Anyhow, back to the Expo ‘86. The theme was “Transportation and Communication: World in Motion, World in Touch”, so you can see how a carousel fit nicely. In a quote from the NY Times writeup: “Its scientific theme should not dissuade vacationers because there is something for everyone, from rival United States and Soviet space stations to a painstakingly restored 1907 carousel with hand-carved and painted wooden horses.” (Again, sidebar: another interesting attraction from this Expo was something called “McBarge”, a floating McDonalds. It’s the subject of a great Bright Sun Films YouTube documentary – check it out.) The carousel lived at the Expo for several months, and was quite a popular attraction, especially for young guests. Here’s a video of the carousel in action at the fair – fast forward to timestamp 19:26.
After the Expo, Carousel #15 spent the next three years traveling on various exhibits up and down the West Coast. While the carousel was not built as a portable model per se, it was clearly able to be assembled and disassembled without much fuss.
Carousel #15 at the Mall
As Robin Sparkles might say, let’s go to the mall, today! Well, at least virtually Following the carousel’s travels with Perron’s International Carousel Museum of Art, Carousel #15 was installed at a California mall.
Puente Hills Mall (City of Industry, CA)
The Puente Hills Mall is located in City of Industry, CA, a made-up-seeming town name that is in fact real, and located in a Los Angeles suburb. The mall opened in 1974 and is still operational today. My perusal of Wikipedia tells me it was most notable for being the filming location for the parking lot scenes from Back to the Future, aka “Twin Pines Mall”. Puente Hills also was home to the first ever Foot Locker store, apparently.
One of my newest favorite YouTube channels is called Retail Archaeology – videos of malls from active to “dead malls” – malls that are on the verge of closure. Erik from Retail Archaeology did a 2018 video on Puente Hills, and it was nice to watch that last night while doing podcast research on the topic.
Anyhow, in 1991, our friend Carousel #15 moved to the Puente Hills Mall. It was located on the first floor, in the center of the plus-shaped mall, underneath some massive skylights that really illuminated the newly refreshed carousel. Patrons shopping on the upper levels could easily look down to watch the carousel spin in the atrium below. The carousel seems to have done well for a period of time, and I’m sure all the wooden horses appreciated being inside a nice air-conditioned space instead of weathering decades of Wisconsin winters and summers.
Unfortunately, the late 90s were a period of struggle for Puente Hills Mall, and they had less than 50% occupancy around this time, a terrible sign for a big mall. Things did slowly rebound, but our friend Carousel #15 was removed in 1998 – too expensive, and losing money for the mall operators.
Today, Puente Hills Mall is operational but struggling again, despite a 2007 remodel. Where the carousel once stood is now just boring carpet, and where visitors once walked through bustling halls, today few gather. Several of the larger stores have been closing in the last few years, including Sears and Forever 21, and anecdotal reports online are that more store closures are inevitable.
Dead malls are a topic I don’t think I’ve touched on at all here on the podcast yet, but they’re fascinating and I’d say quite relevant given our present day state. Check out Retail Archaeology, Sal’s Expedition Logs, or Dan Bell’s Dead Mall Series on YouTube for days of interesting content on the subject.
Palisades Center Mall (West Nyack, NY)
So 1998, the Philadelphia Toboggan Company Carousel #15 was removed from Puente Hills Mall in California. It didn’t stay idle, however.
No, the carousel went on another cross-country trip, back to New York, back to another mall.
This mall was brand new at the time, though it had been under plan and development for around 16 years. Palisades Center Mall was built on the site of two former landfills, surrounding an old cemetery, and faced down opposition from locals who feared noise and crime well before any construction was even begun. When it opened in 1998, it became the second-largest shopping mall in the New York metro area, and the eighth-largest shopping mall in the US.
PTC #15 was installed in the third-floor food court, a glorious anachronism against modern tubular white architecture and pipes (“industrial style”). There it spun, tinkling organ bouncing amongst the fast food restaurants and tables and trashcans, shimmering and brightly colored against the white of its surroundings.
Here is where the carousel was re-added to the National Register of Historic Places, in 2001. The carousel lasted for eleven years there in the mall food court, until mall management decided to replace the vintage machine with a modern double-decker masterpiece. In 2009, then, the PTC #15 was last seen operational in public, there in West Nyack, New York.
Carousel #15 in Oregon
Evicted from Palisades Center Mall, Carousel #15 was returned to the Perrons in Oregon.
For some time, there were plans for a physical carousel museum. Well, there was a physical carousel museum, in Hood River, Oregon. It opened in 1999, and featured over 100 carousel animals on display for visitors to photograph. From an article about the museum, I learned that basswood is what both carousel horses and rulers are made out of, as it is a wood that doesn’t buckle, sweat, crack, or change shape. (The more you know!)
Whether one or more horses from Carousel #15 was ever on display is not clear, but it’s unlikely, given that the carousel returned to Oregon in mid-2009.
The museum closed in 2010, with the intent of relocating, but this never occurred, and the museum stayed permanently shuttered.
Conclusions
This then is the last time we hear from the Philadelphia Toboggan Company carousel #15. By all accounts, the carousel is in storage there in Oregon, awaiting a new home. Out with a whimper and not a bang.
As recently as 2018, Jerry Zimmerman at the Wisconsin State Fair was still hoping to get PTC #15 back to Wisconsin – a news article from 2018 described it as his white whale. “I have tried for years to find someone to bring that back, and I would like to tie that merry go round into a standalone unit on State Fair Park, anchoring a Wisconsin State Fair historical collection,” he said. “I would need a sponsor for about $1.5 million to bring it back to Milwaukee.”
At the height of the American carousel boom, there were said to be thousands of carousels, big and small, mostly handcarved. As the Depression wore on, production slowed, machines were dismantled or lost to fire, and today, there are said to be less than 150 vintage carousels remaining, with less than 50 of the caliber of PTC #15.
At this point, the magnificent carousel is still is storage somewhere in Oregon, under the care of the Perron family after Duane Perron passed away in 2018. Waiting.
56 horses. 52 feet in diameter. Many “firsts”. 600 lights. Four theme parks. Two malls.
One truly historical carousel: Philadelphia Toboggan Company’s carousel #15.
Remember that what you’ve read is a podcast! A link is included at the top of the page. Listen to more episodes of The Abandoned Carousel on your favorite platform: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RadioPublic | TuneIn | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Castro. Support the podcast on Patreon for extra content! Comment below to share your thoughts – as Lucy Maud Montgomery once said, nothing is ever really lost to us, as long as we remember it.
The History of Waukesha County, Wisconsin, Containing an Account of Its Settlement, Growth, Development, and Resources … Waukesha County Historical Society; 1880.
]]>https://theabandonedcarousel.com/carousel-15/feed/1106339Lucy Maud Montgomery / Canadian World / Anne of Green Gables
https://theabandonedcarousel.com/lucy-maud-montgomery-canadian-world-anne-of-green-gables/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=lucy-maud-montgomery-canadian-world-anne-of-green-gables
https://theabandonedcarousel.com/lucy-maud-montgomery-canadian-world-anne-of-green-gables/#commentsWed, 11 Mar 2020 10:00:00 +0000https://theabandonedcarousel.com/?p=99040For 30 episodes and counting now, I’ve closed out every podcast episode of mine with this quote: “Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.”... Read more »
]]>For 30 episodes and counting now, I’ve closed out every podcast episode of mine with this quote: “Nothing is ever really lost to us as long as we remember it.” Today, I’m here to tell you about the person who said that. Along the way, of course, we’ll find ourselves in a theme park, located in Japan, themed around a plucky Canadian redhead called Anne. This week, Lucy Maud Montgomery, and Canadian World.
Intro
Today, I’m going to start with the story of Lucy Maud Montgomery, the person behind Anne. Then I’ll talk about Anne of Green Gables and her international fame, particularly in Japan. Finally, I’ll go over the theme park: Anne of Canadian World.
Lucy Maud Montgomery
You know her name. I’ve said it at the end of every episode of The Abandoned Carousel. But who was Lucy Maud Montgomery?
I’m so glad you asked. Did you know that she’s an incredible person who did a lot of interesting things? It’s been so delightful to research such a strong and brilliant woman, making her own way (to paraphrase another woman, one of my favorite Tweets of all time from the exceptional Blair Braverman about her amazing sled dog Pepe).
We all know Lucy Maud Montgomery wrote Anne of Green Gables. But how did she get there? Who was this ineffable being? “To write has always been my central purpose around which every effort and hope and ambition of my life has grouped itself,” Maud wrote in her 1917 autobiography.
Lucy Maud Montgomery was the writer who wrote Anne of Green Gables, and all associated books. She was born in a small village on Prince Edward Island (Canada) in November 1874.
In her 1917 autobiography, Maud includes a section from a poem called To The Fringed Gentian, describing it as the keynote of her every aim and ambition from childhood onwards:
“Then whisper, blossom, in thy sleep How I may upward climb The Alpine path, so hard, so steep, That leads to heights sublime; How I may reach that far-off goal Of true and honoured fame, And write upon its shining scroll A woman’s humble name.”
How much do we want to get into it? Well, Maud’s life was filled with difficult situations from a young age. Her mother, Clara Woolner Macneill Montgomery, died of tuberculosis when Maud was almost aged 2. Her father, Hugh John Montgomery, was a bit of a flake by many accounts, and gave Maud into the primary care of her maternal grandparents. He slowly moved himself away bit by bit in search of “business” to Prince Albert (North-West Territories, now Saskatchewan) some 44h by car in the modern era. He fully awayed himself after Maud survived a bout of typhoid fever around age 5.
1884 portrait of Lucy Maud Montgomery. Public domain.
And before I go further, I hear you saying, but why are you calling her “Maud”? Though she was born as “Lucy Maud”, in nod to her maternal grandmother Lucy Macneill, Maud herself once wrote “my friends call me ‘Maud’ and nothing else”; later, she wrote ““I never liked Lucy as a name. I always liked Maud—spelled not ‘with an e’ if you please.””. Maud with no e, she was very firm, and so who am I to go against her stated desires?
Maud had a lonely childhood. As I said, she’d been given into the care of her grandparents, the Macneills, who had never approved of their daughter Clara’s marriage to Hugh John in the first place. Her childhood was a constant tightrope between the “passionate Montgomery blood” and the “Puritan Macneill conscience”. Tall, thin, severe old Grandma Lucy loved her daughter in her own way, and Maud back, but it was never well-expressed. Only later, in the fictional character of Marilla Cuthbert in Anne of Green Gables, does Maud ever truly celebrate her grandmother.
In the face of her father leaving, Maud let out her anger only towards her grandparents, never saying a word against the flaky absent parent Hugh John. Grandma Lucy had to play peacemaker in the house: between her husband, anti-social Grandpa Macneill who did not want to parent another child after already raising several to adulthood, and the angry semi-orphan Maud, desperate for socialization. Grandma Lucy pleased neither in the process.
Maud’s Childhood Friends
Maud’s “ancient” aunt Emily, the Macneill’s daughter, got married off, leaving Grandma and Grandpa Macneill alone with Maud. As the Dictionary of Canadian Biography puts it, “their stern Scottish Presbytarianism became more rigid as they aged”. Think about living in a remote area, 11 miles from the railways and 24 miles from the nearest town, population about 1000, at the turn of the 1900s, and you might begin to see the scope of Maud’s isolation, especially as an outgoing tween and teen. It was a constant cycle between Maud’s flights of fancy causing town gossip, which her strict grandparents then agonized over.
However, Maud had it relatively good – a nice roof over her head, plenty to eat, clothes to wear. Her family was considered high status in Cavendish at the time. And despite the small population, there was a school and two churches and a meeting hall, there were cousins and friends throughout her early years.
Her grandparents boarded two orphan boys for four glorious years, when Maud was between 7 and 11 years old: Wellington and David Nelson, or Well and Dave, both around her age. These were incredible years for Maud, having siblings like she’d always dreamed, built-in playmates to roam and adventure with. They had free range of the world, to create and imagine and dream, telling stories, foraging for apples, and fishing. Summers were spent wandering the shorelines, collecting shells and talking with the mackerel fishers.
Unfortunately, it wouldn’t last. One morning, with no explanation, Well and Dave vanished, their room cleaned up, possessions gone. Perhaps the Macneills realized Maud was getting too old to be spending so much time with boys, or perhaps they simply thought it was kinder this way.
Maud had the occasional schoolfriends, but nothing and no one gave her the companionship she craved. She constantly perceived feelings of being an outsider, orphaned and alone, however. As she herself said to her journals, “Materially, I was well cared for … it was emotionally and socially that my nature was starved and restricted.” In her autobiography and other public-facing forums, Maud remained neutral, calling her childhood “very quiet and simple” and saying “Some might think it dull. But life never held for me a dull moment. I had, in my vivid imagination, a passport to the geography of Fairyland.”
Her journals are a subject I should mention, as they are often referenced when talking about Maud’s life and Anne of Green Gables. Maud wrote ten volumes of journals over the course of her life. As she gained fame in the 1910s, she began to edit and type up her journals. Maud was savvy, and she knew that the journals would eventually be published, so she began to shape them to reflect her life in the way she wanted to be perceived.
Here, then, is a biased source, an unreliable narrator. We do get insights into the private reality of Maud. However, Maud rewrote and retyped her journals, burning items that didn’t fit her desired image, so clearly Maud always had a public audience in mind.
The other interesting thing is that unlike contemporaries Laura Ingalls Wilder and Louisa May Alcott, Maud’s journals were kept private for several decades. It took until 1985 before abridged versions of the journals were published, and prior to that, only a handful of scholars even had access to the unedited versions.
From these journals, we get a deeper sense of the person. Maud was lonely. She felt like an outsider in the small town of Cavendish, though Maud herself was forever fervently passionate about the place, calling it “hallowed ground”. She invented imaginary friends, who lived in the glass doors of a cupboard in the Macneill’s parlor: Katie Maurice, a girl her own age; and Lucy Gray, an elderly widow who told “dismal stories of her troubles”. Maud had free range of the beautiful natural environment of Prince Edward Island, where she learned to make fun and merriment everywhere, out of the personalities of even the trees and the cats. Everything had a name, everything had feelings.
Writing and art were not seen as appropriate for well-bred ladies of the time in Cavendish, marking Maud, with her constant habit of writing and journaling as an oddity at best. And unfortunately, Maud’s extended family ridiculed and disparaged her early interest in writing, as mere “scribbling”, and later with harshed words. These were comments that she would perpetually remember and resent.
Harsh comments were the ones Maud dwelled on forever. Her autobiography recalls a time when she was perpetually called by a boys’ name, much to her anger. “That experience taught me one lesson, at least. I never tease a child. If I had any tendency to do so, I should certainly be prevented by the still keen recollection of what I suffered at Mr. Forbes’ hands. To him, it was merely the “fun” of teasing a “touchy” child. To me, it was the poison of asps.”
At age 15, Maud received a summons from her father, Hugh John Montgomery, who’d gone and remarried and had children with his new wife. He invited her out to stay with him for a year, and she jumped at the chance to spend time with her father, whom she still idolized. Her paternal grandfather, John Montgomery, accompanied her on the six-day-long train trip out to Saskatchewan, for propriety’s sake.
Things weren’t great in Prince Albert, and Maud wasn’t welcome with the open arms she’d expected. Her stepmother Mary Ann MacRae wasn’t much older than Maud herself (she was 23 years younger than Hugh John Montgomery, her husband!). Maud spared no kind words for her, saying that she was “a woman whose evil temper and hateful disposition made [Hugh John’s] life miserable.” Maud was essentially treated as hired help. In fact, wicked stepmother Mary Ann pulled Maud out of school, setting her to tend the house and care for her stepsiblings, including the prodigal son and heir to the family name.
There were few bright spots, all writing-related. Maud had her first works published: a poem “On Cape LeForce”, and an article discussing a visit to a First Nations camp on the Great Plains. Of the experience, she wrote: “ The moment we see our first darling brain-child arrayed in black type is never to be forgotten. It has in it some of the wonderful awe and delight that comes to a mother when she looks for the first time on the face of her first born.” Maud later claimed that the days she spendt sending out her poetry around this time were where she learned “the first, last, and middle lesson — Never give up!”
What she had hoped would be a wonderful time in Prince Albert ended up being far from it, given all this, and Maud was grateful to return to Cavendish and her maternal grandparents, to her private bedroom where she could write in peace. With no accompaniment from Grandfather Montgomery on the journey home, Maud had to travel alone, finding her own accommodations in the evenings every time the train stopped. This was quite the feat as a young single female, not socially acceptable, but Maud handled it with aplomb.
Maud’s Higher Education
Maud was desperate to escape from the bleak path that lay ahead for unmarried women of that time, and knew she had to get out of town, despite her love for Cavendish. She applied to Prince of Wales College in Charlottetown, in order to obtain her teacher’s license. With money having long run out, Grandma Lucy stepped in, loaning Maud her own money to help her attend school. With only enough money for a single year, Lucy Maud Montgomery was forced to complete the two-year program in a single year (1893-1894). She graduated with honors and described it as “the happiest year of my life”. I did tell you this was a story about a kickass woman, right?
She immediately began to teach. This was the days of one-room schoolhouses, where there was a teacher for an entire town, poorly-paid and exhausting work in (usually) rural communities. Maud taught at Bideford, Belmont, and Lower Bedeque: schools of 20-60 students between 6 and 13 years of age. The sense that I’ve gotten is that Maud Montgomery was a beloved teacher. She also spent part of each day writing fiction and poetry for submissions to the rapidly expanding newspaper and magazine market.
In 1895-1896, she took a break from teaching and studied literature at Dalhousie University in Halifax, Nova Scotia. This was quite the rarity for a woman, especially of her means, to seek higher education at this time; women were expected to teach until they married and then raise families and tend house. Grandmother Lucy Macneill came through for Maud yet again, scraping together her personal funds to set Maud through a year of school, but only a year. While Maud’s male cousin Murray Macneill received familial financial support to continue university, there was no such support for a female.
Starting in 1897, you really regularly see Maud publishing poetry in the Canadian papers [name them]. It was only in 1895 that her first payment for a published poem came: $5 Canadian, and with it, Maud bought a multivolume book set of poetry, people like Tennyson and Byron and Milton.
Maud’s Love Life
Here’s something I didn’t expect when I began researching this topic. I never would’ve guessed that Maud had the varied love life that she did. Apparently in a January 1917 journal entry, she sat down and ranked the men she’d had love affairs with, though she was careful to remind the reader that most of them held no sway over her affections.
Childhood Loves
Nate Lockhart was one of the boys Maud knew in her tween years. On the cusp of womanhood or some other flowery phrase, Nate developed feelings for Maud, and proposed (at age 14!). Maud didn’t feel the same way, and “retreated”, trying to maintain his friendship.
In Prince Albert, she had two suitors. John Mustard was actually her school teacher, and he spent much of the year delivering unwanted advances to Maud. He went so far as to regularly call at her stepmother’s house against Maud’s wishes, and stepmother Mary Ann let him in every time! Will Pritchard was Maud’s friend, or the brother of her close friend there, to whom she complained about John Mustard. Both men proposed to her, and she rejected both of them.
Edwin Simpson
In 1897, Maud was working in Bideford when she received a proposal from a distant cousin, Edwin Simpson, who was off studying to be a Baptist minister. She accepted, as she later wrote, out of a desire for “love and protection”. Maud felt her prospects were slim, she felt herself lonely and trapped in her rural teacher’s position, and thought she wanted the family life. Edwin was attractive and her intellectual equal.
However, though Maud was initially attracted to Edwin on a physical level, her opinions shifted, and she began to feel trapped and repelled by him, finding him self-centered and vain. It’s reported that she felt physically nauseated by his presence.
(George) Herman Leard
The next school year, 1897-1898, Maud moved to Lower Bedeque to teach. Here, she boarded with the Leard family. And here, Maud had a passionate affair with the man she later said she loved the most out of all her suitors: Herman Leard. He was the opposite of Edwin – a salt of the earth farmboy type, a “himbo” in modern parlance. And 23-year-old Maud was smitten.
1897 portrait of Lucy Maud Montgomery. Public domain.
Her diaries are filled with Maud’s descriptions of their affair, which, like I said, was unexpected. “our lips met in one long passionate pressure – a kiss of fire and rapture such I had never experienced or imagined. Ed’s kisses at the best left me cold as ice – Hermann’s sent flame through every fiber of my being”.
As the school year rolled into the springtime, Maud took herself to task, resolving in her diary that she must stay faithful to her fiance Edwin Simpson, but it was to no effect. Yes, both Maud and Herman behaved badly this summer. Maud was still secretly engaged to Edwin, and Herman was publicly courting a local girl named Hattie, squiring Hattie about during the day and sharing secret kisses with Maud at night. Maud’s journal entries that year were filled with her feelings for Hermann Leard: “wild, passionate, unreasoning love that dominated my entire being and possessed me like a flame – a love I could neither quell nor control – a love that in its intensity seemed little short of absolute madness.”
And though it’s perhaps not the topic for this particular podcast, Maud definitely reached multiple bases with Herman Leard, as we might say. Despite the strict Presbytarian upbringing, Maud still did plenty of “preliminary lovemaking” with Hermann when they were alone in the house. Maud’s words, not mine.
It was not to last.
In an unfortunate set of coincidences in spring of 1898, Maud broke it off with Hearmann. Soon after, he died from the flu. Maud wrote about it in her diary, saying Herman was “all mine in death, as he could never be in life, mine when no other women could ever lie on his heart or kiss his lips.” Around the same time, Maud broke her unhappy engagement with Edwin Simpson, too.
Not only that, but Grandpa Macneill died suddenly. All of this change and chaos happening at the same time!
With her engagement and affair broken off, Maud chose to move back in with her widowed Grandma Lucy Macneill. Under the guise of taking care of her elderly grandmother (age 74, so certainly elderly for the time), Maud was able to avoid any more male entanglements or shenanigans. She was done with romance, she’d decided. Instead, she took care of Grandma Lucy, who in her own way had cared so much for Maud in her childhood, and ran the post office, still in the farmhouse kitchen. In doing so, Maud won respect from the Cavendish community. Professionally, Maud was able to write full time, getting the gossip from the townspeople coming and going from the post office, which she could then write into her books. And since she was postmistress, she could send items off to publishers without anyone being the wiser, avoiding the negative comments she so dreaded.
Between 1898 and 1911 when Grandma Lucy Macneill finally passed away, Maud published like mad: stories, articles, poems, and her most famous book, Anne of Green Gables. She also worked for a brief period of time as the only woman at the Halifax-based Daily Echo, but gave this up in order to do battle when her uncle (John Macneill) attempted to evict Grandma Lucy, his mother, from her house where she and Maud lived.
Ewan Macdonald and Oliver Macneill
During these halcyon days, a new minister moved to town, in 1903, the Reverend Ewan Macdonald (spelled both Ewen and Ewan). Ewan spoke Gaelic and was smitten by Maud conversation, sense of humor, and charm. In return, Maud too found him attractive, kind, and pleasant. There was never a language of passion for Ewan the way Maud had written of Herman Leard, but there was at least fondness.
For the first few years of their acquaintance, they were friendzoned.
Around 1906, however, Ewan was heading off to study in Scotland, and proposed to Maud before he left. She accepted, one one condition: the engagement had to stay a secret until Grandma Lucy Macneill died. They lived far away from one another for the intervening years, due to Ewan’s remote posting after his studies concluded.
Maud wasn’t entirely faithful during the engagement, perhaps weighing a second possible future with a different man. Following the success of Anne of Green Gables, Maud had a brief and secret fling in fall of 1909 with second cousin Oliver Macneill, recently divorced farmer on the rebound. “I am again playing with fire,” she wrote in her journals. Whether the townsfolk were setting them up or not was unclear (her engagement to Ewan was secret, after all), but it’s clear the two held passion for one another. Oliver proposed multiple times during his short six-week stay on Prince Edward Island, but ultimately gave up.
Oliver and Maud stayed in touch via letters, with Oliver even sending Maud a book of love poems. Summer of 1910 saw Oliver visiting again, with another set of “frantic scenes” that went nowhere, as Oliver quickly found and married another Cavendish local, one of Maud’s former students.
Maud later ranked him second after Herman Leard in her journal a decade later, of people to whom she responded with “power of the senses”. (This passage in her journal was apparently directed towards her children and grandchildren, so that they would see her as a woman, that she had not always been “old and gray-haired and hug-me-tighted”.)
Not until her grandmother’s death in 1911 did she marry Ewan, some five years later at age 36. This was an incredibly smart move on Maud’s part, in my opinion. She knew that Uncle John was going to get the house, at which point she’d need a new place to live. She also wouldn’t have the postmistress job, and would need a better financial situation in order to keep publishing. Thus, the good minister with his solid prospects: a pragmatic choice.
They married in July of 1911, and moved to Leaskdale, Ontario, where Ewan had obtained a church position. Maud described what she felt upon marriage, sitting there at her wedding feast: “I wanted to be free! I felt like a prisoner—a hopeless prisoner. … But it was too late—and the realization that it was too late fell over me like a black cloud of wretchedness. I sat at that gay bridal feast, in my white veil and orange blossoms, beside the man that I had married—and I was as unhappy as I had ever been in my life.”. A son Chester quickly followed in 1912; son Hugh was stillborn in 1914; and son Stuart was born in 1915.
Life for Lucy Maud Montgomery was Not Easy
I suppose my section title is a bit on the nose, as life is difficult for everyone, but married life wasn’t what Maud expected, it seems, and things got contentious as the years went on.
Lucy Maud Montgomery’s Journals
The first few years of marriage likely went by in a flash, with babies and honeymooning and moving to a new town and starting a new church congregation. (“Those women whom God wanted to destroy He would make into the wives of ministers,” she once said.)
Not only that, but Maud didn’t stop writing. The Story Girl and its sequel, The Golden Road, came out in 1911 and 1913, respectively. Anne of the Island came out in 1915. A short story collection, Chronicles of Avonlea, came out in 1912, as well as at least fourteen different short stories that had been published individually in newspapers and magazines during the early years of her marriage.
As I mentioned earlier, Maud journaled throughout her life. Though abridged and edited versions of the journals were published between 1985 and 2004, it’s said that 50% of the material was edited out, including much of the darker side of her private life. These more negative parts were kept under wraps even until very recently, available only to a select few. Lucy Maud Montgomery historian Mary Rubio at the University of Guelph began publishing the unabridged journals starting in 2016, available under the title “The Complete Journals of L.M. Montgomery”. 7 out of 10 unabridged volumes have been published at the time of this recording.
Basically, Maud was a minister’s wife, as well as a famous writer at this point. She couldn’t tell people what she actually thought – she could only tell her journals. And what she told her journals was that this was a dark time in her life. Her increased writing pace was at least in part a form of escapism.
World War I and Lucy Maud Montgomery
With the onset of war in 1914, the relatively settled pace of small Leaskdale life was destroyed. Most of the young men in the community went away to fight, causing terrible social upheaval, both locally and globally.
Maud became outspoken politically, a passionate supporter of the Allied war effort. She published articles and essays appealing for volunteers to join the forces, and began campaigning for women’s suffrage, stating that women on the home front were also crucial to the war effort. (The federal government granted women suffrage between 1918 and 1922.)
Mary Rubio, one of the pre-eminant Lucy Maud Montgomery scholars and biographers, observed: “Increasingly, the war was all that she thought of and wanted to talk about. Her journals show she was absolutely consumed by it, wracked by it, tortured by it, obsessed by it — even addicted to it.”
Depression and Disease
In topical history, 1918 and 1919 saw the Spanish Flu pandemic, killing 50-100 million people over two years. This was actually the first H1N1 pandemic, though we associate that term with the 2009 “swine flu” outbreak. 500 million people (27% of the world’s population at the time) were infected, and between 3-5% of the world’s population died of the disease – one of the deadliest epidemics in human history. It’s said that poor medical conditions and government misinformation contributed to the high mortality rates.
Maud contracted Spanish flu, nearly dying of it. She later wrote “I was in bed for ten days. I never felt so sick or weak in my life,”” about the ordeal. Her friends helped care for her through the disease, but not, it’s said, her husband, who had been indifferent to her throughout her illness.
Maud considered divorce after this, which was very difficult to obtain in Canada before 1967 – only 263 divorces out of 6 M people between 1873 and 1901. Ultimately, she decided that it was her duty to God to make the marriage work.
Maud eventually realized that she could not find intellectual stimulation from her husband. For much of her adult life, she carried on regular correspondence with other men, such as Scottish journalist George Boyd MacMillan and teacher Ephraim Weber. She also enjoyed the company of other men in person, though I’m sure it was proper, spending time with the “dashing” Reverend Edwin Smith, who taught at a different denomination in town.
1919 portrait of Lucy Maud Montgomery. Public domain.
1919 was the year Maud described as “a hellish year”. Her dearest kindred spirit, Frede McFarlane, who I haven’t had time to talk about, died of the Spanish flu. Frede lived with Maud for many months out of the year, and helped Maud raise her children. Her death was a huge blow to Maud. Other things weren’t great either. Locals were gossiping about Maud, who had the audacity to hire a maid. Maud’s troubles with her publisher, which I’ll get into, came to a head. And church politics in Canada at that time sharted shifting, which would eventually result in the creation of a new denomination from several old ones, known as the United Church of Canada. (Maud was indifferent to the church by this point, writing a very modern sentiment: “the Spirit of God no longer works through the church for humanity.… Today it is working through Science.… The [church] ‘leaders’ are trying to galvanize into a semblance of life something from which life has departed.”)
And Maud’s husband Ewan didn’t make life easy, though not entirely his own fault. Throughout his life with Maud, Ewan had suffered from mental health problems. During his professional training in Scotland, Ewan had a nervous breakdown, and was forced to leave the program early without obtaining any further degrees. He was only able to find a preaching position in remote communities where they didn’t have much choice. And his mental health was never stable, which Maud didn’t understand the scope of until well after their marriage, due to the limited time they’d spent together. Ewan’s mental health symptoms increased at the beginning of the 1920s, with signs of schizophrenia and clinical depression.
He lashed out at Maud, telling her that he wished she and the children had never been born, and that she was going to Hell. Ewan saw women as of no intellectual importance and not “worthy of a real tribute”. He refused to do housework or any form of childraising, and increasingly spent his time staring off into space for hours, shouting, or driving recklessly. Indeed, in 1925, he nearly ran over a Methodist minister who was promoting the United Church of Canada; had he not been a minister, this would certainly have been labeled attempted murder.
It was decided that in 1926, a change of pace was in order, possibly as a result of this incident, and the family moved to Norval, a Toronto suburb. Maud continued to be involved in the church events, as well as continuing her popularity as a public speaker and a presence at literary events. She was increasingly famous, her books as popular as ever, and spent time with the literary scene there. Ultimately, she won the nearly decade-long battle with her publisher, as well, which again, I’ll get to shortly. Maud saw Norval as a place with the charm of her beloved Cavendish, and hoped to stay there permanently.
They would not.
Maud’s dear son Chester was causing Maud headaches, with behavioural problems and poor grades, not to mention a secret marriage and the birth of his full-term child after only six months of marriage. Stuart was less of a handful, although he did court girls Maud didn’t approve of.
More than anything, it was Ewan’s mental health causing familial stress. More often than not, he was unable to fulfill his church duties, requiring heavy doses of barbiturates to even stumble across the lawn to give a sermon, according to Maud’s journals. In 1934, he was committed to the Homewood Sanitarium and spent two months there as a result. He became paranoid, catatonic, and physically abusive towards Maud in turns. After arguing with the church elders about his salary in 1935, Ewan resigned from his post and retired in a fit.
Journey’s End
With both Chester and Stuart studying in Toronto, Maud and Ewan tried to find happiness by moving closer to their sons. Maud purchased a house she called “Journey’s End” there in Toronto in 1935, the only house she ever truly owned. And for a few years, things seemed good again, with slight child-related hiccups here and there. She was named to the Order of the British Empire by King George V, a great honor.
Portrait of Lucy Maud Montgomery. Public domain.
Maud continued to promote Canadian writers through the primarily-female Canadian Authors’ Association, and continued to publish and speak. However, critics, especially male critics, began to disparage Maud as being out of style by this time, examples of Victorian sentiment that wasn’t right for modern Canadian literature. Maud was ousted from the CAA board in 1938 as a result of this tide of sentiment.
It was the straw that broke the camel’s back. Combined with the Great Depression, with extended family borrowing money and not returning it, with her sons’ personal and professional failings, and with her unhappy marriage and Ewan’s mental illness, Maud was diagnosed with a heavy clinical depression. She’d suffered from depressive periods throughout her life, but this was a big one.
Medication at the time for both Ewan and Maud was barbiturates and bromides, both strong medications whose damaging secondary effects were not understood at the time. (Read: addiction.) Barbiturates are mostly out of favor today, but you might be aware of names like phenobarbitol and sodium pentothal. Husband and wife relied on ever increasing doses of the drugs, resulting in a downward spiral of anxiety and depression from the late 1930s onward.
As a result, heer writing, her one constant form of enjoyment, was something she could no longer concentrate on. Being cut off from that fundamental joy and emotional support also cut her off financially, and in her last years Maud would constantly worry about finances. Not only that, but the second World War had begun, causing Maud incredible anxiety. She wrote only one journal entry in 1941, including the line “Such suffering and wretchedness.” In a letter to a friend in late December of 1941, she wrote of her family struggles: son Chester’s wife left him, husband Ewan’s “attacks” which had “broken me at last”, and the fear that son Stuart would be conscribed to war, leaving Maud with “nothing to live for”. A month before her death, Maud wrote in a letter to her friend that she “had doubts that she would still be there in a week”.
On her last afternoon in April of 1942, Maud packaged up her last manuscript and mailed it to her publisher, went to her bed, and died, a heartbreaking end to an often difficult life.
Today’s scholars are divided on the manner of Maud’s death (whether the presumed drug overdose was intentional or accidental), which has only come to public discussion since 2008. The family, as described by granddaughter Kate Macdonald Butler, Stuart’s daughter, came forward on the 100th anniversary of Anne of Green Gables’ publication with a new piece of information, previously kept secret within the family. The intent was to bring the information to light in order to help lift some of the stigma surrounding mental illness. A piece of paper was dated two days prior to her death, discovered on her nightstand by her son Stuart, and is considered by many to be a suicide note, kept private for almost a century.
In this last note, Maud wrote: “I have lost my mind by spells and I do not dare to think what I may do in those spells. May God forgive me and I hope everyone else will forgive me even if they cannot understand. My position is too awful to endure and nobody realizes it. What an end to a life in which I tried always to do my best in spite of many mistakes.”
Anne of Green Gables
Let us pause here, then, and return to consider the point of all of this, that book, Anne of Green Gables, which inspired so many.
If you’re at all familiar with English-language literature, then you’ve at least heard of the Anne of Green Gables book series, about the life of a plucky red-head named Anne Shirley. You might also have a sense for how generally beloved this book and series is. It will not come as a surprise to you the reams of paper, real and digital, that have been covered with text analyzing these seminal novels.
I’m about to say something controversial, then. I’ve never read Anne of Green Gables. I’ve watched literally only five minutes of any show or film adaptation of Anne prior to the start of my research for this episode. (The five minutes of televised Anne content I watched prior to this were when Netflix suggested “Anne with an E”. I found it inoffensive – simply not to my taste in TV. If I recall correctly, at the time, I moved on to the next episode in my Star Trek first-time watch, TNG’s “Darmok”. It was a great night of TV.) As of the start of this episode’s research, I literally had no personal opinion about Anne of Green Gables.
I can sense the letters coming in already. Don’t stop listening, don’t stop reading!
You might think that this background makes me ill-suited for this topic, but what my theory presupposes is … maybe it makes me the perfect person?
We shall see.
Writing Anne of Green Gables
As mentioned in passing earlier, Maud began an intense period of writing around 1901, after she moved back to Cavendish to care for widowed Grandma Lucy when none of Lucy’s children would care for their mother. Short stories, articles, poems, and books – all went out in secret through Maud’s position at the post office, thus avoiding the negative comments from the townsfolk, who disapproved of such an “old” unmarried woman, especially a (gasp) writer. “The dollars have silenced them,” she wrote in 1905 of her judgy neighbors, “but I have not forgotten their sneers. My own perseverance has won the fight for me in the face of all discouragements.”
It is naive to think that a single source could be pointed at, to say “ah, here it is, the source of inspiration for Anne of Green Gables”. Maud was an excellent writer, taking bits and pieces from her own tribulations, from family stories, from news reports, and so on. Still, we’re all human. Like many writers, Maud kept a notebook with story ideas – words and phrases, interesting articles or clippings, pictures, etc. In her own words: “In the spring of 1904 I was looking over this notebook in search of some idea for a short serial I wanted to write for a certain Sunday School paper. I found a faded entry, written many years before: ‘Elderly couple apply to orphan asylum for a boy. By mistake a girl is sent to them.’ I thought this would do.”
Indeed, this probably sounds familiar to an Anne fan, as it is the basic premise of the story. The concept was said to be a fairly popular one at the time, called “formula Ann” stories, since one would know the formula of the story right off. (The same holds true with many stories today – if you’re into transformative fanworks and fanfiction, you will immediately know what happens in a story I describe as a “coffee shop AU”.) Maud distinguished her character from others by calling her “Anne with an e”. Ah, there it is! (I will say that I was only able to find references to “formula Ann” that were primarily about Maud and Anne of Green Gables, so take that as you will.)
The story idea was not from a newspaper clipping, as some have claimed, but from a family happening, a routine adoption notable for the “mistake” in requested gender. In 1892, one of Maud’s local extended family members, Pierce Macneill, requested an orphan boy to help on the farm. A three-year-old girl was sent by mistake, and was summarily adopted into the Macneill clan anyways. Maud knew her, this distant cousin: Ellen picked up the family’s mail at Maud’s post office, Maud often borrowed a buggy from the family’s house, and Maud may have even taught Ellen at the local school on occasion. However, Maud was frustrated by suggestions during her life that Ellen had played even the slightest role in sparking the character or story of Anne. Maud was later quite judgemental about her cousin, saying “there is no resemblance of any kind between Anne and Ellen Macneill who is one of the most hopelessly commonplace and uninteresting girls imaginable”.
Maud began as she always did (“Write a book. You have the central idea. All you need do is to spread it out over enough chapters to amount to a book.“). She wrote in the evenings after her day’s work was done, up at the window desk in her little gable room. She wrote and wrote, and began to know that the story she was telling was too big for a short story serial in a Sunday School paper. She wrote it up into a full-fledged book between spring 1904 and October of 1905.
I’ll let Maud herself tell the story of the publication, quoted from her public domain 1917 autobiography, The Alpine Path.
Well, my book was finally written. The next thing was to find a publisher. I typewrote it myself, on my old secondhand typewriter that never made the capitals plain and wouldn’t print “w” at all, and I sent it to a new American firm that had recently come to the front with several “best sellers.” I thought I might stand a better chance with a new firm than with an old established one that had already a preferred list of writers. But the new firm very promptly sent it back. Next I sent it to one of the “old, established firms,” and the old established firm sent it back. Then I sent it, in turn, to three “Betwixt-and-between firms”, and they all sent it back. Four of them returned it with a cold, printed note of rejection; one of them “damned with faint praise.” They wrote that “Our readers report that they find some merit in your story, but not enough to warrant its acceptance.”
That finished me. I put Anne away in an old hat-box in the clothes room, resolving that some day when I had time I would take her and reduce her to the original seven chapters of her first incarnation. In that case I was tolerably sure of getting thirty-five dollars for her at least, and perhaps even forty.
The manuscript lay in the hatbox until I came across it one winter day while rummaging. I began turning over the leaves, reading a bit here and there. It didn’t seem so very bad. “I’ll try once more,” I thought. The result was that a couple of months later an entry appeared in my journal to the effect that my book had been accepted. After some natural jubilation I wrote: “The book may or may not succeed. I wrote it for love, not money, but very often such books are the most successful, just as everything in the world that is born of true love has life in it, as nothing constructed for mercenary ends can ever have.”
On June 20th, 1908, Maud wrote the following in her journal:
To-day has been, as Anne herself would say, ‘an epoch in my life.’ My book came to-day, ‘spleet-new’ from the publishers. I candidly confess that it was to me a proud and wonderful and thrilling moment. There, in my hand, lay the material realization of all the dreams and hopes and ambitions and struggles of my whole conscious existence – my first book. Not a great book, but mine, mine, mine, something which I had created.
George Fort Gibbs portrait of a Gibson girl on the cover of an early edition of Anne of Green Gables. Public domain.
Inside Anne of Green Gables
Anne was an orphan who was mistakenly sent to live with Marilla and Matthew Cuthbert, in the fictional town of Avonlea, on Prince Edward Island. Beyond that, the novel is sort of plot-light, mostly a series of vignettes showing Anne settling in to her new home. Clearly we can see influence in the basic structure from Maud’s own life, straight away: Marilla and Matthew draw from the grandparents Macneill, Avonlea is heavily based off Cavendish, and so forth.
Anne’s trials were drawn from Maud’s own. Imaginary friend Katie Maurice, who existed solely in the reflection “in the fairy room behind the bookcase”, was dropped full cloth into the book. Anne’s love of nature was heavily influenced by Maud’s own childhood wandering through Cavendish. The rough structure of Anne’s life is Maud’s own: getting a teaching license at age 16 in one year instead of two, pursuing a bachelor’s degree at a fictionalized version of Dalhousie University, the sudden death of paternal figure Matthew requiring Anne to return to Avonlea and stay with the aging Marilla…the bones are all Maud’s.
Other influences came from magazines of the time, such as the popular Godey’s Lady’s Book. Anne’s image was drawn from a 1903 photograph Maud had clipped from New York’s Metropolitan Magazine, pasted on the wall of Maud’s bedroom to remind her not of Anne’s physical looks, but of Anne’s “youthful idealism and spirituality”. (The image is gorgeous, showing a radiant young woman with a floral headband, gazing upwards innocently into dramatic, gorgeous lighting. Evelyn Nesbit was a Gibson girl, a “glittering girl model of Gotham” in the first years of the 20th century. Before Anne of Green Gables was published, though, Evelyn became the star witness of the first “Trial of the Century”, a sensational case where her millionaire husband shot and killed her rapist and lover, architect and socialite Stanford White. Absolutely beyond the scope of this podcast, but I’ll include links to some relevant reading and listening on the topic in the shownotes for the interested.)
Maud’s inspiration photo for the youthful qualities of Anne: Evelyn Nesbit. Photo by Rudolf Eickemeyer, Jr, public domain.
It would not be a discussion of Anne if I don’t mention her looks, because what I’ve learned is that the character of Anne is obsessed with them, and much of modern Anne culture too. She despises her appearance, her thin frame, her pale skin with freckles, and of course, the iconic red hair. Originally her hair was brighter shades of red, later dulling to descriptions of Titian red, like later fictional characters Nancy Drew and Dana Scully. (And as I’ll get to shortly, in Japan, the series is known as Red-haired Anne. Iconic!) This hit the zeitgeist of the time it was published – red hair was all the rage that year.
Reception of Anne of Green Gables
Having no personal experience with Anne (where was I the day that the Anne books were read?) I reached out to some friends to get a sense of their feelings towards the Anne books in general. To no one’s surprise, reactions were almost universally positive. My friends expounded with much praise in particular for the themes of female friendship found in the books, for the sense of optimism and positivity that Anne brought to her challenging situations. Indeed, gallons of real and digital ink have been spilled about the beauty of the relationships in Maud’s books, which I cannot distill here without cheapening them.
It’s hard to collapse what makes the book so beloved into any brief space. The book still retains its popularity and eternal nature, even now, 112 years after its original publication. Though the book is firmly ensconced in the time period in which it was published, it speaks to readers on an intimate, emotional level, with the trappings of a fairytale. The sense in Anne was that even if things are bad now, they will get better.
I love too this comment that I found: Anne books are feminist texts, even if they’re outside of the standard “empowering” literary tropes, because “they insist that the lived experience of women matters, across class and georgraphy and age”.
Anne of Green Gables was an instant success in 1908. It sold over 19,000 copies in its first five months, and was reprinted ten times in its first year. Not only were Canadians interested in the book. It had a broad reach, and notable people like Mark Twain himself liked the book. Twain is quoted as saying that Anne Shirley was “the dearest, most moving and delightful child since the immortal Alice.” A typical newspaper review at the time called Anne of Green Gables a “sweetly simple tale of childish joys and sorrows of a diminutive red-haired girl” and declared it “the literary hit of the season with the American public.” The Toronto Globe reviewed the book at the time with another typical review, saying “Anne of Green Gables is worth a thousand of the problem stories with which the bookshelves are crowded today.”
Maud Battles Her Dishonest Publisher
Earlier, I talked about how the mid to late 1910s were a tough time for Maud. Much of this was related to her battles with her publisher at the time, L. C. Page & Company. I read an excellent essay entitled “The Robber Baron of Canadian Literature”, and I think that’s an apt description for Lewis Page.
Page was not a good guy, we’ll start there. He was ruthless, hacking apart author’s texts without shame, taking massive shares of the profits without distributing to authors their dues, and other dishonest publishing acts. Page took and took and took, with an attitude of “so sue me”, knowing that then as now, lawsuits were a long and costly business out of the reach of many poor writers.
Maud was somewhat desperate by the time she shopped her book to L. C. Page. Based on her journals, she had some indication when she met with Page that he was a shady guy. But she signed the contracts without any apparent negotiation within three weeks, in May of 1907. The contracts were wild, with their requirements for sequels and their low royalties (10% on the wholesale price “over and above the first thousand”) and the five-year binding clause.
Maud did get a small concession, for the books to be published under the gender-neutral “L. M. Montgomery” as opposed to Page’s preferred “Lucy Maud Montgomery”. She did not get her way with the illustrations, which she apparently disliked for how they suggested an ending that the book had only hinted at.
The final illustration in Anne of Green Gables, by MA & WAJ Claus. Public domain.
Maud went to work on the contracted Anne sequels, though she was already falling into a love-hate relationship with her most famous character.
By July of 1915, things were coming to a head. Page had threatened to stop promoting her books unless she signed another five year contract, which she did, begrudgingly. He published an unsanctioned book of “castoffs” called Further Chronicles of Avonlea. He gambled away the profits her books had made, his personal life was full of sexual immorality, and the payment of royalties based on wholesale pricing rather than retail pricing made the process more opaque, and therefore made it nearly impossible to track how much Maud should’ve been making. It turned out she’d been getting 7 cents per dollar on each book, instead of 19 cents per dollar on each book. Beginning in 1917, she switched publishers and sued Page. He tried to get her back by selling the rights to one of the sequels, Anne’s House of Dreams, but Maud stood firm. Those rights didn’t belong to him to sell, and he’d withheld the royalties she was actually due. She was going to get her own.
“There is something in me that will not remain inactive under injustice and trickery”. She went on to say that Page and his company had “traded for years on the average woman’s fear of litigation.” Finishing with a bang, she said “very few authors can afford to go to law with them, especially when they can’t expect to get money out of the result. They have done the most outrageous things to poor authors who can’t afford to seek redress.””
It took almost a decade to get that redress, and five different lawsuits. Page fought Maud at every turn, trying to take the case all the way to the US Supreme Court (they were not interested). Maud stopped writing about Anne in her journals, saying that although she’d made money, “it’s a pity it doesn’t buy happiness”.
Page, meanwhile, had sold the film right to the Anne books back in 1908. Maud had no say in either the 1919 or 1934 film versions of Anne of Green Gables, and the money made from them went to Page and not to “Mr. Montgomery”, as one foolish American journalist reviewing at the time said. Maud was furious over the 191 film in paritcular, saying “I think if I hadn’t already known it was from my book, that I would never have recognized it.” She went on to slam the New England setting, saying “A skunk and an American flag were introduced – both equally unknown in PE Island. I could have shrieked with rage over the latter. Such crass, blatant Yankeeism!”
The Massachusetts courts ruled in Maud’s favor in 1925, finding that she had been cheated out of money she’d been owed. Page used every trick in the book to continue to try and avoid his fate, even saying that Maud’s lawsuit had caused his brother’s 1927 heart attack and harassing Maud via constant negative telegram. (Page and his brother were not close.) Finally, however, he had no choice, and in 1928, finally, Maud received the check for $15,000, the sum the courts decided was owed to her. This ended up being only about $4,000 after paying her lawyers, and Maud sensibly invested the money in the stock market. However, of course, the stock market crashed the next year, and Maud lost much of her recovered savings.
Ironically, of course, today the rights to Anne are incredibly profitable, held jointly by Maud’s heirs and Prince Edward Island through a licensing corporation.
It’s very much beyond the scope of the podcast, but Anne of Green Gables has become a licensing and merchandising magnet. There were 1952 and 1972 BBC adaptations, a 1956 and 1958 CBC TV musical. The premiere in 1965 of “Anne of Green Gables: The Musical” in Charlottetown marked the beginning of the longest-running annual musical theater production, per Guinness book of world records. Kevin Sullivan’s 1985 CBC miniseries is perhaps the best-known adaptation, winning an Emmy amongst many other awards. Sullivan did three more sequels in 1986, 200, and 2008. There have been PBS versions and the most recent CBC adaption, distributed by Netflix, Anne with an E. Anne is big money, and a popular draw for audiences of all ages in all decades.
Anne in Japan
Nowhere is Anne’s popularity more striking than, of all places, Japan, and the story of how Anne of Green Gables became popular there is well worth hearing.
Loretta Leonard Shaw
We begin by considering Loretta Leonard Shaw, a contemporary of Maud’s, and a fellow Canadian, though the two never knew one another personally. Loretta was a decorated, highly-educated student from St. John, with a BA in English, French, and German, and a teaching certificate with the highest possible marks. However, it was missionary work and not local students that she was most passionate about.
Loretta was accepted for missionary service in Japan, and in less than a year, Loretta learned Japanese and moved to Osaka. She taught young girls there for a number of years, and although education of girls was not considered important in society at that time, enrollment at her schools increased tenfold over the course of her teaching tenure, partially due to her skills and curriculum. Loretta sensibly commented that it was “unwise and unmoral” for women and girls to be given lower educational standards based on outdated cultural concepts of gender inferiority.
Throughout her life, Loretta was instrumental in representing the two cultures to one another as much as she could, bringing items and ideas from Japan to Canada and likewise from Canada to Japan. In 1932, Loretta became the head of the women’s and children’s literature department at the Christian Literature Society of Japan, where she brought translations of “wholesome” Western literature to Japan.
Here is where a friendship made an incredible difference larger than they’d ever have guessed. In the late 1930s, just before Loretta’s health-related furlough back to Canada, she gave a copy of a favorite book to a friend of hers, in memory of their friendship. This was Anne of Green Gables: hardcover, with a cream cover, green-shaded portrait of a beautiful young girl on the front cover.
Hanako Muraoka
This friend, of course, was named Hanako Muraoka. She was born from a small, impoverished farming town, and with luck, attended the prestigious school in Japan founded by the Women’s Missionary Society of the Methodist Church of Canada, known as Toyo Eiwa. There, she studied Japanese subjects in the morning and English (Canadian) subjects in the afternoon. This foundation gave her the skills and interest to begin translation as a career and passion, publishing a collection of translated short stories soon after her formal education was completed. This was not only a difficult task, but it was a challenge for a time when women were not encouraged to have independence or careers.
Her life became difficult after World War I; her husband’s publishing company was destroyed in an earthquake, and her son died suddenly at a young age. Her translations were her solace and coping strategy, starting with Mark Twain’s “The Prince and the Pauper” in 1927.
1953 portrait of Hanako Muraoka. Public domain.
Loretta and Hanako met in the early 1930s, when they were both working as editors at the Christian Literature Society of Japan. There, they worked on a magazine “Children of Light”. Loretta Leonard Shaw published a 1936 article entitled “Utopia” in this magazine, in both English and Japanese, discussing how she and her fellow editors saw themselves as ambassadors for their respective cultures, and that the best and fastest way to do this was “by introducing the best books of each nation to the other”.
In 1936 (some sources say 1939), Loretta left Japan. Before she did, she gave Hanako Muraoka a copy of Anne of Green Gables, with the hopes that she would translate it to Japanese. Hanako is said to have been “enchanted” by it, and began translating it shortly thereafter in her leisure time. The book resonated with Hanako’s early childhood – the pastoral natural setting, the love of poetry, words, and literature.
Hanako used her language skills in other ways, as well. Beginning in 1932, she presented a daily five minute news program plainly explaining the news to children over the radio. She was incredibly popular, and was known as “Aunty Radio”. She also participated in simultaneous translating, for instance translating speeches by FDR live on air. With the start of the war approaching as the decade came to a close, however, English-language content began to be seen seen ever more as the enemy. Hanako quit her job at the radio, not wanting to read the hostile war-centered news to children, as well as not wanting to speak badly of the Canadians, many of whom she considered friends.
And at the same time, Hanako had to hide her translation efforts of Anne of Green Gables. The world was at war, and Canada was now the enemy of Japan. English was the language of the enemy, and it could get you arrested. But Hanako carried on, secretly translating Anne of Green Gables from English to Japanese as the war went on. Her translations were so precious to her that she reportedly took them with her into the air raid shelters.
Post-war, people could once again hope for Utopia. It took until around 1950 for the publishing houses to recover from the physical damages of the war, and Hanako Muraoka published her Japanese translation of Anne of Green Gables in 1952 as “Akage-no-An” or “Red-Haired Anne”. The book, unsurprisingly, became a bestseller. Hanako published the subsequent Anne translations between 1954 and 1959. By the 1970s, her translations were added to the curriculum in Japanese schools.
Hanako intended to visit Prince Edward Island in 1968. Unfortunately, this never happened. She passed away after a sudden stroke in October of 1968, never having visited the place, embodying the spirit of Canada, that had occupied so much of her time throughout her life. In the end, said her granddaughter in an interview with a Japanese news source, “it may have been for the best that the island she knew was the perfect one she had created with her translation”
Hanako Muraoka is today closely twined with the story of Anne coming to Japan, and has become a figure of some legend and renown, it seems, based on the articles I read. Her granddaughter, Eri Muraoka, published a biography about Hanako entitled “Anne’s Cradle: The Life of Muraoka Hanako”. A dramatized version of the biography was made into a serialized TV drama in 2014, and was a ratings success, keeping the love alive for both Anne and those who had a hand in her development.
Akage-no-An
Red-Haired Anne, as can be evidenced then by this tale, was and still is an incredibly popular figure in Japan. Anne of Green Gables is sort of an expected childhood book here from the US where I write – a passing, common reference, a generic childhood book here that’s perhaps seen as a little out of date. Did you read Anne of Green Gables or Little House on the Prairie or Call of the Wild as a kid? Did you read Hatchet or Brighty of the Grand Canyon or Where the Red Fern Grows? Etc. But none hold the place in the US, in my opinion, that Anne appears to hold elsewhere, in both Canada and Japan. In Canada, Anne is sort of a national icon, up there with maple syrup in terms of souvenir popularity. But it’s more unexpected that Anne would be so incredibly popular in Japan. (If I type “why is anne of green gables” and let Google autocomplete that phrase, the top search terms are “why is anne of green gables an orphan”, “why is anne of green gables an orphan”, and “why is anne of green gables popular in japan”.)
The popularity started of course with Hanako Muraoka’s translations in the 1950s. It was sort of a backlash against the wartime strictures against Western language and literature.
But why was Anne popular? From what I’ve read, it is as simple and complicated as this: it was a good book with a good message. The message of Anne resonates very strongly with the messages of Japanese culture: basic morality of life and examination of life’s questions in a simpler setting that is so attractive. Anne is about finding happiness, and presenting lessons applicable to all in a straightforward setting. Not only that, but Anne’s world is very kawaii – cute.
From a 1998 essay by Judy Stoffman, too, we have this interpretation of why the Anne books took off in 1952: “The book’s success was due in part to there being almost no realistic Japanese children’s literature, particularly for girls. A female in traditional children’s stories usually turns out to be a ghost or a malevolent spirit.” Anne also fits with the Japanese cultural lessons of filial devotion, and parallels the tale of Momo-taro, about a boy raised by an elderly couple. And at the time, the first wave of Japanese readers were quite poor after the war, so they could feel at one with Anne when she described puffed sleeve dresses and layer cakes.
In today’s Japan, Anne is used by some teachers as a way of discussing gender roles, long considered a taboo topic. Nowadays, Anne is seen as a “safe bet” by publishers, and has been translated by multiple translators in Japan. Early translations have been criticized for their omissions both large and small. Modern translations have been set as “complete” translations, including notes and explanations on the translated text, literary allusions, and so forth.
Not only is Anne popular in translated books, but in ancillary works, children’s books, and more. A musical version has been in operation since 1980. There have been travelling museum exhibits.
Perhaps the most famous and most innately Japanese are the anime. The first of the two is the most famous – 1979 series, 50 episodes, called Akage no An. The people involved are noteworthy in the right circles: directed by Isao Takahata, and scene setting/layout/animation from Hayao Miyazaki. These two names are notable across the globe for cofounding the incredibly popular Studio Ghibli, known for critically acclaimed works like Spirited Away and My Neighbor Totoro. Like their other works, Akage no An is full of characteristic charm and whim. You can watch all 50 episodes for free, legally available on YouTube, right now. A prequel, Konnichiwa Anne, came out in 2009. The anime increased Anne fever to a new high, and helped continue the waves of Anne obsession in Japan for decades to come.
Canadian World (カナディアンワールド)
Anne is so popular in Japan, then, we can finally hit the theme park for the day. Yes, there is an Anne of Green Gables theme park in Japan.
Now, of course Green Gables is a huge tourist destination on Prince Edward Island in Canada, as it has been for most of the last century. Anne is spread throughout the bones of Prince Edward Island. You can visit Green Gables, the real Macneill home that inspired Anne’s Green Gables. You can see the foundations of the original Cavendish home, you can walk down Anne’s Lovers’ Lane, you can visit the birthplace of Maud, and so forth.
About a half hour away in the big city of Charlottetown, you can find the Anne of Green Gables musical, lauded for being Canada’s longest running musical, and the Guiness world record holder for “longest running annual musical theatre production in the world”. Queen Elizabeth herself has seen the show during the 1964 season.
But just as the Canadians are not the only nation to have a deep fascination with Anne, so too it is that another country also devotes some tourism resources to Anne. This, of course, is Japan. Ashibetsu, Hokkaido, the sister city to Charlottetown, Prince Edward Island, since 1993. Home to Canadian World, the Anne of Green Gables replica park.
Canadian World (1990-1997)
In 1984, the city of Ashibetsu in Hokkaido, Japan was looking to revitalize. Ashibetsu, or “village where the stars fall”, had previously been a prosperous coal-mining town. However, the closure of most of the town’s coal mines throughout the 1960s led to a population decrease, as people moved elsewhere to find new jobs.
With population moving out, Ashibetsu sought a new way to bring people to the town in either the short or long term. It was decided that tourism would be the way, with a theme of stars, celestial objects, and so on, and a “restful village concept”. By late 1987, a proposal had been floated to create an Akage no An themed park, including a massive indoor water park, to be located in the valley on the site of one former coal mine. Of course, costs being what they are, the next year saw the water park proposal withdrawn, and a new proposal for Canadian World as it stands today was put out in its place.
Why Anne? Reportedly once of the officers who was in charge of development had visited PEI and seen the climate similarities between it and Ashibetsu. “The fact that he was a fan of this led to this proposal,” goes the quote.
The project is reported in the Japanese-language Wikipedia entry to be on the order of between $37-48 M USD, including mining site preparation, an Anne of Green Gables themed park, and a giant lavender field.
2004 image of Canadian World Park. (Image: Ozizo, via Wikipedia, used under CCBYSA.)
Lavender planting was begun in June of 1989, and Canadian World officially opened in July of 1990. The park was “Japan’s largest theme park with a Canadian theme”, logical considering I couldn’t find any other Canadian-themed parks out there. It was less of an amusement park and more of a leisure park or a historical recreation park. Prince Edward Island was faithfully reproduced there in Ashibetsu: Green Gables, Mrs. Lind’s House, the clock tower, and so forth. An artificial lake was dug, Anne’s Lake of Shining Waters, and spruce trees were planted to make the Ghost Forest and Lovers Lane. Next to the lake, a central plaza and curving walkway, lined with dozens of Canadian-style buildings in a row, looking out across the water and the beautiful landscape. A train station on either end of the park, a field of lavender, and of course, the Green Gable house, set back on its own among a beautiful garden.
Words don’t do the scope of the park justice. The place is absolutely huge: 450,000 m2. The main central plaza is located in the bowl of the old mine pit, and then other buildings scattered throughout the grounds. Getting down to the central plaza is easy – walk down a long downhill path. Getting back up – harder. Each little house looks like anything you’d find in Canada: clapsboards painted white and cream and blue, brightly colored shutters, pointy roofs, porches suitable for rocking chairs. Inside most are little shops and activities – the quiltmaker’s shop, the woodcarver’s shop, the chapel, the kids’ playground area. Different zones are present: Kensington Zone, Colts Zone, Craft Village Zone, Avonlea, Terrace du franc zone, Bright River Zone. This is a link to Hokkaidofan.com where there are many photos. https://hokkaidofan.com/canadian-world/
The CD artwork for the Anne omnibus CD, with art by Ryoji Arai. (Amazon link)
A CD was released by EMI Music Japan as the official park soundtrack, and a picture book for children featuring photos of the park was also produced. Crosspromotions occurred with local transportation systems to encourage visitors. And of course, as noted earlier, Charlottetown PEI and Ashibetsu became sister cities to mutually encourage tourism.
However, Canadian World didn’t take off. Despite the continued success of Anne as a Japanese cultural icon, and the new 1990s translations of Anne of Green Gables and related works, Canadian World floundering, unable to be tied into the success of the brand.
The park carried on. 1991 saw the highest number of yearly visitors: about 270,000, well below the target estimate of 400,000. New features were added to the park: a large restaurant called “Heartland” in 1991, a miniature SL (steam locomotive – choo choo, it’s The Abandoned Train!) called “Canadian Rocky” in 1992, painted green and gold, with a 2-4-4 wheel configuration. There was also a museum for antique music boxes in 1995, and so forth. Guests could rent rowboats or ride horses from the Canadian Riding Club.
Despite the beauty of the natural landscape and the faithfully reproduced Canadian-style buildings, it seems there was some dissatisfaction about how well Canadian World reproduced Prince Edward Island. The location of the park meant that when winter came, it was difficult to get to and not necessarily a pleasant experience to visit (snow!) so tourism numbers in the winter seasons were low. The park is set on an incredibly hilly patch of land, so it’s actually a little difficult to get around the park, and elderly people were discouraged from visiting. There was very little for small children to do, though a small playground with a slide was added at one point. Outside food was not allowed to be brought in, making repeat guests unlikely.
And internally, the Japanese Wikipedia says that there was poor management and various internal management conflicts. The translation on the Wiki page isn’t great, but it seems that the way the assets and souveniers and goods were managed was done so poorly, which contributed to high costs.
Plans were made to expand Canadian World to better position it as a year-round business. The most major of these was Canadian Sports World, a project planned for 1994, to feature a ski resort, hotel, and golf course on site. Unfortunately, the economy struck. As I talked about in my Takakonuma Greenland episode, the economic bubble collapse in Japan in the late 90s caused problems across the country, especially for the many theme parks which had popped up. Here in Ashibetsu, it meant that there would be no more plans for Canadian Sports World.
At Canadian World, employees were laid off, but the financial problems snowballed, and it seems from the translation I was reading that the park went bankrupt, shuttering in fall of 1997. The location was poor, the economy was poor, and there were other (some might say “better”) theme parks out there, competing for visitor attention.
Ashibetsu Municipal Canadian World Park (1999-2019)
With the park closed, the community met to figure out what to do. Through a series of public meetings and financing agreements, the park became a public, free, municipal park, and reopened in July 1999.
While there had originally been 34 buildings or facilities, not all were reopened. Anne’s Green Gables reopened as a museum, with photos of Maud, vintage Anne books, and a complete setup from Anne’s Green Gables, just like back in PEI. and the post office and Mrs. Lind’s house also reopened, managed by the city. Ten other buildings were occupied by separate tenants.
Unfortunately, this was not enough. Maintenance costs on the site were huge, amounting to almost $1M USD annually. And attendance was low – 50,000 people in 1999, 70,000 people in 2001, and then nothing but decreases – 30,000 in 2012.
By 2007, the city had to renegotiate the bankruptcy agreement to reconfigure the debts owed on the Canadian World site. The mediation allowed the reduction of the operating costs for the park, but this “free” public park was still costing the city a ton of money.
Canadian World served as a background for several productions, including several movies.
2013 saw a number of closures and vacancies. The tenant at the Kensington Station building vacated. The SL miniature steam train was noted as “gone” as of 2011 (though I can still see train cars on the tracks in 2019 videos, the green and gold engie is long gone). Several of the buildings by the north entrance of the park were completely closed due to structural instability, being simply unsafe to occupy or use. Public transportation to the park was slowly reduced, requiring visitors to come by private car or taxi. And of course, Canadian World was located where a coal mine had originally been, and is located in the mountains, not near a city. Distance was a factor.
2014 saw the end of a 20-year “Candle Art” event, held annually each August. No more would there be displays of flashlights, candles, laser beams, and fireworks – there simply weren’t enough funds or enough workers. The 2014 release of the Hanako and Anne anime did start to boost tourism, slightly, and Universal Music rereleased the omnibus Anne CD.
However, it still was not drawing in the crowds. Local committees began to meet to discuss the future for the park. Here, the translation from the Japanese Wiki again makes complete understanding a bit unclear, but it seems as though the city decided to stop having the park be a municipal park. The debts continued to pile up, and something on the order of $19 M USD was estimated to be needed in order to renovate the aging facilities, which had apparently weathered poorly. Most of the tenants had pulled out, leaving only the city-run buildings.
An October 2019 newspaper article quotes and official who blames the theming, saying “the content did not match the climate and temperament of Ashibetsu”. Take that as you will.
2004 image of Canadian World Park sign. (Image: Ozizo, via Wikipedia, used under CCBYSA.)
Canadian World (2019 – ?)
A new organization was set up called the “Canadian World Promotion Association” to take over operation of Canadian World, beginning from its 2019 winter closure. This group is an organization of volunteers, comprised of the tenants occupying the park as well as private sector members. The group requested to rent the facilities for free, with 2020 operation only on weekends and holidays (and weekdays during the school summer vacation).
The group also immediately began crowdfunding opportunities online, on readyfor.jp, a crowdfunding platform similar to Kickstarter. A March 4th newspaper article highlights the project and their crowdfunding efforts to date, bringing additional attention to the cause. This announcement is particularly interesting, detailing some of the buildings and the repairs needed for each of them. Walls are falling down, some doors don’t close, and the general air is one of disarray.
2004 image of Green Gables at Canadian World Park. (Image: Ozizo, via Wikipedia, used under CCBYSA.)
Fundraising has been quite successful, and the group has raised enough money to operate the park in 2020 and to begin basic repairs on the buildings, starting with Anne’s Green Gables house. The hope, based on the text in the crowdfunding updates, is that the operation will be self-funding from this point on through membership dues and fundraising activities elsewhere. Canadian World Promotion Association is quite transparent on their crowdfunding page about the costs involved with the park – reportedly the electric bill is the largest part of the operation, about 1 M yen or just under $10,000 USD for the half year when the park is open.
“Abandoned” Canadian World
Based on this history, you can see that Canadian World has never really been “abandoned” in its history, although some might consider the non-operational year in 1998 to be so. Rather, I think why Canadian World is often considered abandoned is because of its limited operational time period. During its most recent operation as a municipal park, Canadian World operated from the ended of April to the end of October, with limited hours (10 am to 5 pm). Most of the shops and tenants only operated on weekends, leaving the appearance of an abandoned site. Too, maintenance has been an ongoing struggle, and many of the buildings and park features were poorly maintained, giving the appearance of being much older than their actual years.
Today, Canadian World is unfortunately only popular in the Western world through abandoned and urbex tourism videos. People like “Exploring with Josh” create some incredibly cinematic videos of places like this, but then they use clickbaity titles like “Fake Town of Horrors – What Happened Here?” Obviously that title has no actual bearing on anything related to Anne of Green Gables or Canadian World. Josh’s video is respectful enough, but the title. I don’t like the title.
The park looks abandoned though, in every video I’ve ever seen of the place. The park is so spread out that even if there were many visitors, it would be hard to feel crowded. (A few videos exist online from the mid-90s, and even then, the park wasn’t crowded, though it was more populous than it is today.) The maintenance now is a huge issue – fences at an angle, getting close to falling in the lake. Lampposts tilting over, held up by ropes instead of being repaired properly. Illegible signs, faded and weatherworn. A long-abandoned chain swing, missing its swings, sits in the middle of the central plaza, rusting.
It’s exceedingly surreal to view the footage available of Canadian World. Operational, yet empty, it’s like being a part of a dream. One has the entire park to themselves, it seems like, this huge open-air vista of Western-style buildings right there in Japan.
Only a character so powerful as Anne of Green Gables, I have to think, would be able to keep pulling this off, dragging along this failing theme park and stil enticing tens of thousands of people to visit each year. What a legendary character.
Conclusions
Although I began researching this episode solely to talk about the theme park, I have to say that I’m grateful to have learned about Maud and Anne.
The introduction of Anne of Green Gables to Japan, it’s safe to say, had an outstanding effect on Japanese culture for such a small children’s book. The female Canadian missionaries like Loretta Leonard Shaw, who taught students like Hanako Muraoka, the first Anne translator, helped educate a generation of Japanese girls with increasingly modern ideals. Maud’s writing changed and developed with the times she lived in, a time of rapid growth in technology, wars, the roles of women, and so on. Yet she always knew that Anne would be her ultimate, enduring legacy: hopeful but fierce, in the face of all strife and struggle. Maud built for Anne a found family, sculpted out of her own hopes from the ashes of the nuclear family she herself never had, and this is a theme many still relate to today.
Beyond her characters and her prose, Maud’s mental health struggles and addiction problems are incredibly resonant today, the better part of a century later. The opioid crisis is a major societal issue today, though at least it’s more socially acceptable to discuss, and doesn’t have to be confined to private journal entries.
None of this was what I expected to find when I sat down to learn about this strange, not-really-abandoned theme park in Ashibetsu, Hokkaido, Japan. I wasn’t expecting to become fascinated by this strong, brave, brilliant woman, a person who has a gift for words reaching across the decades to talk with me. What a refreshing research topic, focusing on the lived experience of women. Not only that, but it was also refreshing to hear so much about the women Maud knew and the women who have since written about Maud. While I may not yet have the personal affection for the character Anne that so many do, I most certainly now have a deep admiration and respect for her creator, Lucy Maud Montgomery.
Maud’s first piece of writing she ever sought feedback on was a poem, which she considered her masterpiece at the age of 12. I thought it was beautiful, and a fitting end to today’s story.
“”When the evening sun is setting Quietly in the west, In a halo of rainbow glory, I sit me down to rest. I forget the present and future, I live over the past once more, As I see before me crowding The beautiful days of yore.””
Outro
Thanks for listening to this week’s episode of The Abandoned Carousel, where I talked about Lucy Maud Montgomery, Anne of Green Gables, and Canadian World, in Hokkaido, Japan. There are more Anne and Maud books out there than you could possibly imagine, but I’ll suggest the two that grabbed me: House of Dreams, by Liz Rosenberg, and Looking for Anne of Green Gables, by Irene Gammel. Both are engagingly written and fun to read, and contain far more detail than I could possibly present here.
My theme music is Aerobatics in Slow Motion by TeknoAXE. As always, you can find a rough transcript, images, and complete list of references at my website. For this episode, visit theabandonedcarousel.com/30. Thank you to Florian from Abandoned Kansai for allowing the inclusion of a photo; check out their great site.
I do have a Patreon, and I’ll shortly be publishing a complete behind-the-scenes podcast episode there, detailing the creation of this episode. You can find that at patreon.com/theabandonedcarousel. If you haven’t done so already, please leave a rating and review in your podcast app, especially on Apple Podcasts – just click the show name, click ratings and reviews, and drop five sparkly stars. It really helps others find the show. Finally, I’m going to be releasing a Q&A episode in the next few months, so now is a great time to send in a question you might like answered on that. For all questions, comments, corrections, and concerns, please visit my Contact page on my website, or simply email [email protected].
Remember that what you’ve read is a podcast! A link is included at the top of the page. Listen to more episodes of The Abandoned Carousel on your favorite platform: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RadioPublic | TuneIn | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Castro. Support the podcast on Patreon for extra content! Comment below to share your thoughts – as Lucy Maud Montgomery once said, nothing is ever really lost to us, as long as we remember it.
Gibson D. Across Canada by Story: A Coast-to-Coast Literary Adventure. ECW Press; 2015.
Uchiyama A. Akage no An in Japanese girl culture: Muraoka Hanako’s translation of Anne of Green Gables. Japan Forum. 2014;26. doi:10.1080/09555803.2014.900513
Bergstrom B. Avonlea as ‘world’: Japanese Anne of Green Gables tourism as embodied fandom. Japan Forum. 2014;26(2):224-245. doi:10.1080/09555803.2014.900514 31. Biography – MONTGOMERY, LUCY MAUD (Macdonald) – Volume XVII (1941-1950) – Dictionary of Canadian Biography. http://www.biographi.ca/en/bio/montgomery_lucy_maud_17E.html. Accessed March 2, 2020.
Canadian World-Redhead Ann’s Hometown And. Universal Music
Akamatsu Y. During and After the World Wars: L. M. Montgomery and the Canadian Missionary Connection in Japan. The Looking Glass : New Perspectives on Children’s Literature. 2015;18(2). https://www.lib.latrobe.edu.au/ojs/index.php/tlg/article/view/647. Accessed March 5, 2020.
Uchiyama A. Meeting the New Anne Shirley: Matsumoto Yūko’s Intimate Translation of Anne of Green Gables. ttr. 2013;26(1):153-175. doi:https://doi.org/10.7202/1036953ar
カナディアンワールド公園|芦別市観光総合ガイド「星の降る里あしべつ」. 芦別市観光総合ガイド「星の降る里あしべつ」. http://go-to-ashibetsu.com/. Accessed February 11, 2020.
さらばグリーンゲイブルズ。2019年で閉鎖が決まった北海道芦別市のカナディアンワールド公園→2020年以降も存続が決定!. プチノマドになりたい主婦の雑記ブログ. March 2019. https://petitnomado.com/canadianworld/. Accessed February 11, 2020.
]]>https://theabandonedcarousel.com/lucy-maud-montgomery-canadian-world-anne-of-green-gables/feed/199040Royal Land
https://theabandonedcarousel.com/royal-land/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=royal-land
https://theabandonedcarousel.com/royal-land/#commentsWed, 26 Feb 2020 10:00:00 +0000https://theabandonedcarousel.com/?p=91995(This is a podcast! Press play in the embedded player below to listen, or subscribe in your favorite podcast app!) Picture yourself driving down I-20 in Meridian, MS. It’s your... Read more »
]]>(This is a podcast! Press play in the embedded player below to listen, or subscribe in your favorite podcast app!)
Picture yourself driving down I-20 in Meridian, MS. It’s your average American town, with Motel 6s and McDonalds. As you near the exit, you decide to turn off because there’s something interesting just off the front road, glinting in the sun. You turn onto Sowashee St.
There’s a lot with a for sale sign plastered on a billboard over the top of abandoned entrance gates, perhaps last used thirty five years ago. Next to it, a white structure covered in rust stands out against the blue sky, behind an ever-growing forest of trees. Could this be a drive-in?
You continue down the road, and suddenly jerk your car to the right onto the shoulder in surprise. There, looming behind some trees, a specter on this otherwise cheerful summer day. The foliage is lush and green, but what lays behind it is eerie, something out of the twilight zone.
Concrete block turrets, grey with age. Two. A rusting metal gate, solid and vintage, stands slightly askew. Arching overhead, a sign, or what used to be one. It’s not legible from inside your car, hidden behind a branch, but something compels you to hop out and get a closer look.
As you step from the car, the chill of the air conditioner is quickly driven away by the hot air of a Southern summer, heavy on your skin like a wet wool blanket. You bat away a cloud of mosquitoes as you step from faded asphalt onto concrete that’s literally vanishing into the grass below your feet.
And as your hand clears your face, the outline of long-faded letters on the sign becomes clear, tangled overgrowth obscuring the path that once ran beneath it. This was the entrance to Royal Land.
Today, it’s all abandoned: the amusement park and the fairgrounds and the drive-in and the baseball stadium. But a generation or two ago, this small corner of Meridian, MS was a bustling place to be.
Behind Royal Land: Lloyd Royal
It began with A. Lloyd Royal, Sr. He was a man of the South, born in the 1910s.
Lloyd spent his early 20s, between 1936 and 1944, building at least 14 independent movie theatres across Mississippi. In Greenwood, Hattiesburg, Gulfport, Picayune, McComb, Carrollton, Lumberton, and Purvis, among other towns, Royal established different movie houses. It was January of 1941 when Royal opened his first theater in Meridian, the “Royal Theater”, becoming the fifth movie theater in the town. The Royal Theater, by the accounts I read, was said to have quickly establish itself as a landmark. Think of the time period – the movie theaters would’ve had air conditioning (of some sort) long before it was common in folks’ houses, and this of course is the South – on a hot muggy summer day, where to go but the pictures?
Theaters opened and closed in Meridian through the war years, but the Royal Theater stayed strong. By the 1950s, a big tidal change was sweeping through the States. If you recall my last episode on the Land of Kong, where I talked about the history of US roadways, you’ll remember the Federal Highway Act, which became law in 1956. The 1950s saw a huge boom in American car ownership. Pre-WWII, most people did not own a car. Post-war, a glut of small cheap houses were built outside towns to accomodate returning soldiers and their ever-growing families. Prosperity meant that owning a car was within reach for the average American, and not only that, but cars began to have AC installed as a standard feature. Cars were almost more comfortable than the American living room.
So what entered the picture? The drive-in theater.
The earliest forms of drive-in were set up in 1915, but the drive-in theater as a concept was patented officially in 1933 by Richard Hollingshead Jr. His first drive-in theater opened in New Jersey that year, but pre-WWII, there were still only a handful of theaters open in the US – about 15. Post-war, of course, drive-ins boomed like everything else, and hundreds of new drive-in theaters opened each year.
Lloyd Royal capitalized on that bandwagon, and opened the Royal Drive-In in either 1950 or 1953, at 2601 Sowashee Street, there in Meridian, MS. It was located adjacent to a baseball stadium.
He stayed connected, serving on the War Activities Committee of the MPAA; the March of Dimes Committee; former President of the Lumberton Rotary Club; and the Legislative Committee of the Meridian Exchange Club. (I was unfamiliar with the latter, as it wasn’t an activity where I grew up – turns out this is a national service organization. The Mississippi District has been a part of the national organization since the 1920s, and it’s still going strong today.)
By 1952, he was President of the Mississippi Theater Owners Association. That same 1952 blurb in the Clark County Tribune called him “one of the most progressive and important exhibitors in the state”.
By 1959, he’d served as president of the Tri-States Theater Owners Association, as well as president of the Meridian Exchange Club.
Movies of Lloyd Royal
Not only was Lloyd Royal interested in being a business manager and owning his own line of theatres, he was also a part of the movie business itself.
Royal produced or wrote three movies, by most accounts: 1954’s Jesse James’ Women, 1956’s Frontier Woman, and 1960’s Natchez Trace. All were filmed in the South, not in Hollywood itself. Royal by this point was the president of Panorama Pictures, a Mississippi-based production company.
Two of the movies are still extant and easily watchable today. Jesse James’ Women is available in full under public domain license on the Internet Archive. This one is a classic 50s Western that probably hasn’t aged particularly well, given the summary: “The fugitive outlaw (Don Barry) enjoys the company of several ladies while he and his gang hide out in a Mississippi town.”
Natchez Trace appears to be the most popular of the three films, with a 6.9/10 rating on IMDB. “The daughter of a murdered plantation owner and her fiance try to disrupt an outlaw’s plans to build an empire of thieves along the popular Mississippi-Tennessee trail.” The movie is named after a 440-mile long trail between Nashville TN and NAtchez MS, which fell out of use when traffic shifted from trail to steamboats on the Mississippi.
The third, Frontier Woman, was exceedingly confusing by all accounts. Rumor says that most or all of the copies of the film have been destroyed, save for one, said to be in the hands of the film’s tiniest, trivialist star. Today, this film is noted for a tiny triviality. Actor Harold Beckenholdt played an unscrupulous trader in the film. He included his son Ron, then 8 months old, in the film in a small cameo, just because. Of course, you don’t know Harold Beckenholdt, but Harold chanced his name to Rance Howard. And you definitely know Ron Howard, who made his feature film debut here in Frontier Woman. Yes, the very famous Ron Howard, with too many film credits to his name, things like Apollo 13 and The Andy Griffith Show and Happy Days.
All three movies were well-received at the time of their release, with special showings locally to honor the local filmmaker.
Buckwalter Stadium, near Royal Land
Somewhere in the mid-1950s, between movie productions and theater openings, Lloyd Royal added “baseball stadium owner” to the list, purchasing Buckwalter Stadium, adjacent to the Royal Drive-In he’d purchased a few years prior, there on Sowashee Street.
The stadium wasn’t new even then.
It’s falsely claimed in many articles and discussions on this topic that the stadium was constructed in the 1930s. The most popular video about this place (type “1930s abandoned baseball” into Google and this video is probably your top result. I’ll also link it in the playlist I’ve created on my YouTube channel for this episode.) even claims this was built in the 1930s. Unfortunately, these other sites are falsely conflating two different baseball parks: Fairgrounds Park and Buckwalter Stadium.
It is the conclusion of my research in this area that the stadium was actually built in 1947. The local team back then was a new club called the Meridian Peps, and their president was a guy named Charles Buckwalter, who at one time owned the Meridian Pepsi-Cola Bottling Plant, to give you an idea. In fact: “Meridian Peps”, “Pepsi-Cola”…
Meridian Peps (1946-1950)
The club formed after the war, and the team played minor league baseball, in the Southeastern League. But it was a rocky road. Despite popularity with the locals, baseball was expensive. The Peps didn’t have their own park, so they played at Fairgrounds Park, the site of the now-defunct Valley Fair Mall in modern Meridian. Teams had played there since 1922: Meridian Mets, Meridian Scrappers, Meridian Bears, Meridian Eagles, and now the Meridian Peps. But the Peps weren’t happy with the stadium.
An October 1946 article in The Greenwood Commonwealth says the following: “Charles Buckwalter, president of the Meridian Peps, Southeastern League, said he would not Benter a team in the 1947 race unless a satisfactory park is provided in which to play. Buckwalter said the club went deeply in the hole last year, spending about $5,000 for the use of the fairgrounds, privately owned, while some other cities had only to pay a token fee of $1 for the entire year.” In November 1946, The Selma Times-Journal echoed similar sentiments, noting that the future of the Meridian club in the Southeastern Baseball League was dependent on “civic pride and spirit”, as the current owners of the Fairground Field baseball park they played at charged them a fee to use the park and would not allow the team to collect on fence ads, which could’ve brought in a proposed $2500. That opinion article closes by saying “That is definitely a losing proposition and Charles Buckwalter is certainly within his rights in refusing to pay through the nose for civic enterprise.”
By January 1947, Buckwalter licensed the Peps to be a subsidiary for the Cleveland Indians, retaining 25% of the stocks for himself and continuing as president. This sale likely allowed him to pick up the additional funds he needed. It’s not entirely clear what happened with this deal, though, as two years later, by January 1949, the club was back up for sale again. In comments to the papers, Buckwalter claimed that he had suffered financial losses for each of the three previous seasons of the club’s operation, and declared that the club needed financial backing or else it would have to leave Meridian for nearby Laurel or Hattiesburg. By February of that year, a group of local businessmen stepped up to the plate, leasing the team and park from Buckwalter in a $10,000 deal (in today’s money, $105,500).
A 1949 article notes that Buckwalter “personally built the Peps field out of his own pocket”.
Though the citizens had grand plans, the renamed Meridian Millers team and the B-class Southeastern League fell apart after only a year under new management. In 1951 and 1952, Charles Buckwalter began hosting the New Meridian Fair and Cattle Show at his Buckwalter Stadium and property instead of baseball.
Meridian Millers (1952-1955)
By 1952, Meridian was back in the baseball game, however, taking over the Clarksdale baseball franchise in the class C Cotton States League. The Meridian Millers had great success their first year in the league, winning the championship in 1952 and 1953. However, it was not to last.
Jackie Robinson had broken the color barrier in Major League Baseball after the war in 1947. The hurdles were fierce for non-whites, and the Cotton States League and other Deep South teams did not follow popular sentiment, and refused to integrate, hiring white players only (with one exception, which I’ll get to). This unsurprisingly alienated fans of color. Minor league baseball also started to see fierce competition from a wide range of similarly accessible amusement options. Baseball fans could watch major league baseball on TV or listen to it on the radio. Attendance at minor league games began to drop.
The Cotton States League team, the Hot Springs Bathers, hired two players in 1953: Jim and Leander Tugerson, both WWII veterans who’d been pitchers from the Negro League. This was done against the opposition of the league president, who is quoted as saying “I advised against signing (black players) and requested they do not attempt it at this time knowing the hornet’s nest it would stir up.” Five days after they were signed, the remaining teams in the Cotton States League voted unanimously to expel the Bathers from the League as a result.
The Bathers were later reinstated that season, but the Tugersons were shipped to other leagues. When the Bathers had a pitching injury in their roster in April 1953, they called Jim Tugerson back up. He was set to pitch in front of 1500 strong, lights on, bats out. But as a result, the president of the CSL called the game a forfeit before the first pitch had even been thrown.
Jim Tugerson went back to the D-class Knoxville Smokies, where he was celebrated with a Jim Tugerson Night. And then he filed a federal lawsuit against the Cotton States League, its teams, and its president. The lawsuit was dismissed later that year, but it was too late; it was a sign of a turning tide. Uvoyd Reynolds, another player of color, suited up for the Bathers in 1954.
Not only that, but also in 1954, even “our” team, the Meridian Millers, hired a person of color against the strictures of the Mississippi Constitution set in 1890. And this guy, we’ve got to talk about this guy next.
Carlos “Chico” Heron
Born in March 1936 in Bocas del Toro, Panama, Carlos “Chico” Heron was a right-handed second baseman. In 1954, he joined the Meridian Millers, becoming the first player of color to sign with a Mississippi team.
He played with a number of different teams both in the US and in Panama over the next decade, before moving to a more managerial position, coaching teams in both Canada and Panama throughout the 70s. He held position of Panama’s National Team coach for more than 20 years.
The big thing about Chico Heron is that he became a scout in the more modern era since the late 1970s, scouting for the Philadelphia Phillies, the Kansas City Royals, the Saint Louis Cardinals, and finally a little team called the New York Yankees.
It was here that Chico Heron is most known in the US, as he brought a young guy by the name of Mariano Rivera to the attention of the Yankees. Rivera caught the eye of Heron, and after some time pitching under observation in Panama, was signed by the Yankees. Even if you’re not into baseball, you’ve probably at least some passing familiarity with the name. Mariano Rivera was the Yankees closing pitcher for 17 years, between 1995 and 2013. His presence at the end of games was signalled by the song “Enter Sandman”, ominous tones marking how well he saved games. Rivera was a major contributor to the Yankees success during his time there, and it’s only because of Chico Heron that he obtained the position to begin with.
Heron was more than just a scout, though. It’s said that he had a huge influence on the people he worked with, instilling a sense of love and discipline in every player. He was a dedicated man, a giver, and an inspirational figure.
After Heron’s death in 2007, Mariano Rivera described Chico Heron, saying “he was one of those men that if I call him any time, anytime that I need something from him, he would have done it on the spot.” Rivera went on to say “that’s how close he was to me. I respect that man until the day he died.”
Flashing back in time, back to Meridian and Buckwalter Stadium, we return to 1954.
At the end of the 1954 season, all players of color hired in the Cotton States League were released to other teams. Baseball at this unpretentious field came to an end the next year, as it’s said a team called the Pine Bluff Judges joined with the Meridian Millers mid-season and finished their 1955 season there at Buckwalter Stadium.
Royal Land
Here in 1955, then, we are almost ready to talk about Royal Land.
Carnivals and Fairs in Meridian
With the collapse of the Cotton States League marking the end of baseball at Buckwalter Stadium, fairs and movies became the non-televised entertainment options of the day. It appears that the Royal family purchased Buckwalter Stadium around this time. As noted earlier, the New Meridian Fair operated at Buckwalter Stadium at least in 1951 and 1952, but from what I can tell, the general opinion at the time was that the fair elsewhere in town under other operation had gone downhill, getting smaller and run-down. By 1956 or 1957, with the purchase of Buckwalter Stadium and surrounding lands, Lloyd Royal began operating the Mississippi-Alabama State Fair in Meridian.
(As a brief sidebar, for whatever reason, it seems unlikely that the fair operated in 1956 in Meridian, or if it did, it wasn’t noteworthy, and here’s why. If you just Google “Mississippi-Alabama Fair” you’ll get thousands of hits, about the 1956 fair held in Tupelo, MS. Of course the fair was held in multiple cities throughout the season, but 1956 in Tupelo was something different. A young singer named Elvis Presley had become incredibly famous in 1956, and he returned to Tupelo, his birthplace, in a “homecoming” event at the fair that year. It was unsurprisingly hugely popular, and you can find several videos of the event up on YouTube. Elvis’ charm with the crowd is undeniable, and he cuts a magnetic figure up on the slightly elevated stage above his screaming fans. )
The Mississippi-Alabama State Fair in Meridian was from then on held at the old Buckwalter Stadium, behind the Royal Drive-In. The grandstands (the former baseball stands) were used for the big shows and events, and the midway and other concessions stretched out on the land between the baseball stadium and the drive-in.
It earned a reputation as “of the cleanest and best operated fairs in the South.” Big name carnivals like Century 21 Shows and Heth Shows (famed for their 30-car railroad and “mile-long midway”) provided impressive midways and rides, with the excitement of all of our mid-century and even present day favorites: Caterpillars and Roll-o-planes and Mad Mouse Coasters, Ferris Wheels, and of course, the humble carousel. Refreshments stands and ticket booths were operated by local civic groups and religious organizations.
Royal was an excellent manager, as evidenced by his long track record in the movie theater business, regularly coming up with new ways to thrill his guests. In 1959, he staged a helicopter landing in nearby Quitman to help promote the fair. This was a huge deal at the time, and I think it still would draw a small crowd even today. After a weather delay, one lucky passenger was picked up and flown in a Bell G47 Whirlybird to the Meridian fairgrounds. Apparently the helicopter was the centerpiece of the Atterbury-Hornbeck trapeze act which operated at fairs around the country in the late 1950s. This act featured two acrobats doing daredevil stunts, dangling outside of the helicopter while it flew and hovered over the grounds of the grandstands. Unsurprisingly, several acrobats got injured during the brief lifetime of the act.
The highlight of the 1960 fair was the unique high diving grandma, Ella Carver. In this pinnacle of spectacle, thousands crowded the grandstands of Buckwalter Stadium and watched as the 72-year-old Carver leapt off a flaming 90-foot-tall tower, diving into a 6-ft-deep bucket of water covered in flames.
Operations continued on. 1960 saw Lloyd Royal opening his own newspaper in Meridian, the Meridian Leader, a weekly competitor to the established Meridian Star. One story I saw had it that he wanted more flexibility on opinion pieces and availability for print advertising, the lifeblood for a movie business back in the day.
And in 1964, Lloyd Royal expanded his fair operations, opening a new fair in Hattiesburg. All the while, his movie theater operations had continued, opening new theaters throughout the South.
Royal Land
And in 1967, Lloyd Royal and his sons began construction on something new, adjacent to the drive-in and the stadium fairgrounds.
There are two versions of the story. In one, likely the more true version, the rides for Royal Land, for that was what they were building, were purchased secondhand and refurbished into working condition.
In the other, more colorful version of the story, rides had been abandoned by the carnies at the fairgrounds over the years. Broken, rusting, and otherwise unusable, the rides were then salvaged, cobbled together into something barely functional.
The second option is likely an embellished story, but this is the popular conception of Royal Land that remains on most abandoned theme park and basic urbex sites. It’s of course very unlikely that any ride destined for the scrap heap would be able to be pushed into service in a theme park, even in a small Mississippi town.
The most renowned ride at Royal Land was the miniature train, remembered in nearly every recollection I saw about the amusement park.
It appears that the train was a miniature GM aerotrain streamliner, similar to those made by Ottaway Amusement Company (if you remember back to the Joyland episodes I did last year, you’ll remember this amusement magnate). A video of a similar train can be found on YouTube, operating at the Ellis, KS railroad museum. Picture the 1950s space age aesthetic, sleek and shiny, with passengers perched on the backs of the open-air cars.
The train was said to run on a track around the circumference of the park, roughly half a mile to a mile long, through the woods and over a trestle bridge, around a lake stocked with jumping goldfish.
There was a real train car at Royal Land, too: an L&N Pullman car serving as a restaurant, as well as an old boxcar used as storage. The seminal source for information about the park is a decade-old story from the local paper, and it suggests that “the train” was leftover from a movie set, though the story is unclear whether this is the Pullman car or the miniature train ride. Most likely, this comment is in reference to the Pullman car – the train restaurant was used prior to its days as a restaurant in the 1966 film “This Property is Condemned”. Indeed, in the newspaper article, Monte Royal is quoted talking about the temperature of the train, saying that it “was a bakery in that thing in summertime.” As the train ride was completely outside and un-air-conditioned, this was then about the Pullman car.
Other Rides at Royal Land
Royal Land also had a handful of other rides. It’s reported that there was a merry go round, as well as other circular or umbrella-style flat rides that you could find at any fair. Given the name of the podcast, you know I wish I had more information on the carousel, but alas, with this one, so much has been lost to time.
There were pony rides, including one named Trigger with a bad temper, who is said to have kicked and bucked something fierce.
There was a Ferris wheel, which Monte Royal (Lloyd’s son) recollected having nightmares of it falling over on him. One comment I read suggested there might have been a kiddie Ferris wheel as well as an adult-sized wheel, but this is again not clear.
And of course there was a little roller coaster, likely a classic Allen Herschell Little Dipper coaster, that simple circuit with its classic ups and downs. (If you recall, I talked about one back in the Little Amerricka episode. A fun first coaster.) It seems as though it wasn’t always assembled correctly; our newspaper article describes the coaster as having difficulty getting over the hills sometimes and needing to be pushed by hand.
There was a go-kart track adjacent to Royal Land, as well, very visible from the satellite view of Google Maps. It’s not clear whether it was part of Royal Land or a separate thing. Apparently there used to be races on Sundays for several years until the nearby hotel complained about the noise. Reportedly, the track sat abandoned for decades before becoming a radio-controlled car track for a few years recently.
Most of the park was said to be operated on an old “half-broken” generator that was constantly breaking down or operating with too many draws on the power. The stories described in the newspaper article about Royal Land are like something out of a Stephen King book. It’s said that when too much was running at once, everything would slow to a crawl, even the music of the rides. Can you imagine, half-speed or slower plinkety-plink carousel carnival music, weirdly spinning up and slowing down? Terrifying.
Royal Land, Abandoned
Royal Land opened in 1968, and operated in 1969 as well, before shuttering for good. While it was open, the place was a wonderful spot for local families, birthday parties, etc. (You could get your name on the marquee out in front of the park!) There was nothing nefarious about the closure, no murders or deaths or illicit activities. As you can probably guess, the real reasons were economic: Royal Land simply didn’t make enough money to stay in business. It wasn’t financially viable to keep operating Royal Land.
Now of course, the Internet will Internet, and I’ve seen lots of plausible suggestions that might also have contributed to the downfall of Royal Land: insurance costs, land located on a flood plain, bad wells, tax costs, not enough guests. Whether any of these reasons contributed is unclear. Ultimately, the visitors for the site simply weren’t there.
There are no extant pictures of Royal Land in operation that I’ve been able to find. Everything is lost in people’s basements and attics, on old film reels and fading away in photo albums. If you’ve got photos of Royal Land in any state, please send them in!
After Royal Land closed, the rides were slowly auctioned off one by one. I saw a comment online saying that the roller coaster was the last to go, and that the kids in the family assembled and disassembled the little coaster for school projects.
Abandoned Royal Land Today
Though Royal Land had closed, the adjacent businesses stayed operational for several decades longer. The Royal Drive-In closed in 1985, and the last fair operated in Buckwalter Stadium in the late 90s, around 1998. So yes, that incredibly well-filmed, beautiful viral video about the 1930s baseball stadium? Well, it’s more like an “abandoned for 20 years stadium”. Still impressive on its own merits, but it certainly hasn’t been abandoned since the 1950s like the video suggests.
Interestingly, it seems that a documentary is being made, or perhaps has been made already. Panamanian filmmaker Alberto Serra is working on a documentary about the life and legacy of Chico Heron and his influence on modern baseball legends like Mariano Rivera. Part of the documentary filmed at Buckwalter Stadium. The film is to be called Chico Heron y el Ultimo 42; a trailer for it was released in January. It appears the documentary was released last July in Panama; I’m not clear if the new trailer indicates a new release, perhaps on the film festival circuit, is coming.
The old L&N Pullman car was removed, moved to the Meridian Railway Museum. It was L&N 6157, known as Miss Alva’s Diner. The train car was featured in the 1966 film “This Property is Condemned”. I saw a comment online that this was actually not the correct number, that this had been painted for the movie and that the actual info was “The car is Louisiana & Arkansas (KCS) 353, ex-PULL 4127, nee-Monteith, a former Plan 2411 16 Section sleeper that KCS rebuilt as a coach.” but I wasn’t able to find more information to this end. Here’s a FB group thread discussing how the train cars were moved from Royal Land to their current location. It’s actually quite sad to see recent pictures of the Pullman car – it’s rusted and faded, numbers and letters nearly illegible. The scene is a far cry from the crisp green paint with white lettering and fancy trim that once beckoned visitors to Miss Alva’s Bar-B-Q. Like so many other pieces of rolling stock, this Pullman car is almost certainly destined to sit and rot until it’s nothing more than a piece of rust.
As for Royal Land itself, nothing remains except the iconic castle gates, which are visible from the roads. If you’re tempted to visit, please don’t. The land is private property, reportedly crawling with ticks, and nothing of any note beyond the gates is left on site to see. The land is for sale, should you be interested, but the Royal family still own the property and will prosecute any and all trespassers.
Instead, take a virtual walk. There are a couple of unauthorized trespassing videos available on YouTube, or you can take a look at a motion picture, filmed with permission instead. Royal Land has been featured in a indie flick called Ozland in the modern era. This movie is available on Amazon Prime. Fast forward to timestamp 41:02, and take in a beautiful HD view of the old castle gates, the destroyed fairgrounds, the old baseball stadium. The movie was filmed in 2014, and very nicely encapsulates the entire Royal Land / Buckwalter Stadium / fairgrounds area as it stands today.
Conclusions
Lloyd Royal, the master of Royal Land, brought liveliness and entertainment to Meridian and the South for decades. Fairs in Petal/Hattiesburg and Meridian, the Royal Drive-In as well as other theaters, Royal Land, WQIC (a radio station)…this was a man with his hands in many businesses, a successful businessman. He and his family had a long impact on the area.
Today, some of those enterprises are defunct, but others still live on under new operation. And for what’s gone, there are still memories of the days and places gone by.
This park, Royal Land, has been inside my brain for quite some time. There’s nothing quite like that sudden haunting image in front of you, of seeing the dark castle gates, slowly being enveloped back inside a forest of greenery. Once the land was clear and neatly manicured, full of laughter and music and rides; today it’s been reclaimed by the fast-growing flora of the South, silent but for passing cars on the frontage road and the highway nearby.
But if you stop and listen, maybe, just maybe, you can still hear the carousel music, like a whisper on the wind of a legacy of childhood joy. Can you hear it?
Remember that what you’ve read is a podcast! A link is included at the top of the page. Listen to more episodes of The Abandoned Carousel on your favorite platform: Apple Podcasts | Google Podcasts | Spotify | RadioPublic | TuneIn | Overcast | Pocket Casts | Castro. Support the podcast on Patreon for extra content! Comment below to share your thoughts – as Lucy Maud Montgomery once said, nothing is ever really lost to us, as long as we remember it.
Tom VH. Carlos (Karl) “Chico” Heron discovered Mariano Rivera in Panama and was his Mentor. Béisbol 101. January 2020. https://www.beisbol101.com/2020/01/9993/. Accessed February 16, 2020.
]]>https://theabandonedcarousel.com/royal-land/feed/391995Dinosaur World, or “John Agar’s Land of Kong”
https://theabandonedcarousel.com/dinosaur-world/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=dinosaur-world
https://theabandonedcarousel.com/dinosaur-world/#respondWed, 12 Feb 2020 10:00:00 +0000https://theabandonedcarousel.com/?p=82781Once a prime draw for adventurous motorists, dinosaur-themed roadside attractions once ruled the day. Some, like Dinosaur Park in South Dakota, persevered, while others, like today’s focal point, Dinosaur World... Read more »
]]>Once a prime draw for adventurous motorists, dinosaur-themed roadside attractions once ruled the day. Some, like Dinosaur Park in South Dakota, persevered, while others, like today’s focal point, Dinosaur World in Arkansas, faded away into obscurity. Today, the history of the American freeway, the rise and fall of the roadside attraction, the sculptures of one Emmet Sullivan, and the long-lingering dinos once known as the Land of Kong.
Cover image courtesy Kirk @ Secret Fun Blog; podcast carousel background by 4045 @freepik.com; theme music “Aerobatics in Slow Motion” by TeknoAXE.
Roadside Attractions and the Interstate Highway System
As I’ve discussed so often on this podcast, many smaller theme parks and roadside attractions in the US harken back to the days when the roads in the US were much less established. In particular, some of the attractions I’ll be talking about today, like Mount Rushmore and Dinosaur Park, were both products of the late 1930s, well before the Interstate Highway System. To really center ourselves on today’s episode, I wanted to dig a little deeper into the history of roads in the United States before we talk about today’s theme park Dinosaur World.
In the beginning of the 20th century, the nation primarily had dirt “auto trails”, marked by colored bands on telephone poles to help orient travelers (or barns or rocks or literally any surface facing the road). Roads were more or less terrible – they turned to impassable knee-deep mud after rains or floods, and then became scored with huge ruts and furrows that made any cart or car ride bone-shakingly uncomfortable.
The railway was the primary mode for interstate travel, with roadways being of mostly local and rural interest. Think about your average country dirt backroad and you might have the shape of it. For long-distance travel, a person was far more likely to choose the railroad, because it actually did the job. There was chatter and growing support for a set of improved interstate roadways, but Congress wasn’t yet interested in providing federal funding for such projects, with nice roads reportedly considered luxuries. Auto trails, then, were run by local trail associations, uniting local roads of various qualities and differing signages.
And I was surprised to learn that many of these roads weren’t laid out along the quickest route or the route that made the most geographic sense. No, apparently the businesses and towns along the routes paid dues to the trail associations which published trail guides and promoted the use of their routes. Therefore, it was to the benefit of pretty much everyone except the traveler to have routes be quite indirect.
The Lincoln Highway
A man named Carl Fisher, remembered for little things like the Indianapolis Motor Speedway and major development of the city of Miami Beach, has been credited with the conception and development of the literally groundbreaking idea, the Lincoln Highway. In 1912 he began promoting a dream: a modern transcontinental highway to connect New York and San Francisco. “Let’s build it before we’re too old to enjoy it!” he told his friends, people like Theodore Roosevelt, Thomas Edison, and Woodrow Wilson.
It was still a trail association, but on a grand scale.
Early funding for the project came from private investors and businesses, before the government was interested. The progress of the Lincoln Highway was widely reported throughout newspapers, with each major or minor monetary contribution publicized and promoted, improving public opinion regarding public roadway projects. Convoys were sent across the country, to scout the route, visit the towns, and generally promote the project. The US Army had a well-publicized contribution, called the Transcontinental Motor Convoy in 1919. It took them two months to travel across the country, due to broken bridges and muddy crossings which stranded vehicles. These difficulties were used to show the need for better interstate highways and helped build popular support on both federal and local levels.
Early road signs were poor; here, the only road-related sign sits small and illegible in the junction between the fork in the road. The Lincoln Highway near Pennsylvania Tunnel. 1922 image, in the public domain. https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lincoln_Highway_M0377-150dpi.jpg
The Numbered US Highway System
The Lincoln Highway also encourage or required high quality paved roadbeds along its routes. It was groundbreaking, and many additional associations built or improved roadway systems under the trail association model, often in the popular transcontinental direction. There were over 250 named routes by the mid-1920s, things like the Pikes Peak Ocean to Ocean Highway, the Three C Highway, the Dixie Highway, and so on.
However, the increase in named roads and automobile traffic led to a rise in problems as a result. Some routes went through dues-paying cities instead of through the best route for drivers, such as the Arrowhead Trail, favored back in the day by the state of Utah for keeping LA-bound drivers in Utah for hundreds of (desolate) miles longer than the competing Lincoln Highway. Confusion among drivers over which route to take was common, and was almost encouraged by cross-promotion from different trail booster associations. Additionally, many routes overlapped, which caused further confusion among drivers.
And ultimately it seemed as though the association model meant fewer people were willing to take responsibility for road conditions, signage, and improvements (meaning roads weren’t maintained). The common method for directions at the time referred to landmarks – turn after the red barn, take the right-hand fork after the fallen log, and so on – well, this was just confusing, and if any slight change in the environment occurred, drivers would be hopelessly lost. As state highway engineer Arthur Hirst remarked to a National Road Congress in 1918, “The ordinary trail promoter has seemingly considered that plenty of wind and a few barrels of paint are all that is required to build and maintain a 2000-mile trail.” A 1918 map shows the mind-boggling number of short trails drivers were told to use: https://www.loc.gov/item/73692230/.
The vast set of road trails prior to the US Numbered Highway System. 1918 US road map. Public domain; Library of Congress, Geography and Maps Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/73692230/
In 1918, Wisconsin led the way to a more logical process which is still in use today: a uniform numbering system. Signs were posted everywhere along routes, with the plan being “to be rather profuse with these road markers” as travelers would flourish with the “kindly reminder that he is still on the right road”. No longer in Wisconsin then would travelers be confused – now a direction could be “take number 12 until you meet number 21”, much more clear (particularly in the midwest’s snowy weather, where I speak to you from today). However, names lingered in prominence for another decade or so, even in those states like Wisconsin and Iowa that had adopted numbering systems.
By the early 1920s, however, the governments had gotten involved, with the American Association of State Highway and Transportation Officials (AASHO). The number of vehicles had gone from 0.5 million in 1910 to almost 10 million by 1920, and over 26 million by 1930. The government, through a series of committees and meetings, developed what would eventually be called the US Numbered Highway System, or in casual parlance, US Routes or US Highways. The trail associations obviously kicked up a fuss (why not substitute “arithmetic for history, mathematics for romance”, said one Ernest McGaffey of the Automobile Club of Southern California, who advised motorists at the time to always pack a tent, shovel, and ax when driving), but in the end, logic won out.
On November 11, 1926, all of the old national road trails were officially renumbered into the US National Highway System. (The in-depth history of the change from names to numbers is fascinating, and I recommend reading Richard Weingroff’s article “From Names to Numbers: The Origins of the U.S. Numbered Highway System”.) The numbered system almost immediately rendered the trail association system obsolete, with new clear iconic black and white shield signage telling drivers where they were and where they were going, clear and simple. The federal government also began to maintain and improve the roads in this system.
This, then, is the road system in place at the time of the construction of Mount Rushmore and Dinosaur Park.
Map of numbered US Highways, 1926. Public domain.
Interstate Highway System
Of course, as I discussed some in my previous episode on the towns called Santa Claus, these were still smaller roads, often only two lanes. Pavement or even good quality road condition was still not a guarantee as we might think of today. As early as 1938, FDR, the 32nd US president, began commissioning studies and reports on potential “superhighway” corridors, with additional reports and plans coming in over the next decade.
The 34th US President was one Dwight Eisenhower, and he was a champion of the proposed Interstate Highway system. If you recall, the 1919 Transcontinental Army Convoy was meant to showcase the Lincoln Highway, as I mentioned a few minutes ago. A young Lieutenant Eisenhower happened to be a part of that convoy, and found the experience incredibly memorable. Combined with his experiences of Germany’s autobahn system in the 1940s, he saw considerable advantage in constructing a true interstate highway system.
The Federal Aid Highway Act of 1956 became law, and marked the beginning of the Interstate Highway System. Through a gasoline tax funding the Highway Trust Fund, the federal government would pay for 90% of the cost of interstate highway construction. (The gas tax is still in place today.) Construction began immediately in 1956, and a few roads were grandfathered into the system, such as the Pennsylvania Turnpike, portions of which were constructed in 1940.
I won’t dwell much more on the interstate highway system, as I’ve already covered it in a bit more depth in other episodes. It wasn’t until 1992 that the system was declared complete, some 35 years after its implementation (and 23 years longer than it was originally said to take). And of course, although this seems recent, the mid-90s were still almost thirty years ago. (!)
Emmet Sullivan
Against this background, I bring you back to the topic at hand. It’s time to talk about a man named Emmet Aloysious Sullivan, born in 1887, back in the Gilded Age. He was originally a cowboy in Montana. After serving in the first World War, Sullivan returned to South Dakota and turned to sculpture.
Sullivan, of course, was the guy who did many of the Dinosaur World sculptures. We’ll get there. It’s a long and winding podcast road today. Before he sculpted Dinosaur World in Arkansas, Sullivan worked on a number of different projects.
Sullivan is widely noted for being one of the assistant sculptors on Mount Rushmore, there in the Black Hills of South Dakota. He’s said to have worked closely with the head sculptor, the famous (and infamous) Gutzon Borglum. Look into this guy if you need a deep dive, for real. There’s no payroll records of Sullivan working on the project, no obvious newspaper stories, but South Dakota was even less populated at the beginning of the 1900s than it is now in 2020, so it’s likely that the two sculptors were at least familiar with one another in passing.
Sculpting of George Washington on Mount Rushmore began in 1927, and was completed in 1934; the seven-year construction period was due to the onset of the Great Depression. Subsequent presidential heads were completed in 1936, 1937, and 1939.
After his time on Rushmore, Sullivan continued his work as a sculptor, on a slightly smaller scale. His next project was a roadside attraction called Dinosaur Park, located not too far from Mount Rushmore, in Rapid City, South Dakota.
Dinosaur Park in South Dakota
Against our background of a burgeoning motorist society, still lightyears more retro than our systems today, Emmet Sullivan’s Dinosaur Park was commissioned in February of 1936 by the WPA (Works Progress Administration). In case you’ve forgotten your high school history classes, I’ll be happy to oblige. The WPA was part of FDR’s New Deal programs, designed to combat the Great Depression. The goal was to employ the unemployed, ultimately some 3.3 million people at its peak. Jobs were all public works, most planned and sponsored by states, cities, and counties. There were things like roads and bridges, libraries and post offices, museums and playgrounds and swimming pools and parks.
Dinosaur Park was WPA #960. Its purpose was to “perpetuate the facts of history” and to give visitors “a fair idea as to the appearance, size, and characteristics of our earliest known inhabitants”. The idea for the park was credited to two people: Dr. C. C. O’Hara and R. L. Bronson. Dr. O’Hara was the retired president of the South Dakota School of Engineering and Mines. He was also a paleontologist, fascinated by the fossils he and others discovered in the Badlands of South Dakota. Bronson was much less storied, being a secretary at the Rapid City Chamber of Commerce. He was said to have conceived of the idea for the park after seeing a mechanical dinosaur at the Chicago Century of Progress expo.
The location, of course, was to help promote tourism and attract visitors who were driving out to see the under-construction Mount Rushmore. Rapid City is the major city in the area. It’s the closest town near the monument (about half an hour away) and tourists would and do pass through Rapid City off US Route 16 (today, I-90 occupies much of the old US-16 route) to get to the site. Today, the town is called The Gateway to the Black Hills.
Emmet Sullivan and Dinosaur Park
The designer for the dinosaurs was of course, sculptor Emmet Sullivan. Up to 25 other people were involved in the construction at the project’s peak, costing ultimately around $25,000.
Construction was not straightforward, and there was a dispute between Sullivan and the WPA which halted construction in the winter of 1937-1938. The dispute, and I can’t make this up, was over the dinosaurs’ teeth and how they were to be installed. Apparently Sullivan resigned as project foreman and kept the dino teeth. After some persuading, he gave the T-rex’s teeth to the WPA people for them to install and said he’d make the rest of the dino teeth later. His replacement did not follow directions regarding the teeth installation, and therefore Sullivan refused to make any more teeth for the other designers. After a few months, the Chamber of Commerce broke the stalemate by hiring Sullivan to work for them and complete the project, subsequently opening in summer 1938.
The dinosaurs, for those listening, are cartoonish and almost sarcastic in appearance. They’re fun and delightful, but this is definitely the 1930s image of dinosaur – very at odds with today image of fierce, fast, bird-like beings.
Sullivan was said to be inspired by Charles Knight’s murals at the Field Museum when designing his dinos, as well as fossils from the South Dakota area. That same Charles Knight, a year after the park opened, was said to have described its dinosaur sculptures as “awful”. These included a trachodon, brontosaurus, stegosaurus, tyrannosaurus, and triceratops.
1919 Charles Field painting of a T. rex, in an old, incorrect posture. Public domain image via Wikipedia.Modern conception of a T. rex. Art by RJpalmer, via Wikipedia, CCBYSA4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/4.0/).
Sullivan stayed connected with Dinosaur Park for the next couple of decades – he and his wife Lorriane ran the concession stand at Dinosaur Park until about 1965 or 1966.
One source gave Dinosaur Park the label of “the first Dinosaur theme park”; given our terminology here on the podcast, it’s quite clear that this was not a theme park, being only some dino sculptures on a hill. However, it’s an interesting historical dinosaur attraction, and informs our continuing discussion on Emmet Sullivan’s dinosaurs, as we wind our way towards Land of Kong in Beaver, AR via a long, twisty trail association type of podcast road.
T. rex at Dinosaur Park in South Dakota. 1987, John Margolies. Public domain, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Christ of the Ozarks
Round about 1966, Emmet Sullivan and his family left Rapid City. He was reportedly looking for a potential job on a project commemorating the Trail of Tears, when he had a chance meeting with a guy called Gerald L. K. Smith and his wife Elna L. Smith. I’m not going to delve too deeply into their histories because it’s really outside the scope of this show, but suffice to say that these two had some incredibly troublesome personal politics and a long history of using racism and religion as far-right political attack. Senator Strom Thurmond said of him, “We do not need the support of Gerald L. K. Smith and other rabble rousers who use race prejudice and class hatred to inflame the emotions of the people.”
The Smiths retired to Arkansas, and hunted for a project. The project they settled on in their retirement was called Christ of the Ozarks, a five-story-tall concrete and steel behemoth set up on the top of Magnetic Mountain in Eureka Springs, AR. This place was a former spa town, a haven in the days before World War II when spring water was considered the amazing cure-all. After the war, as actual remedies to diseases began to become commonplace, the popularity of towns like Eureka Springs began to fall.
One article described Eureka Springs in the modern era as a melting pot for quackery of various types: UFO enthusiasts, bikers, car restorers, and chakra healers. Whether any of that’s true, I can’t say, but it does seem that there was a live and let live attitude, so when announcements were made about this giant sculpture with a potentially problematic backing, very little fuss occurred. “Father Francis Jenesco expressed the prevailing attitude, “I’m not against it. I don’t know that much about it. I know [Smith is] a very controversial gentleman, so beyond that, please don’t quote me.””
Christ of the Ozarks, sculpted by Emmet Sullivan. 2006 image by Bobak Ha’eri, license CCBYSA3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0/).
Sullivan was the primary sculptor for the giant Christ figure, although only for the body and arms. Reportedly the face and hands were done by his associate, Adrian Forrette, as Sullivan, this self-taught artist, apparently didn’t consider himself great at hands or faces. The statue as a whole is is minimalistic, with simple lines and an almost cartoonish aspect.
There are plenty of facts and figures available about this sculpture online, things like “each hand is built to hold the weight of a car” and “the sculpture can withstand 500 mph winds”. At the time, Christ of the Ozarks was one of only four giant Jesus sculptures in the world, with the others in Rio de Janeiro, Spain, and Columbia. The sculpting took about a year, and the massive statue was dedicated in 1966. If you’re interested in additional in-depth details on the attraction, including sociopolitical fallout, visit this link: https://web.archive.org/web/20051217000520/http://users.aristotle.net/~russjohn/sacpro.html.
Wall Drug Dinosaur
Sullivan was known for another dino, as well: the Wall Drug dinosaur. 80 feet long (yes, eighty, not eight), this mega-sculpture has lightbulbs for eyes and sits near I-90. You know there’s got to be a good story if it has a giant dinosaur.
See, we’ve got another guy. There’s always a guy.
Ted Hustead, a pharmacist, opened up a tiny drugstore in 1931, in a town called Wall, SD, known back then as “the geographical center of nowhere”. Said by Dorothy Hustead’s father to be “just about as Godforsaken as you can get”, the Husteads spent their first five years in Wall barely breaking even with “Hustead’s Drugstore”, as it was called then. People just weren’t coming.
One day in 1936, as Ted Hustead recollected, his wife Dorothy came up with the solution: travelers were thirsty after driving across the hot prairie. Why didn’t they put up signs on the highway advertising free ice water? They used “Wall Drug” as the name on the signs since it was shorter and easier to read and remember.
Reportedly this wasn’t groundbreaking, as every drugstore offered free water back in the day, but their new signs on nearby US-14 worked and business boomed.
“Free Ice Water” Wall Drug sign. 2009, Carol Highsmith. Public domain, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/2010630573/
By the 1950s, Ted and Dorothy’s son Bill began improving the business and making it into a true attraction. He built indoor restrooms, added an art gallery and a mall and a museum and so on and so forth.
But the times, they are a-changin’. In the mid-1960s, the path of the road US-14 was shifted with the construction of I-90, the new freeway (remember the Federal Highway Act of 1956?). Wall was bypassed, as an alternate route. The Husteads didn’t sit back, however, to let their business fade away. They commissioned Emmet Sullivan to build a giant dinosaur sculpture to serve as a billboard, pointing guests back to Wall Drug.
The Wall Drug dinosaur. Image by Runner1928, CC0 (public domain).
The timing isn’t exactly clear – it’s most likely that the dino would’ve been completed between the Christ of the Ozarks (June 1966) and the beginning of Farwell’s Dinosaur Park (announced May 1967) but it could’ve been before or during Christ of the Ozarks, too. I’ve found several photos of the dinosaur dated to 1967 (ex: https://flickr.com/photos/thedouglascampbellshow/3136340925/in/photolist-5M9yTx-5kK7kw-5MdNTu) but none earlier than that, so I do think it’s quite likely that after he was done with the Christ statue, Sullivan moved to Wall to build the large bronotosaurus-like dino.
The giant apatasaurus did its job, recruiting visitors back to Wall Drug for its five cent coffee and free ice water, and the store survived the road changes. Not only survived, but thrived.
Wall Drug signs. 1987, John Margolies. Public domain, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
Dinosaur World in Beaver, AR
Finally, finally, we get to the meat of our story, down in Beaver, AR, about fifteen minutes outside of Eureka Springs. It’s time to talk about the strange park that was Dinosaur World, or Dinosaur World by any other name. It also went by Farwell’s Dinosaur Park and John Agar’s Land of Kong.
From here we meet another guy, one Ola Farwell, anecdotally quite a character from the stories I’ve seen.
Dinosaur World: Farwell’s Dinosaur Park
Ola Farwell was a cattle man in the Eureka Springs, AR, area, described in a 1918 newspaper as “a prominent young farmer and stockman”. He married Maye Shaffer, a popular local school teacher (interestingly, the marriage was kept secret until the end of Mae’s last school session, very Little House on the Prairie). Reportedly, she sat on a scorpion on the wagon seat as they headed off to their honeymoon.
There in rural Northern Arkansas, he bred free-range Hereford cattle, advertising said cattle for sale in the local paper as early as 1919. His farm was later called White River Stock Farm. Based on newspaper accounts, he was attempting to introduce higher grades of cattle on farms in the area, with the slogan “it pays to breed the better kind”. (Here is where I take a brief sidebar to delight in the old newspaper habits. In my research, there were dozens of wonderful brief mentions of what people were up to, including this gem: “Ola Farwell is having lumber sawed on his place.” Early social media, truly.) For much of the first half of the 20th century, Ola Farwell was constantly in the papers, buying and selling Hereford (whiteface) cattle.
The Farwells moved to Eureka Springs and owned a feed lot and a grocery there. Maye Farwell was a businesswoman of her own right – she worked at the grocery and made and supplied school lunches for the local Old Red Brick Schoolhouse. It was in her name that the family residence at 218 Spring Street, Eureaka Springs, was purchased.
But certainly, one can only do such farming for so long.
By May 1967, a notice appeared in the Northwest Arkansas Times, describing a “giant dinosaur park” that was now under construction, under the direction of that giant of sculptors, Emmet Sullivan.
Of course, as we’ve established, Sullivan had been in Eureka Springs for a few years, constructing the Christ of the Ozarks statue, with side trips for the Wall Drug dino, and it was here that he met Ola Farwell and the two became friends.
Farwell reportedly always loved children and dinosaurs, so a dinosaur-themed park directed at children seemed a natural retirement project.
According to the first newspaper report, five whole sculptures were planned initially, placing the attraction more on the scale of Dinosaur Park in South Dakota.
Ultimately, of course, over a hundred different concrete sculptures occupied the 65 acres of the parklands, there in Northern Arkansas, just next to a body of water called Spider Creek, and the large Spider Creek Lake. Once, these were called Cedar Creek and Dinosaur Park Lake.
Though of course Sullivan directed and designed the dinos, many local workers were said to be responsible for the actual construction, supposedly at the “dinosaur factory” across the street from the park. These include Bill Sherman and Jessie Orvis Parker, said to have been responsible for constructing much of the steel framework for the dinosaurs. A. C. McBride is described as the man responsible for much of the cement concrete work. And finally, names like Mike Evans and Bill and Gary Armer are said to have painted the dinos in “realistic colors”. The exact meaning of thisis is somewhat up for debate: legend holds that the dinos may have originally been painted in dull browns, and then at some point, perhaps in the early 90s, were repainted in the vibrant multicolor scheme that can still be seen faded even today in 2020.
Orvis Parker (or Jessie, as he was called) is a common name in the Farwell period of the park. It’s said that he ran or even owned the park under Farwell, responsible for the grounds and the gift shop, and his wife Mary running the restaurant or cafe. According to a grandchild online, her cooking was excellent – hamburgers, fries, milkshakes, and fountain sodas. Several extended family members online in comment sections about the park fondly remember their childhoods growing up, running around and experiencing the park.
This era of the park was immortalized on film, in the intro to the 1969 horror flick “It’s Alive!”. The movie is available on YouTube, so feel free to see it for yourself: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8FzhuX4du9U.
Trachodon at Farwell’s Dinosaur Park, as seen in the opening credits of the 1969 film “It’s Alive!” Late 1960s. (Screencap)
Brontosaurus under construction at Farwell’s Dinosaur Park, as seen in the opening credits of the 1969 film “It’s Alive!” Late 1960s. (Screencap)
Inside Farwell’s Dinosaur Park
The park itself, then, as sourced from a contemporary newspaper article a few years after the park’s opening, worked as follows. It operated from 7 am to 7 pm, year round, at a cost of $1 per adult, and $0.50 per child. Two concrete dinosaur babies hatched from eggs served as greeters by the entrance, along with a fierce caveman figure. After purchasing your tickets from inside the restaurant/gift shop, you’d head out on the two mile course, either on foot or by car (speed limit: five miles per hour).
The first part of the pathway was lined with rocks and fossils from all over the US, reportedly a favorite hobby or collection of Farwell’s. At the time of the article, Farwell was reportedly in the process of building a “large, authentic replica of the moon to eventually house the rock collection and other exceptional exhibits”. This dome-shaped structure was eventually built, and housed something called the largest Noah’s Ark mural in the world.
Inside the park, then, of course, were the attractions: the animals. All fake, of course, done up in concrete. The early days reportedly saw as many familiar animals as dinosaurs: monkeys, deer, rabbits, a kangaroo, and a monster snake. The snake, unlike some of the others, was actually a grapevine, painted yellow with orange spots, and still quite fearsome. A sculpture of a brown bear with an open mouth held an entire hive of honeybees, buzzing merrily on warm summer days.
Dinosaur Park’s thrills primarily came from the long, swinging wooden bridge, over what was then called Dinosaur Park Lake. Running from land to a pavilion and then back to land, the bridge was either very high above the water in dry times or almost touching the water in wet times. From the pavilion, guests could get fish food out of a dispenser to feed the many trout stocked in the lake.
Most of the dinos at the time stood nearby to the bridge. There was the star: 22-foot-tall T. rex, with a fish clamped between his jaws. A saber-toothed tiger. A Paleoscincus, looking like a prehistoric turtle. They weren’t confined to land, either: “Climbing out of the lake is also another giant dinosaur and an ominous octopus with a 32-foot tentacle spread. ” Up on the hillside, more dinosaurs and prehistoric animals: Triceratops, the club-tailed Unitarium, Stegosaurus, duck-billed Trachodon, a tasked Mastodon, and the classic, the beloved Brontosaurus.
Future plans (as of the early 1970s from this article) called for “an elaborate replica of Noah’s Ark” up on a hill, to be reached by cable cars.
The early days at Dinosaur Park were idyllic.
Dinosaur World: John Agar’s Land of Kong
Of course, change and time come for us all.
By the 1970s, the interstate highway system had been under construction for 15-20 years. Families were still far more likely to travel by car than by airplane, so family vacations, even to distant attractions like Disney, still went by numbers of roadside attractions. Farwell’s Dinosaur Park continued to attract visitors.
Sullivan died in November of 1970, three years after the Dinosaur Park opened, survived by a wife, two children, and multiple grandchildren. Farwell and his Dinosaur Park carried on, however, at least for a while. New dinosaurs were regularly added, constructed in that “dinosaur factory” across the street. Guests were generally happy with the park, although on occasion, guests demanded money back because “the dinosaurs were fake”. For some portion of the park’s life during this period, a local realtor named Reeves was said to operate bumper boats on the park’s lake.
Brontosaurus and his friend at Dinosaur World, Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Formerly called Farwell’s Dinosaur Park and John Agar’s Land of Kong. 1987, John Margolies. Public domain, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017705727/
In 1980, Farwell sold the park. He still lived in the area (and indeed, it wasn’t until almost a decade later, in 1988, that Ola Farwell passed away) but he was getting older and saw the writing on the wall regarding his time with the park. A man named Ken Childs, and his wife June Davidson, decided to purchase the park and liven it up.
And they were friends with a guy called John Agar (pronounced Ay-gar), by his son’s account in an old interview from “Scary Monsters Magazine #76”.
Now, most people who are listening to this episode have no idea who John Agar is. I didn’t, not until I did the research for this episode. Turns out, he was a minor big deal back in the day. Agar is perhaps best known for being Shirley Temple’s first wife. They made two movies together prior to their divorce (Wikipedia, that always correct resource (sarcasm) cites “mental cruelty” as the grounds for diverce). Agar then continued making films on his own, becoming strongly associated with B-movie horrors, movies like The Mole People, Revenge of the Creature, and so on.
June Davidson and Ken Childs, with the permission of their friend John Agar, renamed the park “John Agar’s Land of Kong”. It was a tie-in to the 1976 King Kong remake, which was popular at the time and which Agar had a minor role in.
John Agar is quoted as saying: “A friend of mine who’s now deceased, Ken Childs, he bought this place that a farmer had built up with a bunch of dinosaurs and stuff like that on it. They wanted to build a King Kong and refurbish the existing dinosaurs there. They looked like cartoon characters, instead of what they would actually look like. It was like Walt Disney went down there and did them. Ken contacted a guy in Texas to build this Kong for him. The place was eventually called “John Agar’s Land of Kong.” I just let them use my name. I think it’s still there. I’ve never seen the actual place in person, only photos. He was a friend and I just let him use my name. I guess he figured, since I was in KING KONG it had some relevance.“”
In the late 1970s, the park had already had a large plywood King Kong stationed by the roadside to beckon guests (apparently with a cutout of Ayatollah Khomeini with a noose around his neck, a popular sentiment for a few years). Other political viewpoints were also displayed openly: caveman Ronald Reagan spanking caveman Tip O’Neill was said to have been painted on another mural at the park, a very 80s thing.
But Childs and Davidson wanted something more than plywood and murals.
So they commissioned a guy down in Texas, Bert Holster, to build a King Kong sculpture, to put in the park proper.
Holster was known for building smaller fiberglass sculptures, but this King Kong was off the scale. Exact dimensions are not agreed upon, but he’s said to be more than 35-45 feet tall and designed to hold a life-sized person (looking like Fay Wray) in one hand, he was bigger than anything Holster had ever Holster had to cut a hole in between the two stories of the abandoned fire house in Clarksville TX that he used as a studio in order to accommodate the construction of the beast. King Kong was built out of fiberglass on top of a plaster and wood base, later removed. Originally, he was built with some animation: reportedly, his arms beat his chest, his eyes lit up red, and his jaws moved in the early years. However, these effects reportedly quickly broke.
Kong was built over three years, installed sometime in 1984.
It’s said that Farwell had originally wanted a sculpture of General Douglas MacArthur, but that local officials nixed this idea, being okay with the second choice of King Kong.
King Kong sculpture at John Agar’s Land of Kong (Dinosaur World) in Eureka Springs, AR. 1987, John Margolies. Public domain, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
1984 was a busy year. In 1984, Ken Childs died, and the park was left in the hands of his wife, June Davidson. Accounts online paint some possible familial infighting as a result. The ownership of the park after Childs and Davidson is muddled at best, unfortunately, without me being able to physically go down to the records offices, which is out of the scope of this podcast. Some commenters online claim that there were potential legal issues involved with the estate post-1984.
Dinosaur World
The park was said to have been the largest dinosaur park in the world, although this is a claim easily made and difficult to prove. Sculptures were still said to have been added, repaired, and repainted. A dome building had been constructed, near the King Kong sculpture (take a look in the background of the King Kong image above). Though originally this had been intended for the fossil exhibits, the “World’s Largest Noah’s Ark Mural” was said to have been begun inside this dome. It’s not clear if it was ever finished or what happened to it. (By the time the park was closed and abandoned, the mural had long gone, although this is getting ahead of myself a little.)
In 1995, June Davidson changed the name of the park to Dinosaur World, in order to follow the tide of the then-popular movie Jurassic Park. The attraction retained the name Dinosaur World until its ultimate closure in 2005. Dinosaur World is the name the park is best known for today.
It’s said that it was Davidson and what appear to have been her siblings who ran the park after this point; June Davidson was later said to have moved to California. Ted Prysock is said to have run the general store and overseen daily operations for some time. In fact, Ted is pictured on the mural in front of the old ticket booth and restaurant – he was the man in the middle with the trucker hat. Reportedly, the mural image was a remarkable likeness.
Image of the mural on one side of the old Dinosaur World gift shop. Image courtesy of Kirk @ Secret Fun Blog.
Brother Bob Prysock, sister to June, is also said to have served as caretaker and/or possible owner, although when the park ownership was transfered to him is unclear. Other managers and caretakers have also been mentioned in online accounts: Danny, Nita, John. Somewhere around 2004, the park was sold, from “Dinosaur Bob” Prysock to the current owner, Peter Godfrey. Mr. Godfrey also owns the Spider Creek Resort (cabins, fishing, etc) which his father had owned before him, making the local property purchase a natural one.
A late version of the Dinosaur World website remains archived on the Internet Archive. The ad copy reads: “Welcome to Dinosaur World. We are a 65 acre park with over 90 life size prehistoric replicas. The park is arranged where you can walk or drive through with over 2 miles of road. See a FOUR story King Kong. Bring a picnic because we have a lake with tables close by. You can even fish if you bring your own equipment and have an Arkansas fishing license. There’s a waterfall and swinging bridge also. Don’t forget to stop by our gift shop on your way out. We have all kinds of unique items. Park is open from March to mid-December. We are open 7 days a week in the summer. Hours are from 9 am – 6 pm but are flexible so you may want to call ahead just to be sure. Admission: $4.00 – Adults, $3.50 – Seniors, $2.50 – Kids 4 -12”
Right before the park closed, it served as a filming location for a brief scene in the Orlando Bloom and Kirsten Dunst vehicle Elizabethtown, and the iconic T. rex with the fish in its mouth is featured on the DVD cover.
T. rex with fish at Dinosaur World, Eureka Springs, Arkansas. Formerly called Farwell’s Dinosaur Park and John Agar’s Land of Kong. 1994, John Margolies. Public domain, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division. https://www.loc.gov/item/2017702386/
The park closed for the usual reasons, it seems, which you could guess by this point if you’re a regular listener to the podcast. (Sidebar: I’m surprised by how unsurprising the reasons for a theme park closure are. Very few parks close with a catastrophe (like Six Flags New Orleans); most close because of entirely prosaic and unsurprising reasons.) Insurance costs were said to be rising, and the tourism market had fallen significantly after 9/11 across the board. Places like Disney World could rebound, but a small place like Dinosaur World, already faltering, couldn’t. The hours became more irregular, the maintenance became spottier, the roads were less regularly traveled. Indeed, the changing patterns of road travel have routinely been suggested as the ultimate long-term downfall for Dinosaur World. However, I couldn’t link this to any specific road closure; rather, it seems that US 412, some 30 miles south of Dinosaur World, may have become the preferred route for east-west travel across Northern Arkansas, where previously the more scenic and less direct US 62 had been preferred. If the roadside attraction is no longer easily accessible off the main road, well…
Dinosaur World Memories
There are many online who remember Dinosaur World from the good days, when it was a functioning amusement park. In general, people who visited it loved the place. If you were a kid and visited, the place was a wonderland, the stuff childhood summer dreams are made of. The dinosaurs were huge and there was tons of open space – two miles’ worth of open space, of trees and grass and water. You could touch everything – it was made out of concrete, you weren’t going to break anything. You could run and jump.
Comments online recall the thrill of the place – the simple joys of the wooden swinging bridge, the nearby campground with a small candy store, the cheap ceramic dinosaurs sold in the gift shop. There were fish in the lake, plywood dinosaur flats called “2D-sauruses”, off-color paintings throughout the gift shop and bathrooms.
Seeing that first dinosaur from the road as you drove to the park was the most special thrill of them all, according to former visitors – that jump and excitement of the unreal made real.
View of dinosaurs at Farwell’s Dinosaur Park from the road, as seen in the opening credits of the 1969 film “It’s Alive!” Late 1960s. (Screencap)
Dinosaur seen through the trees at Farwell’s Dinosaur Park, as seen in the opening credits of the 1969 film “It’s Alive!” Late 1960s. (Screencap)
Abandoned Dinosaur World
After its closure in 2005, Dinosaur World sat, abandoned. Visits are documented regularly online. Some folks managed to get permission to explore, others were chased away by someone from a trailer on a hill near the park entrance, others simply trespassed without interacting with anyone. All images and stories paint a picture of a tired roadside attraction, past its prime, only looking as good as it did because of the strength of concrete and rebar.
One interesting exploration story comes via user WhitewallsJohnson on TheSamba.com, a forum for VW enthusiasts. This person discovered a uniquely-painted VW bus, rotting away inside the front gate of the abandoned theme park. After some hunting, they found the contact info for the owner, and began making offers. Eventually, one was accepted. The VW van was driven off to a new home elsewhere in the Ozarks, and the new owners refurbished the bus. The exterior that originally attracted them, however, stayed the same, as recently as 2015: bright yellow, with hand-painted “Land of Kong” words and unique dinosaur-cavemen-King-Kong scenes on both sides. Above the running boards, “65 acres of dinosaurs” was written. It’s an incredibly kitschy type of advertising from back in the day, and speaks to the joyful fun that could be found in a place like Dinosaur World. Of course we all know that dinosaurs and cavemen and King Kong didn’t exist together in reality. That didn’t make the juxtaposition any less fun.
Entrance into Dinosaur World, Eureka Springs, AR. 1994, John Margolies. Public domain, Library of Congress Prints and Photographs Division.
2009 entrance image at Dinosaur World in Eureka Springs, AR. Image courtesy of Kirk @ Secret Fun Blog.
Back in Eureka Springs, the property continued to decay. Occasional maintenance, like mowing around the sculptures, was still performed, but otherwise, the dinosaurs continued to flake paint, tip over, and rust. Paint faded, and the dinosaurs were becoming much closer to their original pale visages than they’d been in several decades.
2009 image of the gift shop / restrooms / restaurant / ticket office at Dinosaur World in Eureka Springs, AR, prior to its demolition in a fire in 2011. Image courtesy of Kirk @ Secret Fun Blog.
The gift shop was said to still contain neat shelves full of tchotkes and other sale items, years after the park closed. However, it wouldn’t last. The single building containing the gift shop, restaurant, and bathrooms caught fire in 2011, and was completely destroyed. Police suspected arson.
Road signs and billboards remained, advertising the park for at least a decade after it closed. Being a solid 10-15 minutes off the highway, this had to be a frustration for the tired parents who followed the billboards and not the park’s website, having to explain that no, Johnny, we can’t get out and see the dinosaurs after all.
Inside the park, decay. The photos are eerie. Overgrown foliage, with a faded dinosaur peeking out, half the tail rusting away. Cavemen missing faces or hands or arms to the rust. Round a corner, and run headlong into another strange interpretation of a dinosaur, looming. Look at the Google maps view. Your brain sees shapes, and begins picking out the image, and bam, a decrepit dinosaur resolves right in front of you. Sculpted in a form somewhere in between realism and art and scientific fossil, the dinosaurs in abandonment mostly just appear sad and forlorn.
Abandoned, maintenance stopped at the old Land of Kong, and the cement sculptures were left to decay. Daniel Weber image, CCBYNC (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/2.0/).
King Kong, the massive once-namesake, stood proudly for years. He finally toppled over between March 2012 and March 2014. Whether he went down by man or nature is unclear.
The bridge out to the pavilion over the lake lasted quite a long time as well, despite how sketchy it had to be getting without maintenance. Based on satellite imagery, both bridge and pavilion were demolished between February 2017 and March 2018.
As far as the principal players in the tale, most have passed on, leaving behind a bevy of extended family members who’ve commented online sharing fond memories of growing up and visiting the park. Sculptor Emmet Sullivan died in 1970. Original owner Ola Farwell died in 1988 and his wife Bertha Maye Shaffer Farwell in 1993. Ken Childs, who was the second owner with his wife June Davidson, died in 1984. June’s brother and presumed later owner and operator, Bob Prysock, died in 2008, with his memorial ceremony held right at the three-years-abandoned Dinosaur World. From what I can tell, June Davidson appears to still be alive, living the good life in California. And though Dinosaur World remains closed, current owner Godfrey’s other property, the Spider Creek Resort, just across the highway and down a little, is still open and doing good business for the trout fishing and nature enthusiast. As of 2009, the property was said to be intended for a golf course and sports bar; in 2020, those plans have yet to materialize.
And of course, I would be negligent in my duties as the overly-detailed tale-teller that I am, if I didn’t tell you that Dinosaur World is quite close to another abandoned place I’ve already discussed at length on this podcast. Yes, you could spend the hour and a half drive between Dinosaur World and Dogpatch USA by listening to my similarly long history on that park. (If you’re not following me on Twitter or Facebook, you’ve might’ve missed the news that Dogpatch has been foreclosed, again, and is set for public auction on March 3rd. If you have a million dollars, you too can soon purchase a theme park!)
Visitors in the mid-20th century apparently often included both theme parks in the same road trip; today in 2020, both places are abandoned, off the beaten path, and forgotten more often than not.
The Other Dinosaur Attractions Today
The other attractions I discussed are still kicking to this day.
Ironically, despite sculptor Emmet Sullivan’s original dispute with the WPA over the proper teeth of the dinosaurs at Dinosaur Park in South Dakota, they today have fairly sad teeth, and for a long time, had no teeth. A 1952 article “interviews” the T. rex, bemoaning the tourists who, in the late 1940s, knocked out the dino’s teeth for souveniers. In June of 1997, Dinosaur Park was officially listed on the National Register of Historic Places, and is still operational today.
Wall Drug too is still in operation today, not too far from Dinosaur Park in South Dakota. Before his death in 1999,Ted Hustead pointed to the free ice water as his greatest lesson, demonstrating that helping people would allow one success even in the middle of Godforsaken nowhere. The store today is over 75,000 square feet and can see over 20,000 tourists in a single day at the height of the season. Placards and stickers and signs for Wall Drug are all over the world, even up in Antarctica. https://www.walldrug.com/about-us/wall-drug-signs
Conclusions
Dinosaur World (and Wall Drug dino and Dinosaur Park and even Prehistoric Forest back in the Irish Hills of Michigan – listener Colleen, that’s a mention just for you!) — Dinosaur World isn’t the first time I’ve discussed dinosaurs on the podcast and it won’t be the last. There’s a plethora of dinosaur attractions out there, some still operational, but many abandoned and defunct.
What’s the fascination with dinosaurs?
That could be an entire podcast episode and research topic on its own, for sure. In my opinion, dinosaurs are so popular because of how universally beloved they are. A dinosaur can appeal to almost anyone. Today we seem to strive to absolute scientific accuracy and realism over all else (see Magic Forest’s new dinos, for instance) but especially a half century ago, amateur sculptors made dinosaurs by the cement mixer load. Precision wasn’t required, just some enthusiasm and a trowel and a plucky attitude. After all, average Joe wasn’t going to critique a dinosaur sculpture for scientific accuracy. A dinosaur was just far-enough removed from reality to be fun, and a recognizable shape could be made with little effort, pleasing to children and adults alike.
Dinosaur World or John Agar’s Land of Kong or Farwell’s Dinosaur Park – many names for this singular place. It was begun as a vibrant roadside attraction to please the children, the real ones as well as the child living inside even the crabbiest heart. It became a true star attraction for the town of Eureka Springs, close to the Missouri/Arkansas border in the northwest corner of the state near Fayetteville. Changing tourist habits and changing road preferences did the park in, but it still stands. Those faded cement and steel dinos are hard to destroy. Today, they’re sentinels from a different time, forlorn and forgotten by nearly everyone.
Nothing, of course, is lost to us, as long as we remember it. Not even a tatty old trachodon next to an overgrown path where there used to be an amusement park.
]]>https://theabandonedcarousel.com/dinosaur-world/feed/082781Wobbies World
https://theabandonedcarousel.com/wobbies-world/?utm_source=rss&utm_medium=rss&utm_campaign=wobbies-world
https://theabandonedcarousel.com/wobbies-world/#commentsWed, 29 Jan 2020 10:00:00 +0000https://theabandonedcarousel.com/?p=75762This week, I’m going to tell you a little bit about a crazy unique transportation-themed park from down under. It’s Wobbies World! (Click the player below to listen!) (Update –... Read more »
]]>This week, I’m going to tell you a little bit about a crazy unique transportation-themed park from down under. It’s Wobbies World! (Click the player below to listen!) (Update – September 2020 – some great updates from commenters below – make sure you check them out!)
Intro
I moved the topic of today’s episode from my master list of parks to my short list based on the name. Just a silly, wacky name, and I expected grand things from it. What I learned once I began my research is that the story of Wobbies World is perhaps a story of misconceptions – where expectations do not meet up with the reality.
As I welcome you to the new year and back from the holiday season, I invite you down under. It’s time to go back down to Australia and see what’s happening on that massive country continent.
Well, what’s happening in 2020 is a massive series of wildfires, abnormally extreme due to the ongoing climate change crisis. For now, let’s dial the clock backwards to the sometimes comparatively blissful 1980s. Broadly speaking, the social revolution of the 70s gave way to the economic revolution of the 80s.
The 1970s and 1980s saw the development of a number of major and minor theme parks throughout Australia.
Today’s topic is not the biggest of these theme parks and not the best of these theme parks. It’s unclear if it was the smallest, but it’s certainly remembered online with quite a bit of notoriety. Everything about this park was a lot grander in advertisement and memory than reality.
Today: Wobbies World.
Wobbies World
Wobbies World opened around 1978 in a Melbourne suburb called Vermont South. The land in this area had predominantly been orchards, specifically apple orchards, until the 50s or the 60s. At this point, demand for housing in the Melbourne area was growing, and the orchards began to be subdivided. The 1966 acquisition of a large block of orchards is considered the start of the acquisition by the local government, Nunawading Council.
(This begins the start of the delightfully fun names, at least to American ears, which my statistics tell me most of you listening are. For all that Australia speaks English, the odd place names and baffling slang definitely provide a little bit of a language barrier. And even though I know that intellectually, it’s still surprising and amusing when I come across it out of the blue. It makes me happy!)
With the rise of the suburbs, there was a boom in the development of theme parks in Australia, ranging from small to large parks across the country.
Wobbies World was on the smaller side, as I said earlier.
From the beginning, the park advertised itself to local and not-so-local kids TV, with well-edited footage promoting the thrills of the park. A near-universal remembrance of the park is its TV commercials, which reportedly played “often” or “incessantly”, depending on your perspective. (Several of them can be found on YouTube, and linked through the shownotes, of course.) People who were children at the time remember the FOMO feeling of seeing the commercials and then hearing mom and dad say no. But ultimately, the park was very good at promotion, as we’ll see, and the actual experience was often more of a letdown.
What’s a Wobbie?
The first question you might wonder about is what’s a wobbie? Is it a person? Is it a thing?
Google unfortunately did not answer this question for me. The majority of people discussing the question out there are confused. It turns out, no one knows. There’s no real definition for the word. There is a book series out there (“The Wobbies and the Caterpillar”). Meant for children, it shows Wobbies as miniature blue fox-like creatures. A 1946 short story in the Sydney Morning Herald tells the tale of Wobby the Whale. There’s a modern guy named Mike Wobschall, nickname Wobby, a major talking head for the Minnesota Vikings who recently quit or was fired from that role. The American Agriculturist Cyclopedia of Natural History from 1887 described “red-throated diver” birds as “wobbies”. One single reference used it colloquially to mean “shark”. But that’s about it, and that’s not a lot of results.
Google also suggests “woobie” in the search, which, while an unlikely option, does have an interesting history. Did you know that a woobie is colloquially a child’s lovey, and that this became the name of a popular item of military kit? Technically called the “liner, wet weather, poncho”, this item was originally produced in the 60s in the Vietnam War. Troops fighting in the jungle needed a lightweight poncho to serve the dual purpose of both rain protection and warmth. The poncho and liner were originally crafted from leftover camouflaged parachute material all the way from World War II, or so the story goes. This poncho was so beloved by the troops and so synonymous with comfort that it began to be called a “woobie”. Today, if you search for the term “woobie”, the dominant result is for this poncho. In a writeup on the US Armed Forces focused website, “Task and Purpose,” they described the woobie thusly: “Simply put, it is the greatest thing to ever be issued by the U.S. military.“
Ultimately, none of these possible meanings for the word appear to have anything to do with the theme park, leaving an open mystery for now.
What Was Wobbies World?
Back to Wobbies World, then. Wobbies, spelled without any apostrophe as far as I’ve seen in my research. There was a “Mr. Wobbie” used as a mascot to promote the theme park in shopping malls, but the internet holds no details about what or whom he was. My suspicion is that he essentially looked like the Saggy Baggy Elephant based on some abandoned photos, but there’s no confirmation of this.
The park is said to have opened in or around 1980 on seven acres of land off Springvale Road in Nunawading. (The real opening year may have been 1978, based on a line item in the official “Survey of Post-War Built Heritage in Victoria” done by Heritage Victoria, the governmental heritage department. 1978 was also the year the park began acquiring vehicles. At least one internet commenter specifically notes a visit to the park in 1979, as well.) It was a place geared towards younger children and particularly those interested in vehicles and moving attractions. The owner was a man by the name of Robin Laurie, and he owned the theme park (or “children’s playground” in Australian) for most of the park’s operation. He’s remembered online as being a nice guy and good to work for, at least at first.
Wobbies World was memorable for its handmade and unique, vintage rides, in particular. The aesthetic wasn’t much: “this place looks like it’s from the 1930s” is a quote from a visitor videotaping the park during its operating years. Overall, the theming was perhaps “transportation”, if anything at all. Here’s an album of photos in operationand a second album of photos. Kids remember the park for mailing free park vouchers on your birthday – quite the highlight to get a birthday card from a theme park as an under-10 year old, if I’m being honest. I like this policy!
The Wobbies World castle in its vintage ad glory. Screenshot from a 1991 Wobbies World ad.
Attractions at Wobbies World
Vickers Viscount
Perhaps the attraction with the longest history at Wobbies World was the big old Vickers Viscount airplane sitting with a staircase, waiting for guests to walk through it. It perhaps was not incredibly interesting for small children at a theme park, but had a deep history.
The Viscount, as a general model of plane, was one of the first turboprop planes. This plane was revolutionary for introducing a new type of engine, the turboprop engine: a jet engine with a propeller on the front, and incredibly fuel efficient. The engine it replaced was a piston-driven engine.
Designed by a man called George Edwards, it was originally called “Viceroy” after the viceroy of India, Lord Louis Mountbatten. After India’s independence in 1947, the plane was renamed Viscount as it began production. The first aircraft entered service in 1950, a British plane. A comment from 1953 described the play as “an excellent shorthaul airplane and a definite crowd pleaser”. It was known for the smooth flight, lack of turbulence, and higher flying altitudes. In Australia, the Viscounts were widely used by Australian airline companies, as replacements for the piston-powered planes favored a generation earlier.
This specific Viscount was built in 1958. It was built for the Cuban state airline Cubana, registered as CU-T622 and CU-N622. Rumor says it served as the personal transport for Fidel Castro for some time. By 1961, after only a few years in service, it was seized for non-payment of debts and cannabalized for spare parts for other planes. The plane was intended to be sold until Cubana to South Africa Airways, but this deal never went through. Instead, the planes was eventually sold to Trans Australia Airlines (TAA) with the tailnumber VH-TVR in 1962. She was named as “John Murray”.
There is some discussion on Facebook posts that TVR was involved in an incident where a catering truck ran straight into the wing, damaging the plane. The March 2015 issues of the TAA Museum newsletter describes the incident as a forklift, and not a catering truck, running into the plane just after it had been completely rehauled to new condition. This was during the time when the Viscount was being retired, so spare parts were at a premium, having to come all the way from England. In a pinch, the wing from sister plan VH-TVP was removed and attached to TVR to allow the plane to continue to fly.
After a few years flying in Australia, VH-TVR was retired from service in April of 1970.
In June of 1970, it’s said that the personal intervention of TAA’s chairman, Sir Frederick Scherger, saved TVR John Murray from being destroyed as a fire training aid.
In October 1978, she was delivered in a basic paint scheme with the name “Wobbies Airlines” to what the Vickers Viscount plane book describes as “a children’s playground”. Yes, our plane friend with that long history was now solely an exhibit for mildly interested children to tromp through. Well, tromp through isn’t quite fair. Apparently you got to pay an extra $0.50 in 1991 dollars to sit through a 25 minute video of a plane taking off and landing at Melbourne airport. (Walkthrough of the plane in its current incarnation at the Moorabbin Museum.) When they weren’t experiencing the other rides at Wobbies World, that is.
Wobbies World in action, including the Whirlybird and the Vickers Viscount. Courtesy Wobbies World Facebook group.
Rides at Wobbies World
A commenter online states “A place more schizophrenic between ‘awesome’ and ‘■■■■■■ awful’ than Wobbies World I have never seen.”
Wob Cats
One of the attractions generally considered awesome were the real vehicles, like a real construction vehicle (a Fiat 4S1C Diesel Bull Dozer) and a real tractor (Kubota L246 Diesel Tractor) and a real Bren Gun Carrier from World War II that kids could drive. Collectively, they appear to have been called the Wob Cats.
Quote from an online commenter: “I was 12 and I was DRIVING A REAL TANK. Talk about the best thing ever.”
http://www.mapleleafup.net/forums/showthread.php?t=20487 The tank (the gun carrier) had no actual guns on it, but the ride line was reportedly always long, indicative of its popularity. Children were able to drive an actual tank and get a token for their troubles. Imagine! Or a real tractor, or a real bulldozer – can you imagine the chance to do that as a child? The latter were rigged to a power grid like a supercharged bumper car in later years, and only those over the age limit could take their turn to drive the vehicles in jumpy mechanized circles across muddy ground.
There were other rides too. Nothing was a “standard” theme park ride – everything had the aura of the custom and homemade. Take the entrance, for instance. By some bizarre reason, the entrance and offices were inside a boxy bulky castle facade. The park’s nominal theme could best be said to be transportation, so it’s unclear what “theme” this castle was intending to tie into.
Carousel (Wobbies Whirls?)
A six-person swan shaped carousel (an extra $0.50 per ride in 1991) sat at the park, by all accounts appearing to be home brewed in most ways, as the swans were simply two plywood swan-shaped cutouts bracketing a basic seat. In one of the videos of the park in operation, we get a good view of this ride, with one single child glumly going round, mum chivvying them to smile and wave, trying to induce some excitement into the scene. The carousel appeared to operate at about the speed of your average airline luggage carousel.
In the March 1992 issue of “The Fare Box” (which is a monthly newsletter for transportation token collectors) there is a description of “a beautiful ride token” which appears to have been for the swan merry-go-round (labeled carousel) – “I’ve never heard of Nunawading before, so I guess it’s some sort of theme park with rides”. Very inspirational.
The carousel at Wobbies World. Screenshot from a 1992 home video on YT: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3gvtPiP6r0U
Wobbies Wheels
There was some sort of amphibious ATV type ride, bright red cars, called “Wobbies Wheels”. These were actually Sierra Trailboss vehicles, six-wheeled ATV type cars circa 1970. They went along a three rail track through the woods. There’s some debate online as to whether the cars were powered by motor or by the track it ran on; in my opinion, a motor seems most likely based on the other Sierra Trailboss vehicles out there, but this is only a guess. (Here’s a photo of the cars in action during the park’s operation.)
The ATV ride provided minor thrills like small puddles and a fake crocodile popping out at unsuspecting guests. These ATVs (and according to some commenters, all rides at Wobbies World) did not have any emergency stop zones – it was apparently solely up to the operator’s discretion to decide when each car should be released from the station. Clearly, this is not a situation that would fit with more modern standards of health and safety.
The ATV ride, Wobbies Wheels. Screenshot from a 1991 Wobbies World ad.
Splash Down
In the later years, in 1994, roughly $40,000 was spent to add a ride called “Splash Down”. This ride barely seems worthy of the classification of “ride”. It was literally just a small red boat with stick-on “Wobbies World” letters on the side. The boat was winched up maybe 7-10 feet on an incline and then splashed down in a small pool of water, coming to a stop almost as soon as the splash occurred. (It can be seen in this circa 1998 promo video: https://youtu.be/tQCkWIfaHAY?t=4) This appears to be the “log ride” that some refer to when describing the park. General opinion on the internet is that this ride was underwhelming, to say the least, with only a few former visitors exclaiming happily over this as their favorite ride.
There was a vintage Dennis fire truck, and also a fire truck “ride” which ran on a small central rail track. It seems that there was a mannequin “firefighter” who sprayed the car as it went by at one point, and everyone who rode got firefighter hats to wear. The online commentary does seem to find this ride memorable, despite how basic it seems in the description. Perhaps it was the plastic hat.
Of course there were other rides. One was a vintage hand pump car on a small circuit (reportedly requiring much effort to operate) called the Push Pull Railway (an additional $0.25 in 1991). There a basic kids playground setup with several slides and sense-confusing spinning tunnels and a rope swing and a swinging rope bridge and a flying fox (that’s the name for the thing that’s essentially a heavy duty zipline). There was a ball pit of bright colorful plastic balls (reportedly 18,000 of them). There were large trampolines with injury-awaiting exposed springs.
There was a mini golf course of no particular special theming – just basic blue surfaces surrounded by concrete gutters. But hey, mini-golf was an extra $1 per 18 holes. Apparently the final hole, #18, had a large rock wall or mountain facade of some sort, where a hole-in-one would earn you a free game.
Trams and Trains at Wobbies World
And there were several trams (which are sort of like trolleys to an American audience, and not my initial interpretation from the video of “train”) – actual commuter trams, formerly serving the Melbourne area. (In a minor tangent, I found it interesting in my research how trams are a huge form of public transportation in Melbourne, and that they have by at least once source the largest urban tram network in the world. Obviously given my accent, I’m an American living in this vast wasteland of terrible public transportation that is the majority of our nation, and I’m envious.)
Briefly, trams in Melbourne have operated since 1885; electric trams operated irregularly beginning in 1889, and have been operating continuously for more than a century, since 1906. Where other cities shuttered their networks, Melbourne’s stayed in operation: factors included wide streets and gridded geometry of the city; union resistance; and successful argument from the MMTB chairman that it would’ve been prohibitively expensive to rip up the tracks in the streets. The tram network has expanded several times over the years, and today, trams form much of Melbourne’s character and occupy a large part of general tourism and travel advertising.
A Melbourne W class tram in action, circa 1942. Public domain.
The backbone of the Melbourne tram fleet between 1940 and 1969 was the W2 class, a model of electric tram introduced in 1927. More modern, wider trams began to replace the W2 series, with the final W2 being taken out of service in 1987. What’s fantastic is that the government maintains public records of each tram and where it went after it was sold from service.
Five years later, in November of 1985, Wobbies World bought two more W2 trams: number 579 and 624, both manufactured between 1929 and 1930.
All of these W2 trams were stationary, serving as exhibits and places to have picnics, lunches, and parties.
There was another set of trams said to have been installed in the late 80s, and these were a “ride” – a very slow-moving mechanized trip up and down a pathway. These were painted a very cheerful green and yellow, matching the paint scheme livery of their larger cousins. The miniature trams used a traverser – essentially an automated switch to move the tram from one set of tracks back to the other to allow a return trip. These trams had names after local suburbs: Vermont, Burwood, Nunawading, Forest Hill.
A Flickr album also notes a few other pieces of rolling stock set up together, originally having been displayed with the J550 locomotive at Mirboo North station. According to one commenter on railpage.com.au, they were called “The Crumpet Train” when they were at Wobbies World. One was a “BPL 59” painted pale blue (this was a “bouncing passenger lounge” or carriage); and a “ZL 539” (or perhaps 536?) painted bright red (wooden frame, built towards the end of the 1920s). The “Z van”, I learned, is what’s called a “guard’s van”, or a brake car, akin to a North American caboose, albeit with a different look. Originally, the only brakes on the train were in the loco and in the brake van, not continuously on every car, so you might see the importance of the guard’s van. As continuous brakes began to be implemented, the guard’s van fell out of use.
There were two other big rides at Wobbies World, though, and both involved helicopters.
Bell 47J at Wobbies World
The first was the big Bell 47J helicopter, perched on a large piece of machinery in the middle of a field. Formerly registered as VH-INE, this Bell 47J with serial number 1772 once operated for Airfast and Ansett-ANA Airlines in the 1960s. The copter was said to be one of those used during the search when former Australian Prime Minister Harold Holt went missing in 1967.
The helicopter in action at Wobbies World, circa 1994. Public domain.
It was positioned as a virtual reality simulator. For an additional $1 (in 1991 dollars) per ride, kids were able to “drive” the copter and experience what it would be like to fly one.
In reality, of course, the ride was nothing like the expectation. I suppose from a “guy builds amusement park from his workshop” sense, this ride was impressive. But compared to any actual theme park ride, it fell spectacularly short for all but the youngest riders. The copter rose up a few feet on its mechanical post and did spin in circles, but otherwise didn’t do much at all in the way of a proper simulator. Remembrances online are all about how disappointing the helicopter ride was in reality, and of guests trying to spin the copter in order to hit other guests still queuing up. Others recall simply riding the ride as an excuse to get frisky behind the blacked out front viewscreen.
Nonetheless, regardless of reality, in commercials and pictures, the big Bell helicopter cut an impressive figure.
Whirlybird Copter Rail
The other helicopter ride featured miniature Whirlybird copters done up in primary colors, and was somewhere between a monorail and a roller coaster. From a layout and structural perspective, the ride was incredibly tame. However, given that this ride was essentially to the scale of, say, a beach ball perched on a string of yarn, the thrill came from the constant sensation that this ride was going to fall apart and kill you. Most visitors online recall this ride as quite scary.
A former visitor online sums it up, describing the ride as ancient and decrepit. The ride was said to shudder along, shedding flakes of rust. Some even described the I-beam rails as shuddering beneath the helicopter-shaped car’s weight or the entire apparatus, track and copter both, literally swaying in the wind. Quote: “the whole contraption just gave off a million-decibel ABOUT TO COLLAPSE AT ANY TIME warning.”
The gentle turns and U-bends combined with the mild slopes to give a terrifying coaster-like ride, solely because of the wildly unsafe nature of it all. Every time a small copter took a gentle turn on the rail, the small two person capsule shuddered and wobbled, seeming to barely hang on to the rail. A 90-degree turn after a short downhill incline seems to have been the worst offender, terrifying many who rode it. Multiple reports and stories exist online of the cars stopping, tilting, dangling, or doors simply not opening, so it’s a fairly safe bet that this ride was not anywhere near modern standards of safe. One particularly vivid story described a day nearly to end of the park’s life, with a worker on a ladder, shoving at a dangling whirlybird car with a broomstick, attempting to right the car onto the track before the two screaming children inside puked or passed out. It sounded super safe.
In fact, none of the rides were close to today’s modern standards of health and safety.
Closure of Wobbies World
Wobbies World is long gone by the time I’m recording this in 2020, which I’m sure is unsurprising given what I’ve already told you about the park. One commenter online sums it up, describing their only memory of the park as the lingering sense of deep and utter disappointment.
A number of factors were involved in the closure, not the least of which were the typical: mismanagement, compliance with safety standards, and financial difficulties leading to audience decline.
Costs
The park was said to be expensive for the time: $36 for a family of four admission in 1994 dollars, the oft-quoted number I saw. This is over $60 in today’s money. However, we could argue about the validity of that price quote. A 1991 price list I saw from a very reliable source (a legal proceeding) has adult admission at $3 and kids ages 4 and up $2, which is a very different pricing scheme.
However, given the miniscule scope of attractions at the park, the increasingly unsafe maintenance, and the very short amount of time a person could find themselves entertained at the park, and you can see how the cost was high. Additionally, most attractions had an additional cost, as noted earlier. For instance, to walk through the Vickers Viscount, the 1982 price was an additional $0.50. (About $1.30 today.) Only the playground equipment, firetruck, vintage cars, and trampolines were “free” (included in admission price).
Very late in the game, a “Red Baron” monorail type ride was added, featuring a single airplane on a very gentle slope. Most recollections of this ride are not particularly fond, and many describe it as “lame”.
Maintenance
Unsafe maintenance too seems to have played a large role. Urban Dictionary actually has a review or definition for the park: “Located in the state of Victorian, Australia, Wobby’s World was a little kiddie’s theme-park hangover from the 80’s. Was run, until recently, with complete disregard for health and safety regulations: the rides were never oiled, many were structurally unsound such as the best ride there which resembled a Hills Hoistwashing line, and the workers there seemed as if they either never slept, were hung-over or stoned. The last two options were definitely more likely.”
Many reviews and comments online from the latter years of the park’s history describe how poorly the park was looking – rides and attractions broken down, covered in rust, ungreased, and not working properly. The ride vehicles in general were said to all smell like sweat. Other comments talk about the overgrown landscaping, with stagnant water in the ponds and blackberry bushes overgrowing the paths. My general sense is that most people in the area found the park iconic, though often in a negative, run-down sort of way.
One comment relates an anecdote about riding the Whirlybird monorail in the later years, with the Whirlybird tipping over on a curve and dangling from the rail; passengers reportedly had to be rescued with the help of a stepladder. Another commenter online talks about giant cracks in the minigolf course and a hedge maze that was more holes than maze.
And of course, the park had to have broken so many health and safety laws. Or, perhaps if they didn’t actively break them, they didn’t upgrade to comply with new regulations. The rides certainly were relics from a different age, of common sense, burning hot slides, exposed machinery, and the like.
Hand in hand with health and safety laws had to be the ever-rising cost of insurance for a park such as this, as we’ve talked about so many times. That certainly didn’t help the bottom line, especially as maintenance and advertising costs also rose, and as attendance began dropping.
Mismanagement
But the final nail in the coffin for Wobbies World was “mismanagement”. Such a small word to describe some rather large ramifications and shenanigans.
Come the mid-to-late 90s, Wobbies World began having trouble staying in the black with the park – reduced attendance, larger spending on maintenance and advertising, and even new rides like the Red Baron airplane monorail (similar to the Whirlybird but not appearing to replace it).
In February of 1996, roughly $16,000 was spent to move the Vickers Viscount from Wobbies World back to Moorabin and the Australian National Aviation Museum (originally known as the Moorabin Air Museum). All pieces acquired by the museum are required to be directly related to Australian aviation history. And of course, as noted earlier, the Viscount was simply on loan to Wobbies World.
Apparently there was some drama involved with the move, of which I wished I knew more details. From an account of the life of the plane, we have only this quote: “the aircraft was transported to the Moorabbin Air Museum ( a saga in itself)”. Perhaps it was simply a difficult job to get the plane out past the tight squeeze of the Whirlybird tracks and other attractions? I’ll include links to several photos of the plane on the move in the next paragraph. One comes with the caption “a sigh of relief”.
The plane still lives at the museum today, reportedly the only complete Viscount remaining in Australia. It is still on display, and is reportedly undergoing major restoration.
But returning the Viscount to the museum in 1996 may have only hastened the public opinion issues with the park – one of the major attractions and pieces of background scenery, after all. By 1997, attendance was continuing to drop. Mr. Laurie, the owner, perhaps saw the writing on the wall, and put up the park for sale.
By December of 1997, the sale was finalized. Laurie was no longer the owner: now, it was owned by a company called Crystal Auburn, changing hands for the tidy sum of $550,000. Remember that Australia is in the southern hemisphere – summer runs from approximately December through February – so the park was in operation at the time of the sale.
And it seems that as they operated the park in the high season and went through the paperwork immediately following their purchase and acquisition of the park, Crystal Auburn began to smell a rat in the walls. Something wasn’t right. By March of 1998, three months after the purchase, they began seeking legal advice, and reportedly asked Laurie if he would take the park back.
He declined.
Crystal Auburn put Wobbies World up for sale at the end of that month, March 1998, at a sum of $650,000.
From a public perspective, the park was seeming increasingly run down, untidy, and simply not up to par. Things were dirty, rusty, moldy, mildewy, and broken. Descriptions of the park from former workers around this time paint a picture of an empty park and not much to do. Workers were primarily bored high school and university students, whiling away the days. There were said to be a bare handful of visitors on most days, with workers helping themselves to hot fries from the snack bar and passing the time with some hot book reading action (Stephen King! It was the 90s). Visitors weren’t being drawn in by the constantly running television commercials. The park had some irregular operating hours. It was circling the drain, in medical parlance. Ultimately, it was ingloriously shuttered the next year, in mid-1999, with fixtures being sold at public auction in June of 1999.
Of course, none of this tells the story of what really happened to Wobbies World.
It wouldn’t be until a series of three court cases, in 2000, 2001, and 2004, that the details came to public light.
The problem was that the 1997 sale of Wobbies World had apparently been done under false pretenses.
(The remainder of this section is sourced from my interpretation of three court cases, linked in the shownotes. I’m not a lawyer, so I’ll apologize in advance if I’ve misinterpreted anything. Read the case for yourself here: http://www8.austlii.edu.au/cgi-bin/viewdoc/au/cases/cth/FCA/2004/821.html)
So it seems when the park was put up for sale, attendance figures and a profile in a business magazine were used to promote the sale of the park, and were the basis by which Crystal Auburn chose to purchase the park. Only the problem was, it turns out that the business numbers – profits, attendance, etc, were determined to be falsified and misleading. The park’s income tax returns, even, were apparently incorrect for several years.
Of course, this wasn’t known at the time that Crystal Auburn purchased the park in December of 1997, though they quickly seemed to be figuring it out. Wobbies World under Crystal Auburn operation reportedly had attendance numbers 60% lower than the previously provided attendance figures. It wasn’t until several months later in March of 1998 that they began to ask for legal advice, and subsequently put Wobbies World back up for sale.
In August of 1998 with no offers coming in on the sale of the park, Crystal Auburn took the advice of their lawyers, walking away from their contract, walking away from Wobbies World. Laurie and his associated companies subsequently re-occupied and re-opened the property throughout the summer of 1998-1999 (remember, southern hemisphere – what Americans would consider winter months). A major vandalism incident is reported to have occurred during this time, closing several of the rides; ultimately, this may have been the final death knell for the park and its visitors.
By January of 1999, Laurie and his businesses had relisted Wobbies World for sale at a cost of $390,000. A buyer was found when the park land was finally auctioned in June 1999. The ad wrote: “Falling within an area zoned reserved living and in a predominantly residential district, agents believe the property is ideally suited to residential subdivision. But the site will be sold with conforming use rights, allowing an enterprising purchaser to continue to operate a theme park. McGees director Mr Richard O’Callaghan said the Wobbies World theme park commenced trading in 1980 and was a “source of joy for countless children. It would now appear that the site will be the source of much enjoyment for one successful residential developer.’ ”
A buyer was indeed found, splitting the theme park land up, so Wobbies World as it had been had to go. The park was shuttered. A public auction was set in July 199, one month later, to sell the park’s fixtures and rides. I’ll include a listing of the auction contents in the Appendix below. It’s said that Mr. Laurie himself personally bid on at least 24 different items.
By 2000, Crystal Auburn filed a legal proceeding against Laurie and his associated companies, seeking damages under the claim that Laurie’s companies had misrepresented Wobbies World when selling it. It took three cases and four more years before everything was settled. Ultimately, the courts came to a decision: apparently Laurie’s companies had knowingly misled, deceived, and mismanaged the sale of Wobbies World by falsifying data that led to Crystal Auburn’s purchase of the park. Crystal Auburn was awarded damages to the tune of almost $1 million dollars. Again, I recommend reading the original case, linked here.
After Wobbies World
The land that was formerly Wobbies World, there on Springvale Road in Nunawading or Vermont South or Forest Hill, whichever Melbourne suburb you’d like to place it in, was split up after the theme park shuttered in 1999.
Half of the land was sold to property developers, and became just your average basic housing tract. The other half stayed nearly as it was, and this was the half with the “castle”. The castle, in fact, was one of the longest-lasting parts of Wobbies World, as this half of the theme park became….a garden center. A plant nursery! In fact, there’s an indication that for a period of time, the castle was considered a heritage site, though this is only an educated guess.
The name was “The Park Nursery and Pool Center” – after a few weeks of research with this name kicking around in my head, I’ve decided that perhaps it wasn’t as generic as it sounds – do you think “The Park” was a subtle Wobbies World reference, as in “theme park”? Maybe.
Anyhow, the garden center stayed there for several years after Wobbies World was broken up. A few internet commenters say the original owner and/or his companies remained the owner of this garden center, though this isn’t clear or well-sourced in the slightest. A surprising amount of the physical infrastructure from Wobbies World remained – posts, the snack building, the mini-golf setup, and of course, the castle. Google Earth extends back this far, and shows that pots and plants are simply organized in neat rows over much of where the parking lot used to be. For a time, it looked quite nice (thanks, Google street view).
Everything stayed for years, because I suppose if there’s one thing Australia has a ton of, it’s land. But finally, a sign went up indicating a new purpose for the site, and in September of 2012, it was announced that the Forest Hill police station was to be built there. The garden center closed, and the property began to be the target for graffiti artists, as seen in this album of gorgeous abandoned images of Wobbies World. An October 2013 Google street view shows the shuttered, graffiti’d former castle.
A few accounts exist online about explorations of the park at this stage, and even a short video round about the demolition timeframe. There are few images available of the abandoned property since most of the interesting items (the rides) were sold fairly quickly. One shows a dingy, decrepit section of the mini-golf course blue AstroTurf obscured by debris, while another shows folks looking at an original Wobbies World sign that had fallen in the grass. A sad, misshapen elephant (possibly Mr. Wobbie himself) perched on a ball remained as a peeling mural on the wall of a building (apparently the former “birthday hut”). What little infrastructure that had been left was in a sorry state: rotting wooden bridges and walkways, rusting metal, massive overgrowth of blackberries and other flora, muddy mucky pools of water.
Between January 30th and February 27th of 2014, the castle building was demolished. The ceremonial first shovelful of dirt was dug February 12, 2014. The $12 million Forest Hill Police Station went up in its place, opening in March of 2015 all shiny and gleaming and modern, but the outbuildings and the back quarter of the park remained in their decaying glory, until the entire site was finally demo’d in July or August of 2016.
Wobbies World in Culture Today
That was the end of Wobbies World as anything resembling a physical site, but the park remains to this day as a concept in Australian cultural parlance.
Back in the 90s, it was the height of the late-night sketch comedy show. One of these was the short-lived but well-remembered show, aptly named “The Late Show”. Based out of Melbourne, this was a show appearing to be similar to America’s MADtv or Canada’s The Red Green Show. One of the recurring segments on the show was “Pissweak World”, where fake commercials were shown promoting a theme park called Pissweak World. Video showed bored-looking children (known as The Pissweak Kids) experiencing disappointing rides at a terrible “theme park”. Voiceover provided exuberant commentary about the terrible-looking rides and attractions: “travel on a real golf buggy”, “roll down a slope”, etc. The exciting-sounding descriptions were obvious send-ups: for instance, the voice-over of “ride a bucking bronco” showed a child sitting calmly on the back of a golden retriever, Marine World was a swimming pool, and one of the Air World rides involved wearing ski goggles in front of a small fan. Ultimately, there were seven Pissweak World episode segments: Pissweak World, Pissweak Colonial World (also known as Ye Olde Pissweak Worlde), Pissweak World Fun Park, Pissweak Western World, Pissweak Marine World, Pissweak Movie World, and Pissweak Air World. (Here’s a playlist of the Pissweak World segments, linked here!)
(And in a brief sidebar, the voiceover narration was provided by one Tony Martin, who today has his own podcast, Sizzletown, among other things.)
It’s generally accepted that this segment for the worst theme park ever was directly inspired by and parodying Wobbies World in particular. Depending on your point of view, it’s a direct example of how influential, inspiring, uninspiring, or unexceptional Wobbies World actually was. Today, Pissweak World is perhaps even more well-known or commonly referenced than Wobbies World, evidenced by its regular use on Twitter and other social media sites.
So much fun at Pissweak World! Screenshot from the Pissweak World sketch from The Late Show, as seen on YT.
The park also reportedly was immortalized in an episode of the Aussie TV show Prisoner. If anyone has any leads on which ep (there are 692!), I’d love to know!
And of course, Wobbies World remains a talking point in discussions today, including political debate. From online notes, we find at least two references to Wobbies World: April 2016 comments by the Premier Andrews to the opposition leader during legislative assembly: “The Leader of the Opposition ought to get down to Wobbies World because he might have the numbers there. He should not waste his time on me; he might have the numbers down at Wobbies World. They might need a leader down there — he will be unopposed.” And Parliament of Victoria Legislative Council, Mr. Leane, April 2013: “I am glad I have parliamentary privilege because Wobbies World was probably the worst amusement park you could ever imagine in your lifetime. Sorry, Mr Wobbie, but it was pretty ordinary.”
Of course, physical remnants of Wobbies World still remain, even with the park long-shuttered and the castle demolished.
The miniature trams remained onsite for some time – one commenter online posted a picture of them said to be circa 2005, still in their former storage shed, now much overgrown and dirty. At least one of these mini-trams was sold at auction, and the remainder are said to have been gifted by the former owners to the same person who now owns the iconic Bell 47J helicopter, on a farm near “Frankston-Dandy” road.
The copter sits in the front paddock next to a busy road, delightfully visible to all traffic passing by. According to an online comment, the local council fought the owners about it for several years after they’d purchased it at the Wobbies World auction, but finally settled. Reportedly the copter is unlikely to fly again, missing the motor and gearbox – an expensive proposition to get it in flight-worthy condition. Today, the copter’s paint is peeling and there have unfortunately been some vandalism incidents. However, it remains safe from the scrap heap, and a reminder of good times gone by for the regular traffic on the busy Frankston-Dandy road. Link to Google map view of the helicopter here.
Bell 47J, formerly VH-INE, formerly of Ansett-ANA and Airfast and Wobbies World, sits in a paddock growing mold. July 2008 image taken by Wal Nelowkin, used with permission. See additional details and images of the aircraft in operation here: https://www.jetphotos.com/photo/8979890.
The W2-class trams are all now said to be in the hands of private collectors or restoration enthusiasts. And as recently as 2018, the 6-wheel Sierra Trailboss “Wobbies Wheels” ATV cars could be found for sale up on Facebook Marketplace. Little bits of this decades-gone theme park still remain, and there’s something infinitely charming and melancholic about that. What remains when we’re gone into obsolescence, and what meaning is left for those looking back?
Conclusions
“It’s great at Wobbies World!”
I can’t close out this episode without bringing the discussion back around to the wildfires raging in Australia right now. Half a billion animals are dead, millions of acres have been destroyed. It’s bonkers.
Climate change is real and causing massive, problematic weather, amongst other things. You can combat this. You can make small changes like reducing your car and airplane usage, eating less or no meat, supporting policies that control and reduce large companies’ emissions, and by talking about climate change to others. Climate change is relevant to us all, even if you’d rather be talking about defunct theme parks.
For many, Wobbies World remains a place of good memories, especially for those who visited at a very young age or with young kids. It was a place for birthday and holiday parties, and a place for the young at heart who wouldn’t necessarily see the flaws. For the older folks, it seems as though Wobbies World was more mixed – everyone seems to remember the constantly-running TV commercials and the iconic sights of the park as they drove by, but the general sentiment was of misconception, disappointment, and a fairly sad theme park experience. “I think the ad was more enjoyable than the real thing.” and “So bad, it was good” and “the worst theme park ever, which was what made it great.” No matter what, Wobbies World was memorable. And it inspired the parody “Pissweak World”, a concept which I might be incorporating into my own vocabulary.
And you know, for all that I said at the beginning that this park was about misconceptions, Wobbies World was actually a whole lot of fun to research. I think given the right frame of mind, or the right age, it would’ve been a fun place to visit, too. Even if it was really a bit of Pissweak World underneath.
“At Wobbies World, there’s heaps to do / bring your friends, and Mum too / visit the castle, or fly in the sky / Wobbies World has lots of rides: helicopters, fire engines, trams, and slides.”
Appendix: Auction Listings for Wobbies World
These lists are taken from the 2004 legal case regarding Wobbies World, and are presented here to help the interested understand the types of rides and equipment which used to be at the park.
59 All of the items of plant and equipment set out in the annexure to the hire purchase agreement between Bendigo Bank and Crystal Auburn were itemised in the auction catalogue prepared by Taylor Lockwood. These were as follows: Item 17 – Whirly Bird Ride; Item 27 – “Wob Cats” Ride; Item 29 – Hand Cart Rail Ride; Item 38 – “Wobbies Wheels” Amusement Ride; Item 51 – Mini Fire Brigade Full Automatic Ride; Item 46 – “Mini Tram Fully Automatic Ride”; Item 78 – “Helicopter Ride”, Item 77 – “Red Baron Ride”; Item 99 – Fiat Diesel Powered Bull Dozer with Tilting Blade & Accessories; Item 61 – “The Splash Down Ride”; Item 3 – Kubota L245 Diesel Powered Farm Tractor with Front End Loader Attachment & Slasher; Item 1a – Fibreglass Battery Electric Vintage Car; Item 2 – Dennis Diesel Powered Fire Truck; Items 24 & 25 – 2 Melbourne Transport Trams Complete with Chasis (sic), Railing, Overhead Protective Canopy & Loading Platform; Item 59 – Melbourne Transport Tram.
60 A total of 104 items, sold in 102 lots, were included in the Taylor Lockwood catalogue. I make the following observations.
61 Several items listed in Schedule 3 were not listed in the auction catalogue, as follows: Skid Mounted Picnic Table Setting with Overhead Canopy; 6 Associated Picnic Tables & Shelters; Aluminium Extension Ladder; EMF Portable Arc Welding Plant & Accessories; Quell Squeeze Grip Fire Extinguisher; Timber 2 Wheel Farm Cart; Mini Golf 18 Hole Golf Course with Signage Concrete Footings, Spot Lighting, Colourbond Return Shed, Tunnels, Bridges, Fountain, Club Balls & Associated Fittings; Fibreglass Helicopter with Fibreglass Slide; Fiat Diesel Powered Bull Dozer with Tilting Blade & Accessories; 2 Fire Trucks, Delivery Van, Electric Cart, & Army Tank & Gerlinger Tractor.
62 Several items not listed in Schedule 3 to the agreement were listed in the auction catalogue, as follows: Item 2 – DENIS FIRE TRUCK, ROLLS ROYCE STRAIGHT ENGINE, 4 SPEED TRANSMISSION, 1,000 GALLONS/MIN PUMP, CHASSIS No:324F2, ENGINE No: B80X-6E; Item 17a – Set of Fibreglass Helicopter Moulds; Item 21 – Steel Fabricated Glazed Window Ticketing Booth; Item 26 – Stee l Fabricated 20m x 9m Open Sided Storage Shed; Item 30 – Meadows 75KA Generator Plant Powered By 6 Cylinder Diesel Engine; Item 39 – Wormald Squeeze Grip Fire Extinguisher; Item 40 – 2 Assorted Squeeze Grip Fire Extinguishers; Item 47 – Westinghouse 12 volt Power Supply For Track Control Circuits; Item 48 – Chargemaster 12 volt Power Supply For Track Control Circuits; Item 49 – Set of Moulds to Reproduce Mini Trams; Item 50 – 20m x 12m Steel Fabricated Loading Canopy/Open Sided Shed; Item 52 – Timber 4 Wheel Farm Cart; Item 56 – Kids Train Picnic Table; Item 63 – Australian Built Track Drive Bren Gun Carrier; Item 65 – 1 x Denis Fire Engine Austin 4 Cylinder Engine and Fire Tendering Pump; Item 66 – DENIS FIRE TRUCK, ROLLS ROYCE STRAIGHT ENGINE, 4 SPEED TRANSMISSION, 1,000 GALLONS/MIN PUMP, CHASSIS No:324F2, ENGINE No: B80X-6E; Item 67 – Ford D Series Truck and Van Body; Item 72 – Steel Framed Double Sided Bus Shelter; Item 74 – Bell 47 Aluminium Helicopter; Item 75 – Fibreglass Slide and Adventure Tower; Item 99 – Fait (sic) 451c Diesel Powered Bull Dozer, 3 Cylinder with Angle Tilting Blade and Chisel Plough; Item 88 – Quantity of Gold Putting Cubs and Mini-Golf Accessories; Item 100 – Gerlinger 6 Cylinder International Diesel Straddle Truck; Item 101 – McDonald 1.5m Diesel Powered Smooth Drum Roller; Item 102 – Crane. There was nothing listed for Item 98.
Shannons. Sold: Electric Tram – Ex Wobbies World Auctions – Lot M138 – Shannons. Shannons Insurance. https://www.shannons.com.au. Accessed December 18, 2019.
]]>https://theabandonedcarousel.com/wobbies-world/feed/875762Dogpatch USA
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https://theabandonedcarousel.com/dogpatch-usa/#respondFri, 24 Jan 2020 10:00:00 +0000https://theabandonedcarousel.com/?p=12735Buckle up, folks. It’s a long one today. I’m going to tell you a story about a groundbreaking comic strip, about Li’l Abner and Daisy Mae, about the rural purge,... Read more »
]]>Buckle up, folks. It’s a long one today. I’m going to tell you a story about a groundbreaking comic strip, about Li’l Abner and Daisy Mae, about the rural purge, and about a theme park that became outdated and ground to a halt. There’s legal battles and ownership struggles and so many acronyms it’ll make your head spin. This is the long, sometimes unbelievable story of Dogpatch USA.
January 24, 2020: I originally posted this podcast episode and accompanying blog post in September 2019. With Dogpatch USA back in the news recently, I’ve updated this post and re-published it. I’ll be back with a new episode of The Abandoned Carousel next week – see you then! –Ashley
Sadie Hawkins
This week, our story begins in perhaps a seemingly roundabout way.
Remember Sadie Hawkins Day, that pseudo-holiday where girls ask boys to a dance? Maybe you don’t, maybe you’re a younger listener from a more enlightened era who never had this phenomenon forced on them. Let me explain. The tradition originated in the late 1930s, when culturally, men did all the inviting and women rarely were socially allowed to do the same. The Sadie Hawkins dance (and Sadie Hawkins day) became a cultural phenomenon of gender role-reversal. Women asked men out to the big dance for once!
Does it seem empowering? Does it seem enlightened? Maybe not as much as you might think.
Sadie Hawkins was not a real person. Sadie Hawkins was the “homeliest gal in all them hills”, a character from Al Capp’s Li’l Abner comic strip. She was an unmarried spinster, and when she reached the “horrifying” age of 35 years old and was still unmarried, her father came up with a plan to solve the horrifying dilemma. Depicted in the comic originally between November 13-30th, 1937, Sadie’s father set up a foot race and invited all the unmarried men from the fictional town of Dogpatch USA. Whichever one Sadie caught first at the end of the race was obligated by town law to marry her.
The idea caught fire and spread out of the newspaper comic strip and into pop culture. By 1939, two years later, Sadie Hawkins had a double-page spread in Life magazine, and Sadie Hawkins day was an annual feature of Al Capp’s Li’l Abner comic strip.
Li’l Abner
You might also be saying to yourself, who or what is Li’l Abner and why should I care?
It’s always surprising when something once so incredibly popular and well-known is in modern times an unknown, distant memory. As the wheel turns, so too go our cultural references.
Li’l Abner was a comic strip, written and drawn by one Al Capp. It debuted in August 1934, and ran daily until November of 1977. The strip was one of, if not the first comic strips to focus on the South. Before Li’l Abner, comic strips were based around Northern experiences. (Capp, probably unsurprisingly, was not actually from the South, despite the characters in his comic.)
The strip was set in the fictional town of Dogpatch, initially located in Kentucky, but later carefully only referred to as Dogpatch USA (likely to avoid offending Kentuckians and avoid cancellations of the strip from Kentucky newspapers!). Capp described Dogpatch as “an average stone-age community nestled in a bleak valley, between two cheap and uninteresting hills somewhere.” And the plot? Not so much a plot-driven comic, this strip was about the characters and the socio-political commentary. It was loud, bawdy, detailed, sexy, and poked sharp humor at the world.
Li’l Abner was an over-the-top stereotype of poverty and Appalachia. Residents of Dogpatch were ignorant and lazy or scoundrels and thieves. It wasn’t without purpose, though. Reportedly, the characters in Li’l Abner allowed Americans suffering through the Great Depression to laugh at someone even worse off than themselves.
Mural of the Li’l Abner comic strip painted at the Al Capp memorial in Amesbury. Source: Botteville / Wikimedia Commons, CCBYSA3.0.
The stars of the strip were the titular Li’l Abner, his love interest and later wife Daisy Mae (their nuptials landed them a Life magazine cover in March 1952), parents Mammy and Pappy, and a host of other supporting characters. There were also a number of allegorical animals over the years, including the fabulous “shmoo”, which “bred exponentially, consumed nothing, and eagerly provided everything that humankind could wish for.” (The Wikipedia article on the characters and settings is quite detailed if you’re interested in more information.) The strip as a whole was outright misanthropic.
Reception of Li’l Abner
Li’l Abner was a cultural phenomenon. It was like nothing anyone had seen before.
At its peak, the comic reportedly reached over 70 million households, in a time when the US population was only 180 million people. That’s almost 40% of the population.
John Steinbeck “called Capp “very possibly the best writer in the world today” in 1953, and even earnestly recommended him for the Nobel Prize in literature”. In a 1997 book, comics historian Richard Marschall said: “Capp was calling society absurd, not just silly; human nature not simply misguided, but irredeemably and irreducibly corrupt. Unlike any other strip, and indeed unlike many other pieces of literature, Li’l Abner was more than a satire of the human condition. It was a commentary on human nature itself.”
Li’l Abner marked a change in the tone of the comics world when it was introduced in the 1930s. It introduced politics and dark social commentary into a market that was primarily filled with lighthearted amusements. As the popularity of the strip grew, the audience makeup shifted, as well, comprised mostly of adults now.
Li’l Abner was even reportedly the inspiration for MAD magazine. Both captured the satirical dark humor that was becoming more popular with American audiences.
The comic was the subject of the first book-length scholarly critique of a comic strip, as well. “One of the few strips ever taken seriously by students of American culture,” wrote Arthur Berger. “Li’l Abner is worth studying…because of Capp’s imagination and artistry, and because of the strip’s very obvious social relevance.” (Berger shows a little bias here, since he’s the author of this first book critiquing the strip. It has exactly one review on Amazon at the time of this recording: “It wasn’t what I expected since Lil Abner doesn’t need to be psycho-analyzed.”
Li’l Abner in Pop Culture
Beyond literary criticism, Li’l Abner touched all parts of culture, particularly during the height of the comic strip’s popularity (between the 1940s-1970s). At one point, Al Capp reoprtedly convinced six of the most popular radio personalities of the mid-40s to record a song he’d written about Daisy Mae; one of these was ol’ blue eyes himself, Frank Sinatra.
There was a radio drama and a Broadway musical. There were comic book anthologies and a short-lived TV cartoon and a live-action movie. And then of course, there was licensing.
Characters from Dogpatch were licensed to dozens of popular products throughout the decades, appearing throughout the grocery store and pharmacy aisles, and on the pages of men’s and women’s magazines alike. There were toys, games, clothes, and a series of family restaurants called Li’l Abner’s. (All have gone out of business by the time of this recording in 2019; a Li’l Abner’s Steakhouse in Tucson currently operating is not related to the Al Capp comics brand.)
And finally, beyond all of that, there was a theme park, called Dogpatch USA.
Dogpatch USA
Before it was Dogpatch USA, a now-abandoned theme park based on a once incredibly popular media property, the land in the Ozarks, Harrison and Jasper, Arkansas, was just a scenic spot off Arkansas Highway 7.
The area was called Marble Falls, Arkansas.
In the 40s, Albert Raney purchased a trout farm. The Raney family also owned the nearby Mystic Caverns, caves with beautiful natural formations that had been commercial tourist attractions since the late 1920s. A local realtor, OJ Snow, saw the potential in both the caverns and the Raney trout farm when Raney put up the trout farm for sale in 1966.
Snow gathered a group of businessmen and formed Recreation Enterprises, Incorporated (REI) to develop the property into an amusement park. (As a sidebar, this will be our first, but not last, business acronym. Keep count.) REI approached Al Capp with their plans for the park, reportedly assuring him (somewhat ironically, we’ll find out) that the park would be quiet and dignified, and wouldn’t have any roller coasters or thrill rides that would conflict with the hillbilly themes of Li’l Abner.
Capp consented, having turned down several theme park proposals in other areas in prior years, and the planning was on.
Groundbreaking on Dogpatch USA
Capp and his wife came to Arkansas for a groundbreaking ceremony in October of 1967. Reportedly, Dogpatch USA was the by-product of his comic strip that made him most proud, as he said in his remarks during the ceremony. “This is the one which will finally gain me some respect from my grandchildren, who until now have always thought of me as a silly man who just draws pictures.”
Local perception of the park was mixed. State officials were reportedly concerned about negative impressions of Arkansas due to the hillbilly stereotype. Attendees of the 1967 Central Arkansas Urban Policy Conference also expressed doubts about the likelihood of success for the park, as many other parks in the decade prior had tried to replicate the success of Disneyland (1955) but failed. Still, the local Chamber of Commerce approved plans for the park.
This may have been in part due to an optimistic projection report from an LA consultant firm, which projected 400,000 visitors in year one, 1M visitors by year ten, and annual revenue of $5 M by year ten.
These projections were incredibly optimistic, in retrospect, as we’ll later see.
Albert Raney, who still maintained ties with the park, was actually the town postmaster, and the post office is and was right in the Dogpatch USA parking lot. In 1968, Raney helped the town of Marble Falls officially change their name to Dogpatch, Arkansas, to promote the park.
Over $1.3 M was reportedly put into the park’s phase I. Construction, according to some, was rushed. Scores of workers descended on the area in March, April, and May of 1968 in order to accomodate the opening date of mid-May 1968.
REI renovated the Mystic Caverns and renamed them Dogpatch Caverns, installing lighting, handrails, and additional safety features. Authentic 19th century log cabins were found elsewhere in the Ozarks, disassembled, and painstakingly reassembled at Dogpatch USA.
Dogpatch (Mystic) Caverns. Source: Clinton Steeds / Flickr. CCBYSA 2.0.
Additionally, an 1834 watermill, already on the property, by the name of Peter Beller’s Mill, was restored to working condition for the park. The mill was not only for looks – it actually operated, grinding corn into cornmeal, which was then packaged and sold to visitors.
One of the major pros of the park for the Chamber of Commerce was the Cornpine Square business region, which employed many from the local area, demonstrating and selling wares, arts, and crafts. One such building was called the Ladies Brotherhood Hand Sewing Center for all things knit, sewn, or woven. There was a diamond and stone museum, including demonstrations from artisans. There was a honey shop, a glassblowing center, a woodshop and wood carving, photo studio, pottery center, candle shop, and of course, trout fishing.
Opening day was May 17, 1968.
Dogpatch was immediately a success. Motels in the area reported hordes of tourists they couldn’t serve, even going so far as to seek private rooms in the area for the summer season in order to handle the crowds they couldn’t serve in their motels. Reportedly, there were about 8,000 visitors on opening day, with 300,000 visitors reported in the first year. They also reported a net profit of about $100,000 at the end of the year – $700,000 in today’s money. Not too shabby, but not quite the 400,000 visitors projected by that LA firm prior to the project’s start.
Early, Hazy Days of Success at Dogpatch USA
Things at Dogpatch USA looked so sweet in those early days. A local 1968 op-ed wrote that Dogpatch had “a good chance of becoming one of the nation’s biggest tourist attractions”. That same op-ed projected a gross of $12 M for the park in the first six years, adding “the rest of Northwest Arkansas had better start rounding out their own tourist facilities to take advantage of the crowd”.
This is the point where, to be honest, I would always get bored and confused in the story of Dogpatch USA in my research. Hang in there if you feel the same way. I’ve punched it up a bit, and honestly the story of Dogpatch USA is so much wilder when all of the details are left in instead of being glossed over.
REI, the developer group who owned the park, spent their first off-season squabbling over how to use the profits from the first year of Dogpatch USA’s operation. Many of the members wanted to divide the profits amongst themselves personally, while some members, including our realtor friend OJ Snow, wanted to reinvest the profits in the park. This dispute left an opening for an entrepreneurial spirit.
Enter businessman Jess Odom. He saw that opportunity, and purchased a controlling interest in the park from REI members in late 1968. He signed a 30-year licensing agreement with Al Capp: the park had the rights to use Capp’s Li’l Abner intellectual property from 1968 through 1998, and in return, Capp would receive 2-3% of the gross profits of the park.
Dogpatch USA: 1969
In addition to further licensing of the Li’l Abner IP, Odom had capital p Plans for Dogpatch USA. He reportedly installed $350,000 worth of rides before the park reopened for the season in May 1969. It’s likely that one of these was the “Frustratin’ Flyer”, a Monster Mouse model Allan Herschell mad mouse coaster.
One other was the “Earthquake McGoon’s Brain Rattler”, a Chance Rides prototype Toboggan coaster. This ride was painted as a track wrapped around a metal tree – riders in a small coaster car climbed through the tree and then circled around the structure before doing a short out and back to the station. This ride bore serial number #1 from the factory in Wichita. (If you’re new to the podcast, check out the Joyland episodes, where I talk about Chance Rides, and the recent C. P. Huntington train episode). A scant 32 Toboggans were manufactured. Most were built on trailers for portability. Earthquake McGoon’s was not. Conflicting reports arise, as some places say the coaster was introduced later on (in 1981). However, this seems unlikely given the manufacturer’s date of 1969 and the manufacturing dates of other Chance Toboggans (via RCDB).
Beyond rides, Odom hired former six-term Arkansas governor Orval Faubus as president of Dogpatch USA in early 1969. This was ultimately only a one-year position for Faubus that primarily consisted of promotional visits across the country, extolling the virtues of the theme park.
Odom also arranged some cross-promotional opportunities. The first annual Miss Dogpatch contest was held in 1969, and the park also was a filming location for the 1969 horror flick “It’s Alive!”, which has 2.7 stars (out of 10) on IMDb.
The park was doing well. 1969 marked a high point in rustic, hillbilly pop culture nationwide. Li’l Abner appeared in more than 700 US newspapers daily. Shows with rustic, rural themes like Green Acres, The Beverly Hillbillies, and Petticoat Junction were all massive hits on TV. And locally, another theme park with a similar country rustic theme was finding success as well: Silver Dollar City, outside of Branson MO.
Dogpatch USA: Early 1970s
Things continued to go well for Dogpatch in its next few years. A motel made solely of mobile homes was completed in time for the 1970 opening day, as was a campsite with over a hundred spaces. A funicular tram (essentially an angled railway going up and down a slope) was nearing completion and opened midway through the 1970 season. The funicular transported guests from the parking lot down to the theme park below.
Odom was like Uncle Scrooge seeing unlimited dollar signs. He bought out almost all of the remaining REI investors and essentially became the new owner of Dogpatch USA.
1971 Li’l Abner TV special. Source: ABC Television / wikimedia commons https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:Lil_Abner_television_special_1971.JPG (public domain).
By 1972, a number of new attractions were added, including animal exhibits with sea lions and exotic birds, and a “unique boat ride”. This was simply called Boat Train Ride, and involved a cast member driving a motorboat, pulling a train of non-motorized boats behind it. The ride went up the creek to the Mill and then back again.
Marble Falls Ski Facility
1972 also saw the announcement of a new project: Marble Falls. This was to be “a highly unique snow-skiing and convention facility which will offer a variety of seasonal attractions the year round.” Odom saw this as a way of maximizing the potential of Dogpatch, continuing the profits throughout the off season. The ski center used snow machines to produce adequate ski slopes, and also featured an ice-skating rink, an inn, condos, and A-frame Alpine chalets that were sold as timeshares to help defray costs.
Ironically, a snowstorm caused delays in the opening of Marble Falls. The snow cannons were all stuck in a major snowstorm in Denver! Not only that, but it was icy on Marble Falls’ opening day, which kept patrons away. Slopes were finally conditioned for skiing by New Years, and for a few weeks, things went great. Unfortunately, it was an early spring, and by mid-February, it was too warm for even artificial snow. This was to be the story of Marble Falls for each year of its operation.
Many people, of course, point to the Marble Falls winter resort as the tipping point for Dogpatch’s downfall.
More Additions to Dogpatch in the 1970s
Additional rides were added to Dogpatch USA in 1973, including a scrambler, go-karts, a shooting gallery, a maze, and a swinging bridge. They all have Li’l Abner-themed names which I really don’t need to go into here. Pappy Yokum’s Positively Petrifying Putt-Mobiles, indeed.
The “famous” Kissing Rocks sculpture was also added during the 1973 season – two very large heads of characters kissing, carved out of stone.
1974 saw additional new attractions, including a replica Native American village and Hairless Joe’s Kickapoo Barrel. This was a very memorable thrill ride of which few photos exist. It’s one of the “Rotor” type, also known as “Devil’s Hole” and “Hell Hole”. Simple in concept, these were incredibly popular around the 1950s. Riders were spun in a circle until centrifugal force pinned them to the wall of the barrel, and then the floor of the ride dropped out while the ride kept spinning. This sounds absolutely terrifying to me, but I get that I’m a chicken about these things.
Attendance estimates for this time period vary wildly, from 200,000 visitors per year to over 1 million visitors per year at its peak.
Trouble on the Horizon for Dogpatch USA
It did seem like prospects were looking up and up and up for Dogpatch, even with the stops and starts of the Marble Falls Ski project. As with all good roller coasters, it was time to fall down. A number of factors came together at once to really seal the fate of Dogpatch.
Nationally, in the early 1970s, interest rates skyrocketed. Odom needed money for Dogpatch, so even though it was a bad time to borrow, he had no choice. He borrowed money from Union Planters Bank in Memphis – $2M in 1972 and an additional $1.5M in 1973.
An energy crisis kept travellers home due to the high cost of oil and gasoline in the oil embargo of 1973. And in pop culture, there was the “rural purge”. Network TV executives, especially those at CBS, began cancelling rural, rustic shows in favor of more urban-directed shows that were aimed at a different audience. Additionally at play here was the newly-implemented Prime Time Access Rule, which forced networks to trim seven half-hour shows (from 7:30-8:00pm) from their weekly programming and return that time to local stations. Shows had to go. Urban variety shows were the new trend, so even though shows like The Beverly Hillbillies were popular, they had to go from the POV of a network executive.
Li’l Abner was still a daily comic strip in a declining number of papers, but the extensions of the property never happened given the changing cultural climate. No Li’l Abner restaurant chain, and no Li’l Abner TV series. Al Capp was facing sexual assault charges. Capp’s politics in his comic strip were changing.
And back in the Ozarks, attendance numbers for Dogpatch USA in the 1970s were nowhere near expectations.
Abandoned Dogpatch USA. Source: Craig Finlay / Flickr – CCBYSA2.0.
Weather and Money Troubles in the Late 70s
Mild weather was spelling trouble – this was awful news for the ski lodge of Marble Falls. You can’t have a ski lodge in warm weather, even if you can make artificial snow. Marble Falls sat empty and grassy and idle. Dogpatch USA made a moderate profit, but couldn’t make up for the resulting lack of income from the Marble Falls side of things.
Jess Odom was sitting at around $3.5 million dollars in debt at this point. He tried some business maneuvers, but ultimately failed. Banks began seeking their money back from Odom in the late 70s. In 1976 and 1977, two different banks sued Odom and his company, Marble Falls Estates.
And then in 1977, Al Capp retired, ending the Li’l Abner strip. This was a huge blow to the park, as the strip had essentially provided a constant, wide-spread advertising for the park. All together, expenses were up, and profits were down.
That same year of 1977, Odom made the decision to permanently close the Marble Falls ski slopes, citing the fact that the attraction had lost $50,000 to $100,000 a year since its opening in 1972.
Despite all this, 1977 was reportedly the most profitable year yet, with the highest attendance numbers in the park’s history.
Odom tried to add some new attractions to stem the tide: the Slobbovian sled run, a puppet theater, a space flight simulator. It wasn’t enough.
In 1979, Odom announced that he was in talks to sell Dogpatch to a nonprofit Christian group called God’s Patch, Inc, and reportedly had been negotiating the deal privately for several years. Should the deal go through, Dogpatch would be converted into a biblically themed entertainment and convention center. The deal never went forward, however, as God’s Patch, Inc. couldn’t find sufficient matching investment funds before their allotted time ran out.
Odom tried another tact, feeling himself sinking under the weight of the high interest rates on his loans. He went to the Harrison City Council. He tried to get their help in essentially refinancing all of his loans and extending their life while lowering the interest rates, through the issuing of tourism bonds. Ultimately, he was asking them for all of his personal money back out of the park, for Harrison to assume all the debts, and for the park to be run by this God’s Patch group.
Harrison City Council wasn’t particularly excited by the proposal, and asked to see his books for the last five years.
Within a week of the meeting, two lawsuits were filed. The previous year, in 1978, a child fell over 20 feet after slipping between a ride and its loading platform; a woman slipped and fell trying to catch the child. Both suffered spinal injuries and permanent disabilities. They sought over $200k in compensation, alleging in the suit that Dogpatch had been negligent in ride design, safety, and employee training. The lawsuits took two years to settle, and they left a bad taste in the mouth of the Harrison City Council.
The Harrison City Council rejected Odom’s bond proposal, and they rejected his subsequent followup bond proposal. Councilmembers reportedly went on record at the time to say that the entire community was against any bonds relating to Dogpatch. The general sense was that the community knew the shape of it, and didn’t want any part in the bad deal Odom was trying to pass off on someone else.
Abandoned Dogpatch USA. Source: The Stuart / wikimedia commons (public domain).
Some new attractions materialized again at the park, doing little to improve attendance: a trained bear act, and the first appearance of a costumed Shmoo character.
In 1980, a new business entity was formed, this time called Ozark Family Entertainment (OFE). OFE stated that they had no connection with Dogpatch, although later records reportedly indicated that multiple people associated with OFE had been in management positions at Dogpatch USA or had been involved in other business dealings with Odom.
Several people were reportedly interested in moving Dogpatch to a new location, and Odom was reportedly no longer interested in being the owner of the park. The newest idea was that now they’d try getting Jasper (Newton County, where most of Dogpatch was physically located) to issue tourist bonds, with the gist of their proposal being no property taxes on almost 1000 acres of developed land, plus cheap money.
OFE negotiated to purchase Dogpatch, which was unsurprisingly approved by the shareholders. Newton County tentatively agreed to the bond proposal only if OFE could find buyers for all the bonds AND convince Dogpatch USA’s creditors to accept the bonds in lieu of payment. OFE seemed to think they had this in place.
In one of the many mind-numbingly complex situations involved with Dogpatch, REI maintained ownership of the park for the summer of 1980, but OFE managed it. Banks and creditors wanted to wait on the bond issue through the summer season to see how profitable Dogpatch USA was going to be without the weight of the now-closed Marble Falls ski resort.
What happened was a massive heat wave. 1980 saw what was reputedly the hottest summer in Arkansas history to date, with more triple-digit days that year than almost any prior year. Trees and plants withered, water sources dried up, and people stayed inside. They did not want to be out at a theme park in humid 100+ degree temperatures. The months rolled on, and summer at Dogpatch USA in 1980 was a bust.
By the end of August, the creditors had seen enough. They weren’t willing to accept the bonds as payment. Additional banks sued Dogpatch and its holding companies over their unpaid, ballooning debts. The bond issue wasn’t going anywhere. Odom tried to get the banks to allow delayed payments on some of the debts, but they weren’t having any of it. And the lawsuits over the child and woman injured at the park were settled during this time as well, for an undisclosed amount of money.
In October 1980, Union Planters Bank, to which Dogpatch owed millions, filed to take possession of Dogpatch and Marble Falls.
In November 1980, Dogpatch filed for bankruptcy. Their filing reportedly listed 90 creditors owed $3.2 M, including personal debts to Al Capp and Jess Odom himself. OFE would not be able to buy the park unless these creditors were all paid off. The bank, Union Planters, took possession of Dogpatch USA, including most of the associated business as well: hotels, chalets, post office, restaurant, and service station. Despite their ownership on paper, Union Planters was reportedly ready to sell quickly, as they were located in Memphis, almost 300 miles from Dogpatch USA.
Here we go through yet more confusing legal ownership.
Union Planters expected that Dogpatch USA wouldn’t open during the 1981 season, but it ended up doing so after all. Enter Wayne Thompson, one of the former members of OFE and a former general manager at Dogpatch USA (during 1974-1975 season). He formed a new company called Ozark’s Entertainment, Inc (OEI), because who doesn’t love another confusing acronym? OEI purchased Dogpatch and much of its assets for an undisclosed sum early in 1981.
The bank retained Marble Falls Ski Resort, and auctioned the property off in April of 1981 (we’ll get back to this in a minute). Also sold were the Dogpatch Caverns. The latter were purchased by Albert Raney, part of the family that owned the original trout farm property. After a rename to Mystic Caverns, they continued operating as a tourist attraction that year.
Dogpatch USA under OEI Ownership
Wayne Thompson, as mentioned, had originally been a general manager of Dogpatch back in 1974 and 1975. In the intervening years between his management and his ownership of the park, he reportedly managed a different park down in Florida, leveling himself up on park management skills. As the 80s rolled on and Dogpatch USA began operations under Thompson and OEI, it was clear he’d learned some useful things.
For instance, he cut staff – from 600 in 1980 down to 250 in 1981. He focused on upgrading landscaping and adding additional arts and crafts and shows. Thompson even re-invested in the park’s infrastructure, working with a local firm to rebuild the Marble Falls water wheel. They used original period wood-working techniques and the original cast iron spike, still drilled into the rock at the base of the waterfall.
And of course, Thompson added new rides. The iconic “Wild Water Rampage” (the big waterslide still living on the property today) was installed for the 1984 operating season.
Source: Kenzie Campbell / wikimedia commons via flickr, CCBYSA 2.0.
Reportedly, big name acts like Ike and Tina Turner, Hank Thompson, and Reba McEntire all performed at Dogpatch USA’s ampitheatre at this time. Denver Pyle from the popular TV show Dukes of Hazzard was signed on as the spokesman for the park. And Thompson signed licensing deals: Spiderman, Batman, and Captain America were all on hand for autographs and appearances. At the same time, Coke, Dr. Pepper, and Tyson Foods licensed their brands for amphitheatres, buildings, and season passes.
All told, Dogpatch USA recovered from its slumps in 1979 and 1980, and made a profit. Reportedly, attendance was up by 21%, although this practically should’ve been a guarantee after the 1980 heatwave.
More Legal Entanglements for Dogpatch
While the park seemed to be recovering, more was going on behind the scenes. The courts were structuring the debt after bankruptcy.
Y’all, I’ve got to be honest, I’ve almost given up on this episode right here, so many times. Ugh, it is just an alphabet soup of confusion. I promise that the story is more interesting with all the details – stay with me.
Okay. So, we have a new company. This one’s called Dogpatch Properties Inc, or DPP. Remember how I said the Marble Falls part of the property was auctioned? Well, DPP was a group of businessmen who formed this company and arranged to buy it. The plan was that secured interests in the property would be paid off first, and then unsecured interests paid off next, somehow with Jess Odom still in the mix to manage expenses only.
Somehow too was introduced the concept of selling parts of this property as time-shares. Enter a new company: Buffalo River Resorts (BRR), still an Odom enterprise, that reportedly existed as a company only to sell timeshares for DPP. (Why all the shell companies? Perhaps to keep the name Dogpatch off sales and ad copy, and keep that associated bad taste out of people’s mouths.)
Okay. So then, one of the Arkansas state laws get changed, and uh-oh, this one concerns time shares. This here is the most confusing part of the legal entanglements. Essentially, the Time Share Act of 1983 (Act 294) required that timeshare properties be registered with the State Real Estate Commission prior to being sold. This in turn would require that “BRR furnish the purchaser with releases from all liens or to put up a bond or buy insurance or to provide a document in which the mortgage holder subordinates his rights to those of the purchaser”.
The long and the short of it was that there was a lot of legal mess roughly boiling down to “damned if you do, damned if you don’t” until 1984, when lawyers found a loophole. Essentially, the courts made a decision to exempt BRR from registering with the State Real Estate Commission, with one catch. Any time-share buyers had to be informed that banks had liens on the properties, and therefore that the banks could potentially re-possess timeshares if DPP and BRR didn’t pay their debts.
Unsurprisingly, the number of timeshare sales subsequently dropped.
2006 building at Dogpatch. Source: Clinton Steeds / Flickr. CCBYSA 2.0.
1987 and On: Dogpatch USA Ownership Under Telcor
After the dust from the OEI ownership and BRR timeshare kerfuffles had settled down, things were quiet at Dogpatch for a few years.
Then came 1987.
The Entertainment and Leisure Corp (Telcor) came on the scene. They purchased a controlling interest (90%) in Dogpatch USA for an undisclosed sum, leaving the remaining 10% in the hands of a few area residents.
Well, that was abrupt. How’d this all come about?
So it turns out that Telcor was a new company, formed in order to buy and manage theme parks. It was headed by a guy named Melvyn Bell, who also at the time owned Deer Forest Park in Michigan, and Magic Springs, in Arkansas. (We’ll get there, though not in this episode. Magic Springs was shuttered for five years starting in 1995 before a massive revitalization project, and Deer Forest Park is on my master abandoned park list.) Aside from theme parks, Melvyn Bell had made a name and a lot of money for himself in waste management and restaurant training (two separate businesses).
The Dogpatch connection came from the new President of Telcor, one Wayne Thompson, who should be a familiar name by now as the general manager of Dogpatch USA for most of the 80s and current OEI owner. And funnily enough, another principle owner of OEI, Sam Southerland, became VP of Telcor, and became finance manager for all three Telcor parks.
Corporate poaching or perhaps just some solid lateral business moves, who knows. The sense from my research is that the acquisition was well-received. After all, Melvyn Bell had deep pockets and Telcor had promised to spend at least half a million dollars on improvements to the park.
Well, they did add a new ride called Space Shuttle, which didn’t seem to fit the rustic theming of Dogpatch USA very well. I haven’t dwelled on the theming very much with how much this story has been about ridiculous money mismanagement and legal mumbo-jumbo, but it should be very clear that by the late 80s, rustic was very out. Clean and shiny and new was in, and Dogpatch USA was never going to fit the new trends without a massive re-theming. Barring that, they just shoehorned whatever new ride or attraction felt fun into place and hoped for the best. Leave the theming to Disney, it seems. But they did take at stab at improving maintenance, at the least.
Anyhow, reportedly attendance was up 60% in the first year with Telcor compared to 1981, the first year with OEI. Okay. Odd comparison, but okay.
If we flip back to the BRR and DPP timeshare side of things, we’ll still be mired in legal spaghetti. Three banks’ right to foreclose (on Jess Odom) were upheld by the US Eight District Court of Appeals. Summarizing and reading between the lines, it appears that the court placed the responsibility for Dogpatch USA, DPP, and BRR solely at the feet of Jess Odom. “If Dogpatch Properties, Inc. (DPP) can’t pay, the debtor will be responsible for the leins, the money will come out of the debtor’s estate, and unsecured creditors will get nothing.”
1988: Departures and Declining Cultural Relevance at Dogpatch
In 1988, Wayne Thompson parted ways with Melvyn Bell and therefore with Telcor and Dogpatch USA. Lynn Spradley became the general manager in his place, a man with fourteen years of experience already at Dogpatch USA in other positions. In his next few years at Dogpatch as general manager, he was reportedly often bemoaning the situation Dogpatch USA was in. As I said, the theming had really taken a dive, and rustic was out out out, not in. The Li’l Abner comic strip had been out of print in the papers for over a decade. Said Spradley, “A lot of kids don’t have any idea who Daisy Mae and Li’l Abner are.” Reportedly, Dogpatch had to spend more per patron than comparable parks on various promotions to attract guests.
Not only was the theming a problem, but location was always a problem, too. Dogpatch was on a side highway, a back road. As we know by know on The Abandoned Carousel, location is such a huge factor.
And as I mentioned many minutes ago, Silver Dollar City in Branson, MO was a relatively close attraction (50 miles north, just over the MO-AR border). This park is still open, spoiler alert. It is and was an 1880s-themed Ozark village. There are crafts and tradesman demonstrations, there are stages and performances, there are multiple coasters and rides, and there’s Marvel Cave, a cave that’s been open for tourists since 1894. Does it all sound like a better version of Dogpatch? Kinda. Sorry, Dogpatch stans. And if Silver Dollar City didn’t have it, Ozark Folk Center, an Arkansas state park, was a short distance due east, to meet the craftsman and Ozark heritage needs.
As one author nicely put it, Dogpatch USA was, from the beginning, too hokey and jokey with its Li’l Abner dark satirical comic strip theme to ever successfully emulate a grander, more polished place like Silver Dollar City. And where Dogpatch does bear some resemblances to a rustic version of a Six Flags franchise park (with its mishmash of attractions and themes and licensed properties), it was located in the wrong place to ever draw enough crowds to succeed with that audience. Its location is and was one of the poorest in the state.
Dogpatch USA’s only true advantage over other local attractions was always the Li’l Abner theme. But every year past the strip’s retirement, the park declined in cultural relevance. Dogpatch was simply outdated. If you have to explain to your kids that Daisy Mae was a character in a comic strip that ended when you, the parent, were a kid, well…
You begin to see the discouragement that had to be setting in for those in ownership of Dogpatch USA.
1991: Changes for Dogpatch USA
Melvyn Bell sat down in 1991 and began making major changes. He saw the writing on the wall, and local civic leaders in Jasper and Harrison were publically voicing their concerns about whether the park would ever be viable again.
The Li’l Abner theming was dropped. Melvyn Bell and Telcor decided that they could save that 2-3% of gross profits for themselves instead of sending it to the Al Capp estates. The park was renamed “Dogpatch, Arkansas” and they waved goodbye to that licensing fee.
Not only that, but the entry fee was dropped as well. What? As a cost-saving measure? Yep. They lengthened the season, charged per ride on each attraction, and reframed the park as an arts and crafts focused place. This brought more bodies in the park, potentially meaning more dollars in the pocket.
Long abandoned Dogpatch sign by the side of the road. Source: whiterabbit / wikimedia commons (public domain).
General Manager Lynn Spradley left Dogpatch in 1991, as well, in order to become a plumber. In his place, Shirley Cooper stepped in, an 11 year veteran of the Dogpatch world, serving as general manager for the park’s last two years.
Yes, there wasn’t long left for Dogpatch, even with the major changes Bell and Telcor had set in place. Visitors during these last years noted the declining maintenance around the park, the train’s PA system on the fritz, generic carnival rides like the tilt-a-whirl added to try and boost income…
Nothing helped.
Dogpatch USA’s last day of operation was October 14, 1993.
Abandoned Dogpatch USA
“There were a lot of mistakes. Bad judgement calls,” Bud Pelsor, a later owner of the park, is quoted as saying. “I don’t know that they could’ve made good ones. The United States was going through some serious transitions in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s.”
Ultimately, the park was foreclosed upon yet again. Bell and Telcor had done pretty well on taking down that pile of debt, but almost half a million was still outstanding. In December of 1994, the park was put up for auction. The new owners were C. L. and Ford Carr, also known as Leisuretek Corporation and Westek Corporation. During these transition years, many options for revitalization were floated, including converting the space into a movie ranch, an ecotourism spot, or a better version of an Ozark history spot, but nothing ever came of any of it.
And then the park sat.
A unique abandoned building at Dogpatch USA. Source: Craig Finlay / Flickr – CCBYSA2.0.
New Operations at Marble Falls
Up at Marble Falls, there was a bit of action.
In 1997, reportedly facing public pressure, the official name of the post office (and the town) was changed from Dogpatch back to Marble Falls. Despite this, however, Google still thinks the official name is Dogpatch, AR.
Back in 1988, when DPP was divvying out shares of the Marble Falls ski resort land, a woman named Debra Nielsen began purchasing what she could, when she could. According to news reports, she eventually owned much of the Marble Falls attractions area: the ski lodge, the convention center, the roller (skating) rink, and a motel. She reportedly named it “Serenity Mountain”. The skating rink she reported leased to a nonprofit called HELP, providing therapeutic horseback riding at no cost. Additionally, she reportedly operated a B&B as well as a church on the land, although I’ve been unable to find additional information on this.
What I did find was a few businesses clustered in the former Marble Falls buildings. I’ll get into more detail later, but there’s Marble Falls Resort and Restaurant (which advertises some incredibly tasty-looking fried catfish on its social media accounts) and a place called The HUB. Both cater to motorcycle enthusiasts. Well, one does, one did. The HUB closed in 2017 after 12 years of operation.
Back at Dogpatch, things were still stagnant. There were rumors and reports but no activity towards revitalization of any kind.
In 2002, Ford Carr listed Dogpatch USA on eBay, at a starting minimum bid of $1 M. There were no takers.
In 2005, things changed again.
2005: Pruett Nance and Dogpatch USA
Enter Pruett Nance, then 16. His grandfather was one of Dogpatch’s original shareholders, and Nance had grown up going to the park. When it closed in 1993, he regularly spent time on the former park land, reportedly with permission of the property owners, C. L. and Ford Carr.
In 2005, he was ATV riding on the property, again with permission from the Carrs, “to tour the property”. He hit a wire that had been strung between two trees, and was severely injured, nearly decapitated. His trachea was severed and his neck was broken. Doctors didn’t expect him to survive, and when he did, they didn’t expect him to ever talk again. But Nance proved them wrong again, on both counts, and he did.
Nance and his father filed a lawsuit against the owners, alleging that they’d put the wire there on purpose, as a deterrent against vandals, with malicious intent. The case actually made it all the way up to the Arkansas Supreme Court. The court ultimately ruled in favor of Nance. Between Nance and his father, Dogpatch owners were ordered to pay $764,582 in damages, to include medical bill costs, within 45 days of the decision.
The owners could not, would not, did not pay.
The judge gave the deed to Dogpatch to Nance, and he became the new owner of Dogpatch.
“”I do have the ability to change things for the better of course,”” he said to the local paper in 2011. He was also pragmatic in his comments to the paper, stating that he was only 23 and did not have the experience or knowledge to properly deal with the ruins of Dogpatch. It was reported that Pruett Nance and his father Stewart Nance were taking the project one day at a time.
The shadow of the Wild Water Rampage, and a mostly-submerged boat ride at abandoned Dogpatch USA. Source: Kenzie Campbell / Flickr – CCBYSA2.0.
2014: Bud Pelsor and Dogpatch USA
It took a few more years, but it turns out that they did eventually decide to sell Dogpatch. In summer 2014, it found a new owner: Bud Pelsor, inventor of the spillproof dog bowl (http://greatamericanspillproof.com/), and his business partner Jim Robertson, the CFO of Great American Spillproof Products. (Curious? Pelsor’s dog-wolf hybrid is the spokes-dog for the product. Her name is Miss Arkansas Diamond, or Dia for short, and she’s a lovely animal. The bowl is sold with the tagline “Dogs love it because water does not go up their nose. You love it because you have less mess.” I am tempted to purchase one for my own pups.)
The story goes that Pelsor had briefly visited Dogpatch in its heyday. Talking to the newspaper at the time, he said “I saw how the local residents thrived from it. … All the houses along the road had jellies, jams, quilts for sale. I was really impressed with it. I kept making trips down here, and it just kept getting worse and worse and worse.”
Pelsor’s business partner Jim made him aware that the park was up for sale in 2014, and they purchased Dogpatch to the tune of $2 M, reportedly backed by promises of additional external grant money. (As a sidebar, the property records are freely accessible by the public and tell a fascinating legal and tax version of the story I’m telling you here. Worth checking out if you’re into that.)
He wasn’t particularly interested in reopening Dogpatch as it was, however. “Resurrecting the dead is something best left for someone other than me,” he’s quoted as saying. He had plans for “The Village at Dogpatch”. It was to be an ecotourism place, for reintroducing native mussels to the creek, for restocking the famous trout pond. He wanted a more arts and crafts focused place – maybe to bring back the music, maybe a restaurant, but not a theme park.
Regardless of the ultimate theme, with Pelsor as the new owner, he had immediate plans for cleaning and maintaining the property, at the very least. Volunteers even came out for weekends on end to help him clean up the property, cutting back the massive flora that was taking over the remaining rides and buildings.
2006 roadside view of Dogpatch, newly cleaned up. Source: Clinton Steeds / Flickr. CCBYSA 2.0.
The crowds were incredible. Traffic was reportedly backed up on Highway 7 for the December 2014 public opening, the first time the park had been open to the public for 21 years. Over 5,000 people were reported in attendance. Very impressive for a defunct theme park, abandoned for 21 years! There were several of these Riverwalk events, allowing the public to see the cleaned up Dogpatch.
Plans didn’t move very fast – unsurprising as I’ve learned from firsthand experience that construction timelines are truly something else. A few months later, in February 2015, three buildings were burned down. Arson was suspected.
In May 2015 it was time for more Riverwalk events at Dogpatch again. This time, the framing was as an artists village event. Several musical acts performed, and artists demonstrated their craft. Many pieces were Dogpatch themed: arrowheads made out of old broken glass from the site, pictures of the abandoned site pasted onto wood, etc.
But still, things were moving slowly. It seemed like it was setback after setback. There were floods. The overgrown buildings required extensive maintenance before any new construction could be done.
And then came the news that the promises for big name support and grant money for the park were empty useless promises. Pelsor is quoted as saying that it ”left me with my pants down and exposed to chiggers”.
And Bud’s business partner wanted out, too, reportedly due to poor health.
In March of 2016, Dogpatch USA went up for sale again – either the whole thing, or just half. Pelsor was willing to remain co-owner if someone else was interested in being his business partner. “”I don’t want to sell out, but my business associate does,” he said. “I have the option to buy him out, but I can’t.””
It took over a year, but in late 2017, after months Pelsor announced that he’d come to an agreement with a group called Heritage USA to lease the property.
No, not THAT Heritage USA. This was not the Christian Disneyland, Jim Bakker, pyramid scheme Heritage USA. This group was (supposedly) unrelated, operated by a guy named David Hare.
In YouTube videos, Hare looks and speaks like a TV preacher, well, a lot like Jim Bakker, to be honest. He’s filmed wearing button-down shirts and slicking his hair back. His background is as an executive member of the Las Vegas Broadcasting Company America’s TV Network, a very small media company. Prior to that, he did musical productions in Anaheim and hosted a kids radio show in the 80s and 90s.
For months prior to the official announcement, Hare posted vague and confusing videos about the forthcoming deal with Dogpatch. But what was eventually announced was that Heritage USA and David Hare would lease the main Dogpatch property, with a potential purchase agreement at the end of the lease period.
In addition to making a deal with Pelsor, Heritage USA also made a deal with Debra Nielsen for a similar lease-purchase agreement on the Marble Falls hotel and convention center properties.
Hare and Heritage USA posted multiple videos about the site online, often rambling. They branded themselves as “your conservative entertainment company”. Nothing is or was ever very clear with the Heritage USA operations of Dogpatch from what I’ve been able to see, but it appears they planned to have a resort, theme park, hotel, theater, and RV park, opening in stages. Reportedly a new train was supposed to open in 2019.
Based on their social media postings, things went okay for the first few months. They were active on social media, showing the progress on the land, a full house at the hotel, tours and other special events, etc. But somewhere in June 2018, things seem to have gone awry.
On June 28, 2018, Hare published a (frankly rambling) video on his Heritage USA Youtube channel, about the “challenges” he sees facing the company and project going forward. The gist seems to be that his investors decided to bail on their support of the Heritage USA project, but that he himself was not going to bail. In his comments, he insisted that it didn’t require a lot of money to operate the site. Several times over the course of the video, he reiterated that the property owners (Pelsor and Nielsen) “deserve to get their money”. (Obviously, as this was a legal contract he’d entered into.) The overall tone was of a man rearranging deck chairs on the Titanic.
It’s difficult to put together the pieces from where I’m sitting in 2019, as several of Hare’s Heritage USA videos have been deleted. But Hare goes on to say in his June 28 video (“Do It Talk 3: Moving Forward.The Challenge”): “Do you realize we could start paying the bills up here if people would start really renting rooms? […] if we had a good influx of steady bookings, we could make it. That’s how reasonable it is.”
It’s so classic, to shift the blame to others.
He closes the video saying “Don’t count us out” and then adds “but don’t make reservations for October, either”.
Essentially, it looks like Hare could never fulfill his end of the bargain, or perhaps never intended to. Some online speculate that the Heritage USA name was intentional, and that the only real intent behind the park plans was a church or religious cult of some kind. Hare posted on social media advertising the park, but the hotel was vacant when paid guests showed up, utilities turned off, Hare and Heritage USA vanished in the night, completely unreachable.
Abandoned Wild Water Rampage at Dogpatch USA. Source: Craig Finlay / Flickr – CCBYSA2.0.
The nitty gritty of what happened seems to be that Debra Nielsen had filed an eviction notice in July, requiring Heritage USA to be out within ten days as a result of non-payment of rent. (Not just a short term lack of payment – they apparently had never paid her any rent, nor had they paid rent to Pelsor.)
Heritage USA, in turn, reportedly claimed that this eviction was a breech of their lease, and requested mediation.
Debra Nielsen filed a lawsuit in Newton County Circuit Court in August of 2018, saying that mediation was pointless since Heritage USA hadn’t made any payments on their lease (which had reportedly begun in January 2018 on the Marble Falls portion of the land). Heritage USA had originally agreed to pay $5,500 / month just for the Marble Falls portion of the land alone (this included the old HUB motel and convention center, as well as the old skating rink). “The lease began Jan. 15 and was to continue until Jan. 14, 2020, at which time Heritage USA Ozarks Resort was to purchase the property for $750,000 if the company didn’t opt to do so sooner.”
An immediate hearing was scheduled, as the property was in a state of emergency. Apparently Hare hadn’t paid the insurance companies either, nor the water and electric companies, so all insurance and utility services had been shut off.
Reportedly, though, Hare disappeared. According to the newspaper articles, Nielsen’s attorney had exhausted every possible resource available to him to find Hare.
Pelsor described Hare as “larger than life” and defended his original decision to work with Hare and Heritage USA in a newspaper article in August 2018. ““He had sound investors that were contractors. He had sound financial management. He had a good team assembled, and that’s what we looked at,” says Pelsor.”
Pelsor continued in comments to the local news, saying “Now it looks almost like it did when I bought it. A wasteland. Everything’s grown up and ugly again and it happened because David Hare made promises he couldn’t keep,”. By all accounts, Hare was all talk, and burned bridges with those around him.
And once again, Dogpatch USA as a theme park was abandoned.
Dogpatch USA: the Present and Future
Of course, in Monday morning quarterbacking, people have plenty of opinions about the many ups and downs the park has gone through. “The roads to Dogpatch were so rugged, so it was never an easy destination to reach.” says one person in the comment section of a newspaper article. Many other folks remember the park with fond nostalgia from attending there in the 70s and 80s, though, and praise the inexpensive pricing.
It does seem like the park was originally a little bit magical – like something from a simpler time, surrounded by the natural beauty of Northern Arkansas. And the theming reflected the history of the people of the area, at least at first.
But in its abandonment, it only had offerings for those interested in abandoned places and urban explorers. Residents and former visitors described the area as a hazard, rotten and falling down. Many called it a problem, and it seems like most just want the eyesore to go away. There’s nostalgia for the past, but it seems like people have been burned too many times in too many different supposed revitalizations of the place.
And Dogpatch is incredibly outdated. Al Capp, while being an excellent writer and artist, was a known womanizer, misogynist, and accused rapist (including allegations by Goldie Hawn and Grace Kelly). And his Li’l Abner comic strip has been out of publication for 42 years as of this recording. Arkansas residents didn’t want to be seen as hillbillies back then, and that theming definitely wouldn’t fly in today’s culture.
An online commenter summed it up: “Not worth tearing down and there’s no market for it if it was restored.”
Now in 2019, the park is back in the hands of Bud Pelsor. He’s quoted in an interview with Belle Starr Antiques, saying that he simply plans to ““clean it up, turn the lights on, the music up loud and party until it says SOLD on the sign.””
The writing has been on the wall for some time. But late 2019 and early 2020 have seen the wheels of bureaucracy, so familiar in this long story, back in action at Dogpatch once again.
In December 2019, Bud Pelsor announced that he was giving up on his dream of the ecotourism village at Dogpatch USA, and that he was moving back to Indiana. In a quote from the article, Pelsor said, “I’m just not able to pull it off. The stress of this place is killing me. I’ve had successes in a lot of ways, but everybody that was supposed to come on financially, well, there were just too many talkers.”
A January 2020 article fleshed out the story further: Pelsor and his business partners had missed multiple payments on the property through August 2019. The mortgage holders, the Nances, filed suit against Great American Spillproof. By late January, a decree of foreclosure was filed, giving Pelsor and his partners 10 days to pay the over $1M still owed on the property. At the time of this update (January 24, 2020), it is expected that the money will not be repaid. If so, the Dogpatch USA property will be sold at auction on March 3, 2020, there on the courthouse steps of Jasper, AR, with an expected starting bid of $1M.
Still in Operation
While The HUB has shut down, as I mentioned earlier, (that was where Heritage USA had made its base of operations, after all) things are still operation at Dogpatch and Marble Falls. There’s still the US Post Office. There’s a fairly new campground: CabinPatch USA. This is aimed at revitalizing the old campground at Dogpatch, and the views look incredible.
Marble Falls Resort and Restaurant is a recent effort from Debra Nielsen, the current landowner of most of the old Marble Falls properties. Operating in the former facilities of The HUB and Heritage USA, this place is currently operational and looks to be a very nice place to visit and stay. And, as I mentioned, delicious looking fried catfish advertised on their social media.
Dogpatch USA Rides: Still Operating
And of course, you can still find a little bit of Dogpatch USA in one of its former rides. The waterslide (“Wild Water Rampage”), of course, still stands in state at the abandoned Dogpatch. It’s missing steps and will never be an operational ride again – an insurance nightmare. And of course, the funicular tram is still onsite, too, rusted in place. The paddleboats were left on the property after its abandonment, and are now long stolen.
Many of the other rides were sold or destroyed. Whearabouts of the carousel, the paratrooper, the Slobbovian Sled Run, the space ship, the barrel ride – all unknown.
Close to home, the Dogpatch Caverns, as mentioned earlier, were sold in 1981. They were renamed back to Mystic Caverns and are still open for curious cavers at the time of this recording.
The small coaster that was once at Dogpatch was called Frustratin’ Flyer, a Herschell wild mouse Monster Mouse model. Reportedly, the coaster was even wild during the park’s operation, with one guest commenting online that they could actually see the bolts holding the ride in place MOVING while the ride operated. While some sources state that this ride went to the Little Amerricka theme park after Dogpatch was shuttered in 1993, this would not be accurate. Little Amerricka owns a Wild Mouse model, not a Monster Mouse model – a close comparison of the track layout from photos and onride videos makes this clear. The only operational Herschell Monster Mouse coaster at this time is at Parque Acuatico Rey Park in Ecuador.
What IS at Little Amerricka is the infamous Earthquake McGoon’s Brain Rattler. If you head on over to Marshall, WI, some ten hours north of the former Dogpatch USA, you can ride the last Toboggan coaster known in operation at this time, now with a simpler name: Wild & Wooly Toboggan. Little Amerricka only runs one car on the coaster now, though, instead of the two it has the capacity for, and the ride does admittedly break down often. Spoilers.
And what about the miniature train that used to run? It was called the West Po’k Chop Speshul, and it was actually three different Chance C. P. Huntington trains, each of which had been heavily modified. On some, that lovingly ridiculous smokestack was removed and replaced with a crooked stovepipe. At the time of its construction, it was the first and only railroad in Newton County, Arkansas.
One online commenter suggested that one of the trains had been cannibalized for parts for the KC Zoo. This doesn’t fit with what’s known about the trains from the C. P. Huntington Train Project, though.
We know that Dogpatch had CPH #64, #69, and another train. They were given the name “West Po’k Chop Spechul”. All engines were custom-themed. One was originally light green and orange; later black; the others were themed to the train from the comic strip. It pulled custom coaches with wood shingled roofs.
Richmond Country Farms (up in British Columbia) purchased CPH #64 (Dogpatch #1) in 2013, and has been refurbishing it over the intervening years.
You see, word had been going around that the Dogpatch train was just rotting in some Kansas field somewhere. Well, this was the rumored train. Here’s a quote from Richmond Country Farms’ website: “It has been a dream of ours to have an operational railroad and miniature train for many years. We found our train tucked away on a farm in Witchita, Kansas in 2010. After many phonecalls and emails, we were able to secure a deal. Our two main farm hands, Nelson and Lucas Hogler, made the trek from Vancouver to Kansas to bring the train to its new home at Richmond Country Farms. After arriving home, we began an extensive 5 year full restoration of the locomotive and coaches. Construction of the railroad began in the summer of 2014- finishing just in time for October- for the grand opening of the train, and our annual Pumpkin Patch. Now, when you see that shiny candy-apple red train, you will know what we’re talking about!”
I’ve seen video of the coaches cleaned up and operating, sent to me by Chris Churilla, and they are looking very nice indeed. Good job on you, Richmond Country Farms.
Ultimately, Dogpatch USA was always in a state of flux, and continues to be so.
Whatever does end up happening at Dogpatch and Marble Falls, the tagline for the place will likely always hold true: “it was a heckuva day at Dogpatch USA.”
Marble Falls Resort and Resort – Formerly The Hub at Dogpatch | Marble Falls Resort and Restaurant in Arkansas. https://www.marblefallsarkansas.com/. Accessed September 5, 2019.
Dogpatch dream dies: Owner of abandoned Arkansas theme park served foreclosure notice. Bill Bowde, Northwestern Arkansas Democrat Gazette. https://www.nwaonline.com/news/2019/dec/08/dogpatch-again-for-sale-owner-says-he-s/ Published December 8, 2019. Accessed January 24, 2020.
Dogpatch’s time’s up; auction set to sell park. Bill Bowden, Arkansas Democrat Gazette. https://www.arkansasonline.com/news/2020/jan/24/dogpatch-s-time-s-up-auction-set-to-sel-1/ Published January 24, 2020. Accessed January 24, 2020.
]]>https://theabandonedcarousel.com/dogpatch-usa/feed/012735A Town Called Santa Claus
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https://theabandonedcarousel.com/a-town-called-santa-claus/#respondWed, 18 Dec 2019 10:00:00 +0000https://theabandonedcarousel.com/?p=55617Today, I offer you season’s greetings. I’m taking you on a winding road through the history of Santa Claus, the history of the towns of Santa Claus, and the history... Read more »
]]>Today, I offer you season’s greetings. I’m taking you on a winding road through the history of Santa Claus, the history of the towns of Santa Claus, and the history of America’s first theme park. Yes, Virginia, there is a Santa Claus.
Credits: Podcast cover background photo is by 4045 on freepik.com. Image of Santa billboard from Santa Claus, AZ is public domain. Theme music is from “Aerobatics in Slow Motion” by TeknoAXE. Incidental music includes “Jingle Bells (Calm)”, “Deck the Halls (A)”, “Deck the Halls (B)” by Kevin Macleod / incompetech.com; and “We Three Kings” by Alexander Nakarada (filmmusic.io). Effects all via freesound.org: “Jingle Bells” by JarredGibb (CC0); “Jingle Bells” by nfrae (CC0); “Arizona Walking” by kvgarlic (CC0); “Howling Wind in Chimney” by Maurice JK (CC by SA); “Merry Christmas” by metaepitome (CC0); and “Merry Christmas” by maestroalf (CC0).
The First Theme Park?
When you’re researching anything, an easy question to ask is, what was the first? What was the first fast food restaurant? (White Castle, 1921) What was the first interstate highway in the US? (A complicated answer, but either a portion of what is now I-70 in Missouri, which had the first contract signed in 1956; a portion of I-70 in Kansas for being the first to actually start paving in 1956; or part of I-70 in Pennsylvania, as it was opened as a highway in 1940 and later incorporated into the interstate system.)
To bring it around to The Abandoned Carousel, what was the first theme park?
Not the first amusement park, to be clear. Let’s draw some lines with terminology. Amusement parks in the US go back a century and a half, at the least, with trolley parks in the middle of the 19th century considered to be some of the first true amusement parks in the US. Lake Compounce in Connecticut is said to be the oldest continuously operating park in the US, opened in 1846. The earliest amusement park in the world still in operation is called Bakken, located near Copenhagen, Denmark, and said to have opened in 1583. But these are “just” amusement parks – places where visitors are amused, with rides and leisure activities and so on.
Bakken entry, the oldest continuously operating amusement park in the world. Image: Erkan, [license CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]
A theme park is a horse of a slightly different color – an amusement park, but with a theme or themed area to organize it. Society in general popularly likes to point to Disneyland and the enormous influence Walt Disney’s first park had on the theme park concept, but as I mentioned in the last episode – theme parks existed before Disneyland. And that’s what I’m going to talk about today – the first theme park in the US. Coincidentally, several of the first theme parks had Santa Claus as a theme. So seasons greetings to everyone here in the end of 2019 – let’s talk about the history of Santa Claus and a few of his homes in the US.
Christmas and Santa Claus
What’s the deal with Santa Claus, after all, if we’re going to talk about him a lot today?
Santa as we know him today is an amalgamation of the 4th century saint, Saint Nicholas; the British Father Christmas; the Dutch Sinterklaas; and the Germanic god Woden, associated with Yule. He is associated with the holiday of Christmas.
Christmas as a holiday has meant a lot of different things throughout the years. I’ll only touch on this briefly here. We have the obvious association of December 25, considered the birthday of Jesus Christ in Christian religions. In the Roman calendar, December 25th was also the date of the winter solstice. The medieval calendar was dominated by Christmas-related holidays, early versions of Advent and the Twelve Days of Christmas known today. The Middle Ages saw an association of Christmas with lewdness, debauchery, and parties. The Puritans and the Pilgrims actually banned Christmas in the mid-1600s for being too strongly associated with drunkenness. In response, the churches called for the holiday to be celebrated in a more devout and religious fashion.
From the 1800s onward, public perception of Christmas began to be re-shaped as a time for family and gift-giving. This was popularized by Charles Dickens’ 1843 A Christmas Carol, which created or combined much of what we now consider a Christmas celebration. It’s been referred to as the “carol philosophy”, promoting goodwill towards all men, values that could be espoused by both religious and secular alike. By 1870, the Puritan attitudes had shifted, and Christmas was declared an official US holiday.
1843 first edition title page of A Christmas Carol by Charles Dickens.
Santa Claus’s Origins
Today, of course, it can be argued that Christmas, and particularly Santa Claus, are largely commercial juggernauts more than anything.
As the North American colonies developed throughout the late 1700s and early 1800s, his familiar accoutrements were established. Rivington’s Gazette was the first American paper to establish the name Santa Claus, back in 1773. Santa was immortalized in print, with poems and story books, and of course, The Night Before Christmas, published in 1823.
Washington Irving’s 1809 parody of New York culture was the first to take the traditional bishop dress (derived from St. Nicholas) away and give Santa a pipe and a winter coat.
Thomas Nast and Santa Claus
But it was a political cartoonist during the Civil War that gave us the modern image of Santa Claus, the man we think of today.
Thomas Nast was a Bavarian-born immigrant who came to America as a child. He did poorly at most school subjects, but showed an early passion for drawing. By the age of 18, with several years of artistic study under his belt, his drawings first appeared in the magazine Harper’s Weekly.
He had a long history with that magazine, and has come to be known as the “father of the American cartoon”. He advocated for the abolition of slavery and opposed racial segregation. He also created the modern political symbol for the Republican party (the elephant). His cartoons were instrumental in public sentiment for the 1860s elections of Abraham Lincoln and Ulysses S. Grant, and are said to be responsible for the election of Grover Cleveland, the first Democrat elected after almost thirty years of Republicans. “In the words of the artist’s grandson, Thomas Nast St Hill, “it was generally conceded that Nast’s support won Cleveland the small margin by which he was elected. In this his last national political campaign, Nast had, in fact, ‘made a president’.””
And amongst his list of credentials, he created the modern image of Santa Claus, originally used for political commentary.
The Christmas issue of Harper’s Weekly for the 1862-1863 season was published in January of 1863. It was the middle of the Civil War, the year of the battles of Shiloh, Manassas, and Antietam; it was a year with the Union experiencing both extreme trial and intense hope. The nation was divided by Civil War, and the celebration of Christmas brought conflicting emotions.
Santa Claus in Camp 1863, by Thomas Nast. Image: Public Domain via metmuseum.org
Nast drew several images, including the cover image. It was titled “Santa Claus at Camp”. His drawing depicted a Santa Claus figure, arriving by sleigh in a Union army camp to distribute gifts and good cheer. His Santa is shown in an American flag inspired outfit – stars on top, stripes on the bottom, everything fur trimmed, with a pointy hat. It was originally political commentary or even pro-Union propaganda. Lincoln reportedly once said that NAst’s images, politicizing Santa, were “”the best recruiting sergeant the North ever had””. Despite the political roots, Nast’s images set the seeds for today’s Santa.
Nast was reportedly also responsible for fixing Santa’s home address as the “North Pole”. This was done after the Civil War, and was reportedly done “so no nation can claim him as their own”, for propaganda, as Nast himself had done.
He continued drawing Santa, publishing at least 33 Santa images for Harper’s Weekly over his time there. His 1881 image “Merry Old Santa Claus” is probably his most famous, showing a twinkly-eyed bearded man, dressed all in red, clutching bundles of toys. But like the Santa Claus at Camp image, this is more political commentary, actually relating to the government’s indecisiveness over raising the wages of the military. It’s odd and fascinating that political cartoons could shape our cultural images so strongly.
Thomas Nast’s Merry Old Santa Claus, from an 1800s Harpers Weekly. Public domain.
20th Century Santa
In the 20th century, literature and promotional images continued to shape and refine our images of the jolly old man. L. Frank Baum, the very same author who penned The Wizard of Oz series, actually wrote a book about Santa in 1902, called The Life and Adventures of Santa Claus. This book established much of the Santa mythology. And as an interesting sidebar, Santa has a small cameo – he appears in The Road to Oz, one of the sequels to Wizard of Oz.
Even more influential were yet more promotional images.
As we’ve already discussed, Santa was shaped by political commentary, so it’s not surprising he moved on to the world of commercial promotion through the late 1800s and early 1900s. His image, however, was not consistent from artist to artist. Much relied on the famous poem, the line “a little old driver, so lively and quick”, with many interpretations. Images were tweaked and edited, still not the consistent idea of Santa from our modern times. Sometimes Santa was tall and thin, sometimes he was elven, and so on.
This time, they were the promotional campaigns of that beverage giant, Coca-Cola. In the 1930s, they were looking for a new way to increase soda sales during the winter, with the slogan, “Thirst Knows No Season.” Enter stage left: Haddon H. Sundblom.
Sundblom worked for Coke, and was assigned to draw a new Santa for the Coca-Cola company, then. He came up with a modern image of Santa – friendly, warm, pleasant, plump. He was a cheerful, rotund man with white hair and a red suit, red cheeks, and a jolly affect. Sundblom’s first ads with new Santa debuted in 1931.
They were a hit, to say the least. Coke still sometimes uses Sundblom’s original art in their ads to this day. And not only is it Coke. After the 1931 ads, this was the image of Santa that was codified in cultural imagination. No longer were there interpretations of Santa, tall and thin, elven, etc. No, Sundblom’s characterization of Santa became the ideal image of the legend that still carries on today.
Vintage Santa ads showing the 1931 Sundblom Santa. Image: Helgi Halldórsson from Reykjavík, Iceland [license CC BY-SA 2.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/2.0)]
Vintage Sundblom Santa on a modern delivery truck. Image: Husky. [license CC BY-SA 3.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0)]
Charles Howard’s Santa Claus
People, of course, had dressed up as Santa as far back as the legend goes. Early costumed Santas were often used around the holiday season to ring bells and solicit monetary donations for the poor. It’s said that the first department store Santa appeared in 1890, when a man in Brockton, Massachusetts named James Edgar dressed as Thomas Nast’s jolly Santa for the delight of children in the store.
Said a man who saw Edgar as a child: “You just can’t imagine what it was like. I remember walking down an aisle and, all of a sudden, I saw Santa Claus. I couldn’t believe my eyes, and then Santa came up and started talking to me. It was a dream come true.”
By the turn of the century, the idea had caught on and the department store Santa was a common figure, so much so that some papers of the time issued cries for “only one Santa Claus per town”.
Charles Howard
The big name in the Santa Claus field, as I’ve learned, was a guy named Charles Howard, apparently quite well known in the Albion area, some 60 miles north of Buffalo.
Charles Howard was born in Albion, NY around the turn of the century, in 1896. He was a farmer and a toymaker and a secretary for the county fair association. Some describe him as having a flair for the dramatic. As a child, his mother sewed him a suit, a Santa Claus suit, so that Howard could play the role of Santa as “a short fat boy”. He continued with the role as he got older, making new suits as he grew.
Somewhere in the early 1930s, he suggested that a local furniture store hire him to play the role of Santa while making toys in the front window during the holiday season. Eventually, he moved to the big city, 35 miles from Albion in Rochester, NY, where the owner reportedly took one look at Howard dressed in his suit and asked him “when can you start?”
The popular story of Howard realizing the importance of Santa, immortalized by Howard himself, goes as follows. “One morning a little girl came in and watched him work. She stood there for some time before she ventured closer. Then a step at a time she walked up to him and very timidly asked, ‘Santa, will you promise me something?’ Santa looked at the child and said, ‘What is it you want me to promise?’ He had already learned that promises sometimes meant heartaches. He did not want to make any mistakes. However this child seemed so sincere, so earnest, he took her little hand in his. The child drew closer, looked up into his face with all the love and trust that a five year old could and whispered, ‘Will you promise me you will never shave?’”
This triggered a curiosity for Howard – if Santa meant so much to one, he must mean so much to many. “Who was this old fellow who meant so much to the children? Where did he come from? What did he stand for? Why did he wear that red suit? Why was it trimmed with white fur? Why this? And why that?”
At the same time, in his regular life, Howard was a traveling toy salesman. He saw many Santas throughout his travels, and reportedly “frowned on the unkempt costumes and lack of child psychology displayed by many department store Santas”. So in 1937, Howard established the Santa Claus School.
Santa Claus School
Charles Howard’s first class was a single student, but as he raised tuition, attendance grew at his Santa Claus school. He held classes on his farm, offering lessons on “psychology, costuming, make-up, whisker grooming, voice modulation, the history and legend of St. Nicholas and learning the correct way to “ho-ho-ho.””. It was Howard’s opinion that being Santa was about what was in your heart and head, not about the girth of your belly.
He also developed a line of Santa Claus suits. They were fancier than the standard costume at the time, but as Howard said, “worthy of the character as we knew him”. Students at his school flocked to the suits, and took in the lessons. The details of being Santa were important, and Howard was reportedly a stickler for them. “How the suit should lay on you. How your beard should be; it had to be the right shape and the right length. And how your glasses should look … everything had to be perfect. He wanted every [Santa] to be as close as possible to each other.”
Santa Claus, Indiana
We’ll get back to Charles Howard and Albion in a little while.
For now, let’s turn our attention away from New York and look down south some, to a small town in Indiana. We’ve got to turn our clocks back, too.
The year, as it goes, was 1855.
A small town in Indiana was working on establishing a post office. They were already known as Santa Fe (pronounced ‘fee’, apparently). The trouble was, there was already another town in Indiana by that name. A meeting was held to pick a new name. Legend has many versions of the story after that point. Some say the wind blew the door open and with it a Santa Claus, barging into the meeting. Some say a child heard a passing sound of jingle bells and exclaimed “Santa Claus!”. Some say it was the fact that the meeting was held on Christmas Eve.
Whichever story you believe, all are certain to be fanciful versions of the true story, which we’ll never know. What we can know is that in 1856, the post office granted the town the official name of Santa Claus, Indiana.
Well, this was the first time that there was a town by this name in the US. So the post office started sending some of the children’s letters there, the ones addressed to Santa Claus. It became this huge barrage of mail in the holiday season. Since at least 1914, various groups of people began answering the children’s letters that were sent to Santa, both nationally and locally.
The town began to attract national attention in 1929, when the post office in Santa Claus was featured in Ripley’s Believe It or Not! cartoon strip. And then we enter the 1930s.
1930s: A Big Decade in Santa Claus Operations
The 1930s were a big decade in Santa Claus operations here in the US, away from the North Pole, with a lot of Santa-related things happening simultaneously. On a socio-political front, the recovery from the Great Depression was beginning, with FDR’s First New Deal alphabet soup agencies being put into place. And big changes were happening all over – Route 66 was being built, among many other events not relevant to the show. Perhaps the attitude was one looking for hope and light.
Santa Claus, IN in the 1930s
The 30s were a big time for the small town of Santa Claus, IN.
Santa’s Candy Castle
We start with an entrepreneur by the name of Milt Harris. The tale goes that he looked around the town of Santa Claus and saw no Santa. The big guy wasn’t anywhere to be found. So Harris began creating the first true tourist attraction in Santa Claus, apparently in conjunction with the town postmaster James Martin. First, though, he leased nearly all of the land in and around the town – something like 1000 acres. And he began securing sponsorships from various business entities.
His attraction, Santa’s Candy Castle, was dedicated in December of 1935. It was sponsored by Curtiss Candy Company, the inventor of the Butterfinger and the Baby Ruth candy bars. Today, they’re unsurprisingly a Nestle subsidiary. Sandy’s Candy Castle was the first tourist attraction in the town of Santa Claus, and by some accounts, the first themed attraction in the US, although that seems an unlikely claim, hard to prove.
Santa’s Candy Castle was a red brick building shaped like an actual castle, with a crenellated tower, turret, and rotunda. The next year, new attractions were added, and collectively, they were called Santa Claus Town. The Toy Village was incredibly popular, with multiple fairytale-themed buildings, each sponsored by a national toy manufacturer. This was reportedly quite popular, with children able to play with all of the hot new toys they’d heard about, for free. As the years rolled on, Harris reportedly managed to negotiate a sweet deal. For a period of time, retailers (including Marshall Fields) would arrange for toys purchased in Chicago to be shipped from the Santa Claus post office in Indiana, with that official Santa Claus postmark.
Santa’s Workshop was also added, where children could watch a Santa Claus making wooden toys. (Though our friend Charles Howard was a Santa who could actually make wooden toys, it doesn’t appear that he performed the role at the Candy Castle, though that parallel would’ve been delightful.)
The Candy Castle was a success, in no small part because it was a free or cheap attraction to provide entertainment for kids during and after the Great Depression.
Martin and Yellig: Making Dreams Come True
Now, as I mentioned earlier, the town postmaster, James Martin, was pretty heavily involved in all of this, because as town postmaster, he had his finger in the pie, so to speak. He noted the increased volume of letters being sent by children to “Santa Claus” around the holidays, and he took it upon himself to begin answering the letters. (This was a not insignificant amount of mail. In the 1940s, the post office reportedly handled 1.5 million pieces of mail, and in the 1950s, a newspaper article noted that the park handled over 4 million pieces of mail during the Christmas season each year. A 2014 article, though, has revised this number down to half a million pieces per year, and a 2017 article indicates the number is down around 200,000.)
Martin had a friend, a guy named Jim Yellig. Born Raymond Joseph, but known to his friends as Jim, Yellig was another guy with a Santa association from early on. While he was serving in the Navy during the first World War, his ship was docked in Brooklyn, NY, and the crew was throwing a Christmas party for underprivileged children. Yellig was chosen to play Santa Claus. The story goes that he was apparently so touched by the children’s happiness at seeing “Santa” that he prayed “If you get me through this war, Lord, I will forever be Santa Claus.”
Yellig opened a restaurant called The Chateau in Mariah Hill, Indiana, a few miles north of Santa Claus, Indiana. He began driving to Santa Claus to visit his friend Martin, the postmaster, and soon after, Martin enlisted Yellig’s help in responding to the children’s Christmas letters. By 1935, Yellig formed the Santa Claus American Legion Post in order to assist with the letters as Santa’s helpers, and he began dressing up as Santa and making appearances around the town of Santa Claus, including at Santa’s Candy Castle. He actually took a class from Charles Howard’s Santa Claus School. Held at Santa’s Candy Castle in 1938, this was the only time these two incredibly famous Santas were known to have met. (A picture of this meeting can be found here.) From this point, Yellig began being known as “The Real Santa from Santa Claus”.
A Tale of the Santa Claus Statue
At the same time that Yellig was coming onto the scene, Harris’ plans for the Candy Castle caught the attention of another entrepreneur, reportedly Harris’ arch-rival, a guy named Carl Barrett. Now, Barrett decided that he didn’t like Harris’ “materialism”, and so Barrett began planning his own attraction, called “Santa Claus Park”, in direct competition with Harris, just down the road, less than half a mile away.
On Christmas Day 1935, just days after Harris’ Candy Castle opened, Barrett dedicated a 22-ft tall statue of Santa, erected on the highest hill in the town. He claimed it was paid for by the people, that it was built on the spot where a meteor had landed and therefore was divinely inspired, and that the statue was made out of granite. At least one of those claims later was revealed to be false.
Barrett’s plans were just as big as Harris’. Barrett wanted to make his Santa Claus Park a world shrine, a children’s dream paradise with log cabins, a giant doll house, and an ice village. It never moved forward, however, as in January, Harris sued Barrett, essentially derailing both their grand plans.
Lawsuits went back and forth, mostly regarding land ownership, and even made it as high up as the Indiana Supreme Court. They were battling over the right to Santa. Harris and Martin were able to continue expanding Santa Claus Town due to their sponsor partnerships, but Barrett’s more principled “of the people” stance relied solely on personal donations due to his spectacular Santa.
But the thing was, people began to notice the statue didn’t look so great. In fact, it had started cracking and crumbling. And obviously, granite sculptures don’t do that. As it turns out, the statue was made out of concrete, and Barrett had lied. This obviously didn’t sit well with the townsfolk. Unfortunately, war broke out, World War II, more than just a petty squabble between business rivals. Things grew quiet in Santa Claus, IN, and the attractions there, especially Barrett’s Santa Claus Park, fell into disrepair and neglect.
Santa Claus Statue at Santa Claus Land (though not the one discussed in this section) (vintage postcard, public domain via Wikipedia)
Santa Claus, AZ and Santa Claus, GA
Let’s step back in time a bit, and interrogate something I mentioned earlier.
Now, apparently, by 1928, the US post office supposedly decided that there would be no other post office with the name of “Santa Claus” due to the influx of holiday mail and the staffing problems it caused over in Indiana. This is an unsubstantiated fact from Wikipedia, but it does appear to be technically accurate. There is only one post office in a town named Santa Claus, and that’s Santa Claus, IN. But there are two other towns by this name: one in AZ, and one in GA.
Santa Claus, GA
I’ll discuss the latter first. Established in 1941, Santa Claus, GA is one of those cute little small American towns. Located a few miles from Vidalia (home of the onion by the same name), the town of Santa Claus, GA is tiny, with only a couple hundred people. It’s quaint, with holiday-themed street names, a Santa Claus mailbox (but not a post office!), and an oversized Santa statue that people can pose for pictures by. There’s nothing particularly noteworthy about the place for the purposes of our podcast – the town was reportedly named in an effort to drive traffic to local pecan farms. It’s too small for any fancy restaurants or attractions beyond the name, but it’s still there.
Santa Claus, AZ
Now, let’s get to Santa Claus, AZ. Santa Claus, in Arizona? Yup.
I grew up in the Arizona desert myself, and the notion of a Santa Claus town there has tickled my funny bone since I first heard about it. There’s just something so absurd about trying to focus on Santa and icicles and snow when you’re surrounded by creosote and tiny lizards and endless brown desert dirt, and don’t even own a winter coat.
Santa Claus, AZ was the brainchild of a realtor named Ninon (sometimes spelled Nina) Talbot who was born in 1888. I can’t tell you how thrilled I am to focus on a woman for part of this podcast, finally.
The famous sci-fi writer Robert Heinlein had nothing but praise for Talbot, describing her thusly: “In her own field, she was an artist equal to Rembrandt, Michelangelo, and Shakespeare.” No, this was not the kind of caliber of person I was expecting when I set out to shape a holiday episode of a podcast about abandoned theme parks and attractions.
Talbot promoted herself as the biggest real estate agent in California, a fun play on words since she also was apparently over 300 pounds at the time. “The Biggest in the Business!” was her slogan, and thank goodness, we’ve got a person who has a sense of humor. Talbot and her husband moved from Los Angeles to Kingman (AZ) in the late 1920s or early 1930s, with the goal of selling land or setting up a resort or otherwise making some money. Kingman was a hub of sorts, functioning as the big city to service all the small mining towns that littered the hills. Too, it attracted folks stopping off old Route 66, the Mother Road.
Talbot established herself with a hotel first, called the Kit Carson Guest House, located right in the heart of Kingman at the intersection of what is now I-40 and US 93. Here she honed her skills in charisma and cooking, enticing guests. Said a person who knew her at the time “She knew how to treat people. She could sell you anything you didn’t even want.”
After a few years, Talbot sold the Kit Carson Guest House, with a new profitable venture in mind. She purchased 80 acres of land, some 14 miles north of the town of Kingman. (That’s probably meaningless to non-locals – the town in question is in the northwest section of the state, about an hour and a half south from Las Vegas, three and a half hours north of Phoenix.)
The town of Santa Claus, with the obvious theming implied by the name, was officially incorporated in 1937.
She called it Santa Claus as a promotion, as a way to attract folks to the town to buy the 1-acre plots of land she was selling surrounding it, called Santa Claus Acres. Spoiler alert: it never really worked, and it’s generally accepted that the only people who actually lived in the town were the workers at the various town attractions.
Hoover Dam (Boulder Dam)
You might be asking yourself, though, why someone would think it was a good or profitable idea to try and sell land up in this remote area of the state, and to have it make sense, I need to tell you about what else was going on in AZ at the time.
In the early 1900s through the 1920s, it was settled that a dam on the Colorado River would provide flood control, irrigation water, and hydroelectric power generation for a growing number of people occupying these desert towns. Additionally, it would allow US 93 to connect Arizona and Las Vegas, instead of the ferry boat in use prior. President Coolidge authorized the Boulder Canyon Project Act in December of 1928, and construction began in 1931 on one of America’s “Seven Modern Engineering Wonders”.
Suddenly, tens of thousands of workers were moving into the area to begin building the massive dam, many living in the model city of Boulder City, Nevada. Not only that, but the construction of the dam was on such a huge scale that it became a tourist attraction before it was completed in 1936, and after. Suddenly there was this huge new audience driving past to see the Hoover Dam (originally called the Boulder Dam).
Talbot was on to something.
Santa Claus AZ as an Attraction
At the time, drivers still expected to be surprised around every bend of the road. They wanted to have a great time, and not make great time, as the saying goes. Or perhaps didn’t have a choice – this was the age before the implementation of the interstate highway system (remember the beginning of the episode? It always ties in somehow!). Thus, the proliferation and success of roadside attractions, corridors with wild theming and over the top names to entice drivers to stop. (Remember Prehistoric Forest in Irish Hills, MI, back in episode 4 of TAC?) It didn’t matter if the attraction itself was makeshift, a bit garish, and something of a let-down. It was the idea that mattered.
Vintage advertising for the town of Santa Claus, AZ. Image: public domain.
Santa Claus, AZ was one of these, enticing visitors as they drove to and from Vegas, Hoover Dam, Kingman, Phoenix, and so on.
See, while people didn’t actually want to live there, Talbot managed to create a fun roadside attraction nonetheless. Everything had a Santa theme or a North Pole theme, with candy-cane striped buildings and green roofs. It kind of had a Swiss chalet feeling, which was certainly startling in the desert (especially back in the day, it was a lot of adobe and cheap wood, not Swiss chalets with gingerbread trim).
Talbot called her town “The Pride of the Desert”, and it was said that in its heyday, Santa Claus could rival anything else along old Route 66. (Only back then, it was new: Route 66 began paving in 1931.) Talbot’s charisma and excellent home cooking were perfect bedfellows for the incongruous theming at this otherwise lonely desert gas stop.
As famed writer Robert Heinlein, known for Starship Troopers among others, wrote of the town in his 1950 story “Cliff and the Calories”, as it arose from the “grimmest desert in the world”. “You know what most desert gas stations look like — put together out of odds and ends. Here was a beautiful fairytale cottage with wavy candy stripes in the shingles. It had a broad brick chimney — and Santa Claus was about to climb down the chimney! Between the station and the cottage were two incredible little dolls’ houses. One was marked Cinderella’s House, and Mistress Mary Quite Contrary was making the garden grow. The other one needed no sign: the Three Little Pigs, and the Big Bad Wolf was stuck in its’ chimney.”
Vintage image of Santa Claus, AZ attractions: Cinderella’s Doll House and House of the Third Little Pig. Public domain.
The centerpiece building was named the Santa Claus Inn. Though some retellings of the town’s story indicate this was solely a renamed Kit Carson Guest House, this was a brand new building, designed by Talbot’s husband and built by local Kingsman contractor W. J. Zinck. In addition to the holiday decoration and prominent Santa Claus, a Christmas tree too stood outside (the building was later renamed the Christmas Tree Inn).
Inside, the restaurant was decorated with nursery rhyme paintings from a former Disney animator, Walter Winsett. Breakfast was $0.75, about $13 in today’s money; lunch $1; and dinner $1.50. The restaurant was famed for its Chicken a la North Pole and Rum Pie a la Kris Kringle. Talbot dressed as Mrs. Claus, and brought her vivacious energy to the task at hand. “Any known or asked-for dish or delicacy asked for will be served. The everyday routine provision of ordinary food is not the policy of this cage,” she once said. Year round, she served five course meals every day. A historical postcard shows a sample menu: olives, celery, iceberg; fruit or shrimp cocktail; tomato or chicken soup; chicken, lamb chops, or filet mignon; sherbet; salad; multiple desserts like ice cream, pie, or cake; and coffee and mints. All, of course, with appropriately holiday-themed names.
Talbot’s cooking brought some modicum of fame to the attraction. Famed food critic Duncan Hines (now best known for the cake mixes bearing his name) made early Zagat-type guides of good restaurants across the country for his friends – an essential at a time prior to GPS, cell phone data, or the internet. One of his recommendations was the Santa Claus Inn, which in addition to good food offered a moderately air-conditioned space through the use of swamp coolers, a relatively new technology at the time. Hines considered the Santa Claus Inn to be one of the best places to eat in Arizona, and even included her rum pie recipe in one of his cookbooks. “Perhaps the best rum pie you ever ate, chicken a la North Pole and lots of other unusual things.”
Other “attractions” included the tram shaped into a train, called “Santa Claus Arizona Express” with the “locomotive” called Old 12-25. A donkey wandered the grounds. Inside the two small cottages, nursery rhyme dioramas amused the children.
And of course, the special postbox. Although there was never an actual post office, a mailbox was available, with a special postmark – “Santa Claus, Arizona, via Kingman”. Talbot responded to every child’s Christmas letter. They also sent postcards to every visitor who stopped, whether for gas or food, reminding them to come back.
The 30s through 50s in Santa Claus, AZ were a magical time.
Christmas Park, NY
We return to Albion, NY after the war, where our friend, Santa legend Charles Howard, had established his Santa Claus School. It ran for two months, in October and November, of each year. Howard continued to busy himself in the Santa Claus field. He served as Macy’s Santa-in-chief and reported was Santa in the first nationally televised Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade. He continued this appearance for the next 17 years, and even served as a Santa consultant for 1947’s “Miracle on 34th Street”.
Locally to Albion, Howard decided to expand his Santa Claus School with an attraction for the children, as well. It was called “Christmas Park”, and it was located right on his farm, where the school itself was located.
In comparison with any true theme park, this is honestly closer to a playground with a theme, as honestly most summer festivals in my town have more rides and attractions today. Nonetheless, it was a draw for people of the time, when America was still recovering from the war and traveling locally.
“Christmas Park” had a themed playground, a petting farm with goats and real reindeer, a wishing well, something called “Santa’s Gold Mine” (perhaps a pan for gold type attraction), a toy and gift shop, and a diesel-operated miniature train called “The Railmaster” that was memorable for going through a tunnel. Here’s a link to photos of the park in operation. Howard reportedly had a collection of antique sleighs placed throughout the park for theming purposes, as well. There was also a “Christmas Tree” ride, a specially made version of the classic Allan Herschell helicopter ride; instead of helicopters, the ride buggies were themed as Christmas ornaments. Inside the various barns and outbuildings, there were Christmas-themed displays, fake snow, and a constant stream of Christmas music.
The park opened in 1953, with a short 13-week summer season.
In later years, the park was open year round. According to accounts online from people who visited the park as children, there was no trouble believing in Santa Claus, because they lived in the same town and could see him anytime!
Santa Claus Land: America’s First Theme Park
Back in Santa Claus, IN, the post-war landscape saw a lot of run-down attractions. A local businessman named Louis Koch entered the scene, looking for a retirement project. He and his wife had nine children, and loved the holidays. He thought the town of Santa Claus, with that wonderful name, needed more attractions that appealed to children, especially ones that featured Santa himself. In the early 40s, then, he purchased some lots of land in Santa Claus. The war postponed development on his attraction, and the family was able to break ground in 1945.
The attraction was christened as “Santa Claus Land”, and it opened in August of 1946. And without much fanfare at all, I present to you the recognized first theme park in the US. That’s right, Koch’s little retirement project,“Santa Claus Land”, is considered America’s first theme park.
It started out small, a sort of family business that Koch ran with his son Bill. Originally, the park had no entrance cost. It featured toy displays, Santa’s toy shop, a restaurant with a Bavarian village theme, and a few children’s rides, including the “Santa Claus Land Railroad”, a miniature train ride that went through Mother Goose-themed displays. And of course, there was Santa, portrayed by the legendary Jim Yellig who we talked about a little while ago, the so-called Real Santa Claus from Santa Claus.
Aerial image of Santa Claus Land (now Holiday World) – public domain via wikipedia / Holiday World.
Not only that, but the Santa Claus post office moved that same year, to a new building on the property of the Santa Claus Land park, when the former building was reported in bad condition. The original building itself was also moved and restored, renamed as House of Dolls, a doll exhibit.
1955 at Santa Claus Land – (l to r) Jim Yellig as Santa, Ronald Reagan, Jim Koch – public domain via wikipedia / Holiday World.
Bill Koch, though initially pessimistic about the park’s chances for success, was buoyed by the first few years of operation, and he took over from his father. He expanded the park, adding a ride area (“Rudolph’s Reindeer Ranch”), the first Jeep-go-round ever manufactured (in 1947), and in 1948, a deer farm with a few of Santa’s reindeer. There were “educated animals” like the Fire Chief Rabbit and the Piano Playing Duck. There was a wax museum, called Hall of Famous Americans.
The 1946 Christmas Room Restaurant was an incredibly popular “attraction” in the early years, like the Knotts’ serving chicken dinners that attracted long lines. Bill Koch was quoted as saying that their business in the early years was built on those chicken dinners.
The Santa Claus Land Railroad, going past Mother Goose scenery. Public domain image via Oparalyzerx / wikipedia.
In 1952, the Koch family put the park up for sale, with quite a few strings attached. The family was worried about the effect of managing the park on the Sr. Koch’s health. However, at the same time, they did not want to see the park commercialized. Reportedly, many of the townsfolk and park workers were opposed to the sale. Jim Yellig, said to have been Santa to more children than anyone else in the world, was quoted as saying “I hope it’s never sold. I’d be lost without this job. I love it so much.”
After a year on the market, the Koch family decided to retain ownership of the park. There had been several interested buyers, but none were willing to abide with the requirements on non-commercialization, so the decision was made to keep it within the family.
In 1960, Bill Koch married Santa’s daughter, Patricia Yellig, daughter of Jim Yellig, a poetic reminder of the importance of the two families to the city of Santa Claus, IN.
Santa Claus Land brochure, Santa Claus Land, IN.
The Decline of Santa Claus, AZ
Back in Arizona, Talbot’s time at Santa Claus was coming to an end. World War II hadn’t necessarily been kind, closing US 93 road access across Hoover Dam for several years in the 1940s and slowing tourist traffic. Talbot’s husband Ed passed away in 1942, and she remarried two years later, still operating the restaurant and promoting her Santa Claus Acres lots. Several of the lots sold, but none were ever built upon, despite the proximity to the booming tourist attraction of the Hoover Dam and the location along the route to Las Vegas. Why?
Water, as always is the story in the desert.
Santa Claus, AZ had unexpectedly been built atop land where the water table was very deep, due to a nearby geologic fault. No successful wells were dug, so water had to be hauled by tanker the 14 miles from Kingman, an expensive task. Notes on each dining table reminded guests not to waste water, signed “Mrs. Claus”.
Talbot also began losing interest in running her tourist attraction due to her increasing gambling habit, reportedly gambling away entire days’ profits at a time. Her second husband died in 1947, and she was getting older, becoming less interested in water conservation and constant food service, especially with the lure of the gambling tables nearby. In 1950, she sold Santa Claus and moved back to Los Angeles near her children.
The new owners, Doc and Erma Bromaghim, carried on where Ninon Talbot had left off, and for a decade, it was still a holiday at Santa Claus. However, business began to slow, and the Bromaghims began closing the attraction December through February starting in the mid-50s, in order to save money. Water again was a big issue. They were exhausted with trucking water, and reportedly drilled down a staggering 2,000 feet deep, still not finding water. This was the last straw, and they sold Santa Claus in 1965.
And from here, it was nothing but downhill for Santa Claus, with the common end-of-life tale for roadside attractions like this. At least eight different owners spun through the place, which clearly drew in those who didn’t give thought to the practicalities of water and customer service. But of course, no owner lasted long, and no one invested any money in improvements or even upkeep. Maintenance slipped, and things got shabby. The new owners stopped answering the children’s Christmas letters each year.
The holiday aesthetic of the neat and charming Santa village was lost.
Where once there was Mrs. Santa Claus and her Rum Pie, there now was microwave sandwiches. The gas station closed, becoming a very slow moving antique and curio shop specializing in music boxes. One owner reportedly favored using mannequins in parked cars in an attempt to give the attraction an air of business.
Author Mark Winegardner described the latter days of Santa Claus in his 1987 book “Elvis Presley Boulevard: From Sea to Shining Sea, Almost”: “Styrofoam silver bells, strands of burned-out Christmas lights and faded plastic likenesses of Old Saint Nick garnished this little village. A lopsided, artificial twenty-foot tree whistled in the wind beside a broken Coke machine and an empty ice freezer. Two of the three buildings were padlocked; through their windows, encrusted with layers of sand and decade-old aerosol snow.”
Drivers in the second half of the century weren’t looking for roadside attractions and surprises like their parents and grandparents had, either. People wanted to get where they were going, be it to the glimmers of Phoenix in one direction or Vegas in the other.
A variety of new uses for Santa Claus were proposed throughout the years, but nothing went beyond the dreaming stage: a foster home, a trailer park, a cocktail lounge, a shopping center. Ultimately, the town was wiped from the official maps, and officially closed services in 1993 (some sources say 1995).
Advertisement for lan in Santa Claus, AZ. Image by benchurchill / radiotrippictures on Flickr (used under license: CCBY2.0)
The entire “town” has been for sale off and on since. As of this recording, you can buy Santa Claus, Arizona for the princely sum of $440,000. The real estate listing (which you can view here) dully lists a brief history of the place, ending with the following in a scream, sans punctuation and with several typographical and grammatical errors: “4 ACRE ON MAJOR HWY BRING BACK THE ORGINAL TOWN OF SANTA CLAUSE ONCE HAD ITS ON POST OFFICE NUMBER THINK OF A GREAT SHOW CAR AND BIKE STOP MAKE A STATEMENT, REBUILD AND DRAW IN THE TOURIST AND LOCALS”.
Route 93, where Santa Claus is located, is still the sole route between Vegas and the major Arizona cities, yet Santa Claus sits abandoned, covered in graffiti and dilapidated on the side of the road, in the middle of the harsh and unyielding Mojave Desert.
It’s a cautionary note for the future of many desert cities, as water in the area becomes more scarce. What happens when a place is no longer habitable? Here lies Santa Claus, Arizona.
The very decayed and graffiti’d Christmas Tree Inn in Santa Claus, AZ, once a prize restaurant off Route 66. Image by benchurchill / radiotrippictures on Flickr (used under license: CCBY2.0)The abandoned former service station in Santa Claus, AZ. Image by ruralwarriorphotography / becketttgirlphotos on Flickr, used under license CCBYND.
The End of Santa Claus Land and Christmas Park and Santa Claus School? No.
It was reportedly one of Charles Howard’s great dreams, that modest little theme park called “Christmas Park”, sitting next to the school for Santa Clauses in Albion, NY. It was ultimately not a long-lived park, however. Howard became distressed with the direction the park was heading in 1964, quoted in an article at the time as saying, “They put in merry-go-rounds and ferris wheels. I have nothing against these things, but in Christmas Park a ferris wheel should be in the form of a Christmas wreath, and a merry-go-round should have reindeer to ride on.” His complaints came along with reports of financial troubles, and the next year in 1965, Christmas Park filed for bankruptcy, about ¾ of a million dollars in debt in today’s money.
The entire operation was sold at auction; a man named Vincent Cardone purchased the school and theme park, and a woman named Elizabeth Babcock purchased the Santa suit business she’d been managing for several years. Other items and tracts of land were sold to other buyers.
Howard died in 1966. Said by a journalist at the time, he “guided his sleigh into the limitless great beyond.”
http://nyhistoric.com/2012/12/santa-claus/ The remnants of Christmas Park were left alone, untouched by all accounts over the last 50 or so years, and still remain to this day, including the old train tunnel and the barns, some still with signs attached and Christmas wreaths decorating the insides. Today, a historical marker stands on the site. It reads: “Santa Claus. Charles W. Howard, 1896-1966. In 1937 he established here a world famous Santa Claus School, the first of its kind, and 1953 Christmas Park. Macy’s Thanksgiving Day Parade Santa Claus”.
What about Santa Claus Land?
The park continued to add new rides through the 60s, 70s and 80s, delightfully detailed on the park’s official timeline page: https://www.holidayworld.com/holiblog/2019/05/15/timeline-santa-claus-land-holiday-world-splashin-safari/ In the 1970s, the park moved its entrance, signalling a major focus change from kid-focused to whole-family entertainment. They added nine major rides over the next decade. By 1984, the park changed its name to Holiday World, expanding with two new holiday-themed areas, Halloween and 4th of July. Jim Yellig served as Santa at the park from its opening in 1946 until a few months before his death in 1984. There’s also been a couple of community housing developments from the Koch family, called Christmas Lake Village and Holiday Village.
1993 saw the addition of a major waterpark called Splashin’ Safari, and 2006 saw the addition of a Thanksgiving themed area to celebrate the 60th anniversary of the park. The park is of course, still open today, a major, award-winning theme park and waterpark, and at least four generations of the Koch family have owned the park. In 2004, it won the international Applause award, honoring “foresight, originality, and creativity, plus sound business development and profitability,” the smallest theme park at the time to ever win said award.
Ironically, the park is once again no longer open during the Christmas season, closed mid-November through mid-May. Visitors to Santa Claus, IN can find themselves in the same situation as folks 70 years ago – not a lot of Santa Claus in Santa Claus around the holidays.
As part of the park’s 70th anniversary celebrations, the “Freedom Train”, the miniature railroad engine that had been the last original ride removed from the park, was brought back as a stationary display, considered by the park’s president as “an important part of our history”.
As for the Santa Claus School, it too is still in operation. It operated in Albion until 1968, at which point Charles Howard’s friends, Nate and Mary Ida Doran, moved the school to Bay City, MI. Tom and Holly Valent took over operation in 1987, and the school moved to Midland, MI, where it still teaches approximately 300 Santas per year today.
And as of 2010, professional Santa Phillip L. Wenz authored the Santa Claus Oath, a set of guiding principles for those seeking to embody Santa Claus. It was dedicated in the honor of Charles Howard and Jim Yellig, in the rotunda of Santa’s Candy Castle, there in Santa Claus, IN. https://santaclausoath.webs.com/abouttheoath.htm
Conclusions
Now, to the pedantic out there as we get back to our question about earliest theme parks. You might also award Knott’s Berry Farm the title of the first theme park, as it had a Wild West and Ghost Town area that opened all the way back in 1941. However, it was still primarily a restaurant at the time and didn’t become an enclosed theme park officially until the 50s or 60s. But that’s really neither here nor there. And of course, if you broaden the question to include “amusement” parks and not just theme parks, you’ll have to go back to the 1500s.
Of course, there was another Christmas theme park that was also considered one of the first theme parks in the US. But we’ll have to save that one for another year.
I really liked this quote I found while researching for this episode, in an article about historical preservation and Charles Howard. Orleans County historian Matt Ballard writes in a 2018 article: “Material culture serves a valuable purpose in the process of interpreting the past. Void of any physical representation of past cultures, we would lose all ability to understand the lives of those who lived without a voice.” It’s this quote that shines a light on at least my own fascination with abandoned places and abandoned theme parks. What we leave behind helps us understand what came before, especially if they were a person of less power.
Charles Howard, one of the great Santa Clauses, himself wrote a letter in favor of historical preservation for landmark buildings in Albion in the 1960s. From a young age, too, Howard realized that teaching the role of Santa was a great task and always viewed that task as a privilege. So important was this role, that Howard remarked, “To say there is no Santa Claus is the most erroneous statement in the world. Santa Claus is a thought that is passed from generation to generation. After time this thought takes on a human form. Maybe if all children and adults understand the symbolism of this thought we can actually attain Peace on Earth and good will to men everywhere.”
Dahl DL. Those Kids Deserve Water Too: A History of the Patoka Lake Regional Water and Sewer District. Lulu Press, Inc; 2019.
Marimen M, Willis JA, Taylor T. Weird Indiana: Your Travel Guide to Indiana’s Local Legends and Best Kept Secrets. Sterling Publishing Company, Inc.; 2008.
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]]>https://theabandonedcarousel.com/a-town-called-santa-claus/feed/055617Gaslight Village
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https://theabandonedcarousel.com/gaslight-village/#commentsWed, 04 Dec 2019 10:00:00 +0000https://theabandonedcarousel.com/?p=52919This week, we return to our intermittent miniseries on the surprising hotspot of theme park activity, the Adirondacks. I’m going to tell you the story of a legacy. In its... Read more »
]]>This week, we return to our intermittent miniseries on the surprising hotspot of theme park activity, the Adirondacks. I’m going to tell you the story of a legacy. In its abandonment, the park wasn’t much to look at. you might think of a famous quote: “she doesn’t look like much, but she’s got it where it counts, kid.” In its heyday, though, the park was magical, full of life and community, and it still touches people’s hearts today. This week, we’re talking about Gaslight Village, in Lake George, NY.
Podcast cover background photo is by 4045 on freepik.com. Image of the Opera House is from the collection of Bob Carroll and used with permission. Theme music is from “Aerobatics in Slow Motion” by TeknoAXE. Incidental music includes “Olde Timey” and “Plucky Daisy” by Kevin Macleod / incompetech.com. “The Ballad of Gaslight Village and Frontier Town” by Brian Dorn, Addison Rice, and Jahnavi Newsom (aka The Love Sprockets), used with permission. Additional audio clips are from the collection of Bob Carroll’s Gaslight Village memorabilia and are used with permission. All are available in full on his YouTube page, and include a clip of Warren Boden, the Gaslight Village commercial jingle, audience “boos” from a mellerdrama, and part of the Heckler sketch.
Well, it’s been some time since we were last in the Adirondacks, but we’re back. You might remember my episodes on Magic Forest (still operational, with some changes) and Time Town (long gone) back in the single digit episodes of TAC. Well, here we are, all the way in episode 25, back again in upstate NY, back in Lake George, this time to talk about a shining gem of the past. Let’s go back to a time of cool summer nights, brightly lit rides glowing in the twilight, music spilling out from the speakers and the shows at the Opera House. Gaslight Village, yesterday’s fun today.
Charles Wood
To start today’s story, you need to know about the man behind it all: Charles R. Wood, dubbed by the IAAPA (the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions) as the “grandfather of the American theme park”. Born in 1914, Charles was an entrepreneur who made his own opportunities.
He started out his investments at a young age – he bought two houses at the age of thirteen, unthinkable and impossible in today’s world a century later. As he became an adult, he worked in aviation as an aircraft technician throughout World War II.
After the war, it was an article in Reader’s Digest, of all things, that planted the seeds for his future in the amusement industry. See, Charles read about the Knotts and their berry farm over in California. An article in Reader’s Digest led him to Southern California to see Knott’s Berry Farm. “I fell in love with what he had done,” says Charley. “Mr. Knott had created the boysenberry, and Mrs. Knott cooked chicken and made boysenberry pie. People would swarm this place. Mr. Knott built a chapel and a volcano to entertain people while they waited for the dinner. He had started an amusement park. I came back full of beans and wanted to get into the amusement business.”
The story goes that Wood visited Albany, NY after seeing an ad for a skating rink for sale. The rink deal fell through, but he saw an ad locally for some land about 60 miles north, up in Lake George. When he asked for directions, he was told to take Route 9 north. As he later said, “It was just so pretty,” says Charley. “And I could just see nothing but opportunities.” It was a fateful trip.
Some consider Wood the pioneer of the tourism concept in Lake George. He started by purchasing property near Schroon Lake (30 minutes north of Lake George) and developed a resort there called Arrowhead Lodge. Then came a second property. Originally called Erlowest, it was a Queen Anne-style stone castle that Wood developed into Holiday House, right on Bolton Road in Lake George, now called Sun Castle. After years of development with these two summer resorts, Wood saw an opportunity. He’d realized something important about his audience – they were looking for more than just summer basics like tennis and boating. The resort wasn’t fulfilling enough for the guests. They were looking for amusements.
In 1954, then, a year before Disneyland opened, Charles Wood invested $75,000 in five acres of land off Route 9 between Lake George and Glen Falls. It was called Storytown USA, themed after Mother Goose stories, and is generally considered one of the first true theme parks in the US.
We’ll get into the history of Storytown in another episode, but without a doubt, Storytown was a success. Guests came in droves, and one quote from Wood remembering opening day illustrated the fervor: “When we tried to count the money it was blowing all over the place.” Wood invested the profits right back into the park. His success with Storytown paved the way for Wood’s future endeavors and future successes, including the topic of today’s episode, Gaslight Village.
Pottersville and the First Gaslight Village
In the tales of Gaslight Village, it’s an under-reported fact that Gaslight Village in Lake George was not actually the first Gaslight Village. Instead, the park had its beginnings in the hamlet of Pottersville NY, some 28 miles north of Lake George. From the 1870s through the 1960s, the small town hosted a variety of amusements drawing thousands of people, due to its proximity to the transportation of the time. These were things ranging from religious fairs in the early years, to dance halls, roller rinks, circus acts, and finally, the precursor to Gaslight Village. Specifically, by 1950, the town was promoting itself as “the home of Gaslight Village” in newspaper advertisements.
According to a 2007 retrospective article by Andy Flynn, the local Chestertown paper, “The Summer Sentinel”, reported on the opening day of the original Gaslight Village: “June 30, 1950 with the headline, “Gaslight Village, Gay ’90’s Spectacle, Opens this Evening.” ” They described the opening, and noted that the famed creative genius Arto Monaco had a hand in the design of Gaslight Village.
Now, not to get too much into a second tangent, but we should talk about Arto Monaco briefly before we move on. I’ll talk more about him when I get into the other area theme parks he was better known for. But he was an important guy – a Hollywood designer, working for Warner Brothers and MGM and Walt Disney. He made toys for companies like Mattel, and designed theme parks, lots of theme parks. He’s best known for his work on Storytown and The Land of Makebelieve, but he had his hands in many different parks in one way or another, including, as it turns out, Gaslight Village.
Back to the amusement park. Milt Selleck was the man behind the original Gaslight Village, owner of the nearby Glen Manor hotel for 5 years prior to opening the new amusement park. It was located at a resort called Under the Maples, which was later converted to a campground called Smoke Rise. Described by the paper at the time: “a movie set quality pervades the place, and you find yourself transported to an old village square complete with a candy shoppe, village store, firehouse, and jail.” There was an outdoor music hall with live entertainment, a carnival for children, and a miniature train called The Adirondack Limited. The park served all kinds of food and drink, including cocktails and steins of beer.
There was also, of course, a carousel. The 2007 retrospective calls it “Clint Swan’s 1903 merry-go-round from Kansas”. The July 1950 article describes it thusly: “vintage of 1890, complete with prancing steeds powered by steam, no less.” The train and the carousel were both set on terraces above the road to attract the eye to the park, between which led a wide gravel-paved road.
Another article from June 1950 goes into greater depth, describing much that would be familiar to any fan of the later version of the park: keystone cops, photo studios offering old-fashioned tintypes, a penny arcade, museum, dueling pianos, a barbershop quartet, and of course, a magician. The evening program began with the “Lamplighter’s Serenade”, where the gas lights around the village square were illuminated, followed by a “Gaslight Waltz” routine and then an evening play.
The July 1950 article concludes by saying that the park is “too good to miss!”
Despite this delightful description, the Pottersville Gaslight Village reportedly lasted only a single season. That summer was apparently wet and cool, and that was a death knell for a park relying on primarily outdoor entertainment. Just over a year after its glowing report on the park’s opening, the Summer Sentinel published another article about the park, calling it a ghost town. Quote: “Today the square, a false facade in the Hollywood style, stands grey and mournful behind Glen Manor. Only the entrance, visible from Route 9, still glistens, but even that is neglected, forsaken in the greenery creeping up its very sides.”
One person has posted images of this place to a historical FB group, from a grandparents’ album, and they’re available on Facebook. In his description, the photos are noted as dating from 1949, which does conflict a bit with the information given in the paper articles. Perhaps they were from prior to the park’s opening? Nonetheless, the park didn’t survive for long in Pottersville by any account.
As the Adirondack Almanack describes in a 2009 blog post, Charley Wood purchased the Pottersville Gaslight Village “kit and kaboodle” in 1958, seven years after its reported abandonment. He would’ve been very familiar with the original park – not only was he friends and business associates with designer Arto Monaco, but he would’ve driven past Gaslight Village in Pottersville as he drove to his Arrowhead Lodge on Schroon Lake property. How exactly the buildings made it the 28 miles south isn’t quite clear, but move they did, to their more familiar location: Lake George.
Preparing the Site for Gaslight Village in Lake George, NY
By the time Gaslight Village officially opened in Lake George in 1959, Charles Wood had reportedly invested over half a million dollars in the park. Not only was there the cost of moving property from Pottersville. No, Charles Wood actually had to move a small mountain.
The location of Gaslight Village in Lake George was on the site of the former Delaware and Hudson (D&H) Railway’s Freight House, where the D&H terminated and trains turned around on the “balloon track”. Charles Wood purchased the former railroad property some time in 1958. On the site was also a sawmill with a huge sawdust mountain. Under Wood’s direction, the sawmill was moved. The sawdust pile and large hill or mountain on the south side of the property were taken down with heavy machinery, finally lending a lake view to the now-level site. A May 1959 article describes it thusly: “the visitor sees only beauty where unsightly products of early industry had been before. Moving the hill revealed the unforgettable beauty of Lake George.” Now, then, Wood had his blank canvas for building his newest theme park: Gaslight Village.
Image via https://www.facebook.com/GaslightVillageLakeGeaorgeNY/ used with permission.
Gaslight Village: Opening Day, 1959
It was, from the outset, an adult-oriented amusement park.
Wood’s first theme park, Storytown USA and Ghost Town, had already been opened for five years. This park predated even Disneyland (by a year) and was themed around Mother Goose rhymes, as I’ve already mentioned. Storytown, though, as the theme might suggest, was aimed at younger children, and was open for the earlier hours of the day, closing by 5. Gaslight Village at its heart was the complement to Storytown, aimed at adults and older children, open after noon through the late evening.
The earliest press release I could find is from a July 1959 “Queensbury Hotel & Motor Inn News”, posted on the invaluable Gaslight Village Lake George NY Facebook page. The park was described as combining “the fun of an amusement park, the entertainment of stage and screen, the enjoyment of participating [in] activities, the educational value of a museum, and all the romance of the gay 90’s in an authentically recreated setting”.
Image via https://www.facebook.com/GaslightVillageLakeGeaorgeNY/ used with permission.
Gay Nineties
I suppose I’ve breezed past it enough times that we ought to have a brief discussion on the term “Gay Nineties”, since it’s the park’s theme. Obviously this term has a bit of a different conotation nowadays (yes, there’s a gay bar by this name in Minneapolis now in 2019). The term in its historical definition was coined in the 1920s and 1930s to describe the decade of the 1890s, with people at the time longing for a comfortable past in the midst of the Great Depression. In the UK, the decade is referred to as the “Naughty Nineties”.
Despite the plight of the massive lower class, and the actual poor economy of the decade, including the 1893 panic and the depression that set in for most of the decade, popular culture remembers the period for its pleasant aspects. It’s remembered for the icons of a new age in steam-driven machines, the 1893 invention of the Ferris wheel, nickelodeon movies, vaudeville, and of course, glimmering gas lighting.
(Gaslights were initially introduced in the 1810s, but did not reach widespread use until the mid-1850s or later. The invention of the “gas mantle” in 1891 and commercial production of the same in 1892 are likely the reasons behind our association of gaslight and this era, as the mantle was rapidly adopted, remaining an important part of street lighting until the widespread adoption of electric lights in the early 1900s.)
Other more broad names for the same gay nineties era are the Victorian era (1837-1901), the Gilded Age (1870s through 1900), and the Belle Epoque (1871-1914).
Summer 1959 at Gaslight Village
Given all this, then, we can move back to Gaslight Village with a better sense of historical context.
The catchphrase? Yesterday’s fun today.
The park in its initial conception, seen in the Pottersville version and in the Arto Monaco sketch, was solely about the village aspect, without any rides. Blueprints reportedly called for the eponymous gaslights every 40 feet along the park streets. There were horse-drawn trolleys and horse and buggy rides for guests to experience, and a vintage double-decker bus. A 1912 steam locomotive was reportedly shipped from Louisiana up to the park via Chicago and then to Glens Falls.
Gaslight Village train in front of Cavalcade of Cars building, image via Bob Carroll.
The 1959 version of the park had a 1900 drug store, reportedly purchased complete with interior furnishings, cabinetry, and old pharmaceuticals. Then there was a Bicycle Shop, featuring over 30 bicycles, some as old as 1867. Reportedly, the shop contained an example of almost every type of bicycle to date, “from the first glider […] to the old high-wheelers”. Many of these bicycles were purchased from the Tracy Killiam transportation collection in 1958, previously on display in Sandy Creek NY, 200 miles due west.
There was a Musical Museum, featuring “many rare and priceless music-making devices of the old days”, such as lap organs and melodians from the 1830s, as well as an 1891 Edison home phonograph. Something called The Ladies Emporium featured the “only known matching collection of fashion dolls”. These were not paper dolls or toy dolls. They were actually more than 50 life-sized figurines, displaying clothes of the decade, “showing what Fifth Avenue grand dames wore in the time of our grandparents”.
And then there was the Antique Auto Collection, some of the cars that would later be part of the Cavalcade of Cars. In the early stage, there were 1908 buggies and 1922 and 1925 model Ts, as well as 1882 horse drawn firetrucks.
The Penny Arcade featured old but playable penny arcade machines.
The Palace Theater was the home to silent films on endless loop, at the outset reported to be from the “original Edison collection”.
Early aerial view of Gaslight Village. Image via https://www.facebook.com/GaslightVillageLakeGeaorgeNY/ used with permission.
And then there was the Opera House. It reportedly had the largest dance floor in the area, roomy enough for 1000 people. The Opera House from the outset had both an indoor stage and an outdoor stage. The latter looked out onto a vintage beer garden, where guests could enjoy a beer stein with their stage show. The outdoor stage, though nice in concept, was reportedly difficult for everyone in rainy or cold weather (as had been the issue with the Pottersville park), so after some time, it was closed and only the interior of the Opera House was used. The stage shows themselves were old time “mellerdrammer”, or melodramas, where there were heroes and villains. The audience was expected to participate at minimum with boos and hisses, shouts and catcalls.
This was the park as it was on opening day in 1959.
Rides at Gaslight Village
On May 31, 1791, Thomas Jefferson wrote in a letter to his daughter, “Lake George is without comparison, the most beautiful water I ever saw; formed by a contour of mountains into a basin… finely interspersed with islands, its water limpid as crystal, and the mountain sides covered with rich groves… down to the water-edge: here and there precipices of rock to checker the scene and save it from monotony.” Lake George is a small summer resort town up in the Adirondacks. Its population as of 2000 was 985. However, summertime population is reported to swell over 50,000 – 50x the normal population.
It might not be surprising, then, the high concentration of theme parks in the surrounding areas of Lake George, especially in the days before inexpensive air travel, when most vacationing was done via car. A three and a half hour drive from NYC was no big deal back in the day, and even now, 3.5 hours isn’t that far away to drive.
Charles Wood’s Gaslight Village in Lake George saw success after its first year, and was able to continue on as an amusement park.
One of the immediate additions though was rides. As noted earlier, the park was originally intended to be “just” the village, with its museums and displays, shows and entertainment. There was always a boardwalk with sideshow type attractions, like the Wild Man of Borneo and fun house mirror mazes. However, with his theme park knowledge given the years of experience Wood already had from Storytown USA, it’s not surprising that rides were soon added.
Early image of Gaslight Village at Lake George, via Bob Carroll.
Some of the rides at Gaslight Village may have always there. It seems likely that the carousel and the small train both were purchased from the Pottersville Gaslight Village, though that’s not clear. Some of the articles about the park date the carousel back to 1800 which is almost certainly not correct, given that the first steam-powered carousel wasn’t invented until 1861. However, it does seem that the park did have multiple carousels in its lifetime, with a unique “rocking horse” carousel in colloquial history reportedly sold in parts across Europe prior to the park’s closure. One online commenter references this as a Parker carousel, while another calls it a Dentzel carousel. The world may never known.
The auction catalog for the park’s eventual demise, dating to 2000, does seem to combine some Storytown rides as well as Gaslight Village rides; while multiple carousels are listed, none were this unique-sounding one. But we’re getting ahead of ourselves. Let’s get back to the operational history of the park and talk about rides some more.
In or around 1968, after the park had already been open for over a decade, the Steeplechase Bicycle Carousel came to Gaslight Village. This was said to be one of the oldest operating flat rides at one point, dating back to the Steeplechase Park at Coney Island. The ride was likely purchased sometime after Steeplchase’s ultimate closure in 1964. However, it’s actually much older than that, possibly dating back to early 1900. It was originally located in the Pavilion of Fun at Steeplechase in Coney Island. I’ll include a link to pictures of the ride at Steeplechase, as well as the ride at Gaslight Village. The concept was simple – a carousel powered by human action of pedalling bicycles. The faster you and your fellow riders pedaled, the faster the carousel went. The ride was quite the draw, finally being removed from Gaslight Village only when someone fell off and got hurt while the ride was in operation.
Bike Carousel at Gaslight Village. Image via https://www.facebook.com/GaslightVillageLakeGeaorgeNY/ used with permission.
Bicycle Carousel at Gaslight Village. Image via https://www.facebook.com/GaslightVillageLakeGeaorgeNY/ used with permission.
The rides started coming fast and furious, with a Paratrooper and the Green Monster (an octopus ride) coming in 1969. Then there were the usual parade of theme park staples, moving in and out of the park: a Ferris wheel, bumper boats, a scrambler, a Tip Top (which seems to have been called the Shaving Mug), a roundup, a tilt-a-whirl, and a trabant. There were kiddie rides like “the turtles” and a classic Red Baron airplane ride. There was a swinging boat “space shuttle” ride and a classic Flying Bobs ride and bumper cars and a flying trapeze swing ride. Apparently Wood was notorious for moving the rides around, not just physically at the park, but between Gaslight Village and Storytown, as well, adding to some of the confusion when researching the exact rides at the park.
Rides at Gaslight Village, including the Green Monster, roundup, and trabant. Image via Bob Carroll.
(If you’re interested in a rabbithole, you can do some research into the spaceship-like Futuro House, which once sat in the Gaslight Village parking lot between the park and the Waxlife attraction Wood owned across the street. Despite not technically being part of Gaslight Village, many fondly remember the “spaceship”. Of Finnish design, less than 100 were built in the late 60s and early 70s, and there’s a delightful website dedicated to tracking the once and current homes of these spaceship-like houses (here’s the link for Lake George’s Futuro). I recently saw one while driving down I-55 in Illinois, at Pink Elephant Antiques (which also has a Muffler Man among many other cool giant fiberglass figures). Here’s an article with a dynamic map for every known remaining Futuro.)
Antique Car Ride
An iconic ride at the park was the antique car ride, right up front – think Disneyland’s Autopia, but with cars from the 1890s. The cars were built by Arrow Development Corp, and were there at the park from the beginning, advertised in a 1959 Billboard magazine. According to a history of the company, the official description for the cars from the company was “Open-topped antique cars, reproduced to five-eighths scale, provide a pleasant ride through an old-fashioned country setting. Each car seats up to five, and anyone 10 years or over can drive. A single pedal – accelerator and brake combined – controls the one-cylinder engine that pushes the cars along at a top speed of four miles an hour”.
In the early days, there wasn’t even a guide track; alas, when a guest tried to take a car on a joyride off the track over to the Opera House, a guide rail had to be installed. Online recollections often mention this ride, including the thrilling aspect of a young child being able to drive a real car.
Employees remember the car ride as being a fun place to work, particularly compared to the monotony of the Kiddie rides. One story from a former employee on the Gaslight Village Facebook page tells of how the cars had very small gas tanks, often running out of gas in the middle of a drive. Employees would then have to run out with a gas can to refill the tanks. However, the engines were very hot, and the common slight spills during the fill process would catch the cars on fire, much to the consternation of the guests. Reportedly it was no big deal – the flames were batted down, the guests were on their way, and everyone would cheer.
Night view of Gaslight Village, image via Bob Carroll.
Mystery House
The next attraction to discuss was a here again, gone again sort of deal. It was called the Mystery House.
Now, I will tell you that Freedomland has a future episode lined up for it, and it has since the moment I heard of the place. This park was only open for five seasons, but has an incredible Facebook page, fan page, and even a 300+ page book about its history.
Casa Loca was a classic disorienting walkthrough attraction, designed to trick the senses. From an article on patch.com, the attraction was described thusly: “We went in one end not knowing what to expect and came out the other amazed by what our senses told us was impossible. Simple disorientation and gravity created an illusion that had cans rolling up a table and out a window as well as pool table balls that went uphill.”
Freedomland closed in 1964, only five years after its 1960 opening. There are some strong connections between Freedomland and Lake George, as Charley Wood purchased many rides and placed them in Storytown USA. It’s speculated that Casa Loca went to Gaslight Village, where it was renamed Mystery House.
Ultimately, however, this all turns out to be speculation and coincidence. I’ve been in contact with Mike Virgintino, who wrote the book on Freedomland’s history. He’s learned that Gaslight Village already had a crooked house (the Mystery House) in 1964, when Freedomland was still in its last season. Therefore, it’s only coincidence, and Freedomland’s Casa Loca didn’t actually go to Gaslight Village after all.
Still, though, a delightful attraction, a crooked house, in any iteration. A former guest commented online about the Gaslight Village version of the attraction, saying “Hey, does anyone remember the ‘Mystery House’? From what I remember, first you passed by some ‘funny mirrors’ where you saw yourself either short and fat or stretched out. Then you entered a room where everything was lopsided and out of proportion, and you got dizzy walking through it. I really enjoyed that one,”
The attraction was said to have been removed a few years prior to the park’s closure, perhaps in 1987 or 1988.
Gaslight Village. Image via Bob Carroll.
“Gaslight Jamboree”
Some recollections online mention a singing bear, with some degree of uncertainty. It’s true, however, that for a period of time, a set of animatronics operated at Gaslight Village, going by the name “Gaslight Jamboree”. It operated in the Palace Theater during its later years (where the silent movies ran). One was called Friendly Freddy, a 1977 animatronic black bear with a guitar. He performed with two of the so-called “Wolfpack 5” characters: Wolfman, who was a wolfman, and Fatz Geronimo, a keyboard-playing gorilla.
This was actually a surprising rabbithole for me to go down in my research. All of these animatronics, and there were many, were predecessors to a show called “Rock-afire Explosion”, which was an animatronic band that performed in Showbiz pizza places as well as other restaurants and shopping centers between 1980 and 1992. You probably don’t remember ShowBiz Pizza, but you probably do remember what they became. Between 1990 and 1992, all ShowBiz Pizza locations were converted to Chuck E Cheese.
By 1974 the Cavalcade of Cars opened at Gaslight Village, to display Wood’s collection of automobiles. At one time, the Cavalcade and Gaslight Village were two separate attractions with two separate entrance fees, but Wood wasn’t seeing the numbers that he wanted. The story goes that one day, Mr. Wood came in and had the prices changed for Gaslight Village, and bam, suddenly the Cavalcade of Cars was part of the Gaslight Village admission price. Visitor numbers shot up.
Now, I’m not really a car person, but apparently the cars were quite special, especially for their time. There was a 1933 Duesenberg once owned by Greta Garbo. There was a car shaped like a giant can of V8 juice, which by some accounts once also dispensed juice, too. An Evel Knevel motorcycle was a big draw, and a former Pope-mobile, though that might not be the correct name.
Chitty Chitty Bang Bang car at Gaslight Village. Image via https://www.facebook.com/GaslightVillageLakeGeaorgeNY/ used with permission.
There was a car from The Munsters and a car with two fully functional barber shop chairs. There were three large model ships from the 1970 film Tora Tora Tora, and one from Ben Hur. And there was what I think is the coolest of them – one of the Chitty Chitty Bang Bang cars, used in the 1968 movie. This was the version with “wings”, and featured wax models of Dick van Dyke and the other cast members. According to enthusiasts, this was the model used in all the promotional imagery, posters, and merchandise. The model was also used for most of the scenes for the movie.
Flight to Mars at Gaslight Village
One of the most unique rides at Gaslight Village was the Flight to Mars. This ride was quite rare, and has a fun history worth talking about. The “Laff in the Dark” dark ride history page has a nice article on the ride. Produced in Europe by Anton Schwarzkopf, better known for his incredible roller coasters, there were only a few of these dark rides ever imported into the US. They came by way of a man called Mickey Hughes, who liked to showcase new rides at his theme parks in order to encourage imports of the rides. The Flight to Mars was a delight – a two story dark ride with a coaster dip visible from the exterior. Theming was vaguely “outer space”, with some versions of the ride more elaborate than others. Riders rode in small two person space cars through a twisty turny track – the thrills came from the spooks and spectres ready to pop out at you in the dark. Think about Joyland’s Whacky Shack from one of my previous episodes.
Like I said, there were only a couple of the rides ever actually brought to the US, and I actually can’t find any info on the rides operating elsewhere. It’s known that one went to Astroland in Coney Island in 1964, and another went to Palisades Park in New Jersey. Palisades Park will be a great topic for a future episode, with a long and interesting history, but for today, know that it was one of the most visited parks ever. It closed in 1971 and was bulldozed for high-rise condos. Astroland also is said to have sold its Flight to Mars around this same time, in 1971.
One of the rides, the Astroland/Coney Island one, went to Adventurer’s Inn, a small park in Flushing, NY. There, it was notable for always having a typo in the large letters spelling the ride’s name: FLIGTH. This park shuttered in the mid-70s, leaving the rides in place, abandoned, until everything was bulldozed in 1978. I’ll include a link to a sad abandoned image of this Flight to Mars.
Palisades Park Flight to Mars. Image is public domain, via Wikipedia.
Gaslight Village purchased the Flight to Mars from Palisades Park. It was placed in between the Ferris wheel and the bicycle carousel, and there it thrilled guests for years. Here’s a great twilight image taken in 1981. Guests remember it for being scary to a tween, and a nice little dark ride for two for an older set.
Night view of Flight to Mars at Gaslight Village. Image via https://www.facebook.com/GaslightVillageLakeGeaorgeNY/ used with permission.
Ultimately the Flight to Mars was sold prior to the closure of Gaslight Village. It’s reported that it may have gone to Columbia; others say the ride was demolished before it ever left the park. Unfortunately, it’s not clear what happened to this model of the Flight to Mars.
What I haven’t yet mentioned is that there was also a Flight to Mars that went straight to the west coast, built for the 1961 World’s Fair in Seattle. It went into storage after that year, but by the late 1960s, it had been rebuilt on its original site. That Flight to Mars stayed in operation through the late 90s, until the decline of the surrounding Fun Forest Amusement Park and replacement by the Experience Music Project. This Flight to Mars was sold and now operates to this day at the State Fair of Texas in Dallas, TX (though some accounts say it is in storage in the late 2010s). The theming is a little different from the elaborate detailing that was once present in the Gaslight Village version, but it’s nice to be able to have this tangential piece of the park still today.
People: the Heart of Gaslight Village
Every story about Gaslight Village talks about the aspect that made the park special: the people and the sense of community.
The park was truly about the performers, the performances, and the shows. They were the heart of the park and what made Gaslight Village unique.
During its heyday, the park ran a 13 week season, from June until a week after Labor Day, operating 2PM until 11PM daily. The “olio” acts began performing music (such as piano or guitar) right at 2 PM. Then there were singing waiters and waitresses that would begin to sing, until the first show began at 2:30. The entertainment then ran continuously, revolving around the different areas and stages at the park.
There were people like Joe Jackson Jr, the “clown on the bicycle”. Joe was famous for his broken bicycle act, which he’d inherited from his father, and was particularly popular in Sweden. He performed at New York’s Radio City Music Hall; La Scala in Berlin; Moulin Rouge in Paris and Tivoli Garden in Denmark; and appeared on many television shows, including Ed Sullivan’s.
Joe Jackson Jr, posing with skater Ruth, at Gaslight Village. Image via Bob Carroll.
Ice rink at the Opera House. Image via Bob Carroll.
There were the plethora of ice skaters, performing on the small ice rink in front of the interior Opera House stage. Far too many to name, so please forgive any I don’t mention. Howard Bissell and Jerry Farley performed together, sometimes with Joe Jackson Jr; they did something called a “death spiral” on the small ice rink that was breathtaking. The ice rink was filled with skate shows of all varieties: Randy Choura and Elyn Tia, Kim Reale. One year there was “South Pacific on Ice”. There was Ron Urban’s Ice Revue, a video of which can be seen here. According to a magazine article from the time this was the first ice show to ever visit the White House.
There were animal acts: Kay Roseiere and her big cats, Carol and her bengal tigers; Frank Mogyorosi and his lions.
Of course, there were other acts: Mario Manzini, the escape artist. The Jumpin Jack duo, performing amazing trampoline acrobatics that included at one time a “hair-raising” high dive onto a giant sponge. Though perhaps not culturally correct, a popular act at the time was the midget wrestling championships, and Bob Hermine’s Midgets show. Magic and ventriloquism from people like the very fine Bob Carroll.
Bob Carroll
Let me stop here and talk about Bob for a minute. If you look into the park enough, you’ll see a common name pop up, and that’s Bob Carroll. Bob worked at Gaslight Village for 20 years, beginning in 1969 with a few seasons at Time Town in between. I’ve been privileged to have the opportunity to be in contact with Bob, discussing Gaslight Village and what made the park special. He’s one of the people in charge of the Facebook page “Gaslight Village Lake George, New York”, and it’s his photos that will appear on the show notes page and social media posts for this episode.
Bob wore many hats throughout his twenty years at Gaslight Village, from doing the old time pie fights, emceeing at the Opera House, doing park announcements, etc. He eventually became Opera House Manager, and performed his act 3 or 4 times a day on the outdoor stage or inside at the Opera House. He’s had a very successful career as a ventriloquist and magician, since then, including a stint in the Guinness Book of World Records for telling jokes for over 24 hours straight. Bob told me he wouldn’t be where he is now without the start at Gaslight Village that Charley Wood gave him back in the day.
Bob Carroll and Jerry O’Brien. Image via Bob Carroll.
Keystone Cops and Pie Fights
Back to the performances at large, there were keystone cops. The Keystone cops, themselves a holdover from the Pottersville version of the park, continued to be a constant presence in the park. They provided skits and guest interactment throughout the park, much to visitors’ delight. At one point, Bob Carroll did a medicine show “selling” guests the magic tonic of a bottle of water. Slapstick comedy on the lawns of the town square!
The Keystone cops along with other entertainers were also a key part of the daily pie-in-the-face skits: whipped cream or shaving cream pie fights staged messily between the various performers, with reportedly as many as 70 people involved at a time.
Pie fights! Image via Bob Carroll.
Of course, the pie fight was a vaudeville staple, from a time of silent movies when jokes needed to come across without sound. They were popularized by comedians like Laurel and Hardy and The Three Stooges. I don’t have the time for it here, but I’m going to link to a fascinating article on the history of the pie fight – worth the read. Pie fights appeared on-screen as early as 1909, so they were perfect for the gay nineties theming of Gaslight Village.
As the story was told, the pie fight unfolded thusly:
“So every night at 7 PM, we put on a skit about a lady getting her cat stuck in a tree. A drunk happened by, a keystone kop, a baker, a passerby and the park announcer all took a pie in the face. They all were driven away in the old paddy wagon. Those were the days. The longest running pie fight in the history of show biz!”
Opera House and Mellerdrama
The Opera House was the center of the park. Physically, yes, because it was originally the only location for the bathrooms in the park. It was the main place to get food (such as the waffles with strawberries that one guest online remembers). It was the shortcut to get to the Cavalcade of Cars attraction. And it had room for over 400 people, so it was the place to wait out the rain. The Opera House for a long time was the heartbeat of the park. Metaphorically, as well, since the Opera House was the home to the mellerdrama, said to be the last vaudeville house in the US.
An article in 1976 described the Opera House as “dedicated to the production of the 1890’s comic Melodrama art form. Encouraging the audience to “hiss and boo” in true Melodrama fashion, the talented acting troupes present a comedy sketch based on American satire“. Magazine copy from the 80s wrote that the Opera House was the last remaining theatre left in the US “dedicated to the production of the traditional comic melodramatic art form”.
A mellerdrama calls for over-the-top hero and villain stories, with intentional corny jokes, the worse the better.
View inside the Opera House during a performance, via Bob Carroll.
And there were a variety of musical acts in between the star mellerdrama, like the Sunshine Express show band and banjo acts from the inimitable Warren Boden.
The evenings would often wrap with Warren Boden playing his banjo. He’d end with a fast polka, as one former band member recalled on the FB group. Warren would look at the bandstand, and “then say “To the ______” – and name the Bar to go to that night.”
The shows were a huge draw for the “non-ride” crowd, and a person could sit with a beer and watch without repeating an act for over two hours. One person in the Gaslight Village FB group remembers the shows as the best part of visiting the park, describing it: “The family eating pizza and getting a pitcher of soda with the plastic Gaslight Village mugs watching the ice revue and other great acts.”
People Are What Make Gaslight Village Special
As I’ve alluded to several times now, it wasn’t the rides that made Gaslight Village special or memorable. It was the sense of community you felt when you visited.
“One big reason Gaslight Village was so special was its employees. They were always friendly and helpful,” said one person online. ”One thing you noticed is although everyone was working hard it always looked like they were having a good time.”
The park was always sparkling clean, it seemed, and this was due to the hard efforts of the “grounds boys” – the cleaning staff, the lowest rung on the totem. They often moved up the ladder in their tenure at the park, as well. Why, the inimitable Bob Carroll started out as a groundsboy before he became an official entertainer at the park.
Another person, a former employee, said “It was not like a real job. You left work at 11:30 PM and then went out to the bars or went to dinner. We had employee ride nights and Entertainment nights.” They contrasted it with the more standard theme-park atmosphere over at Storytown, saying, “It was a different atmosphere. People met friends, got married to each other and just had a grand time. I know at least 8 people who met their spouses there!” Bob Caroll echoed this sentiment, saying “We all had parties, birthdays and a lot of us met our spouses there. It is now 45 years of marriage to Deb…my wife who I met when she was the parking lot attendant there. The Keystone Cop married the French translator and several other people married there too!”
Night view of Gaslight Village. Image via https://www.facebook.com/GaslightVillageLakeGeaorgeNY/ used with permission.
General sentiment is that working at Gaslight Village was unlike any other job in the world.
Employee morale was often high, it seems. Employees had fairly free rein to make the guests happy. The Gaslight Village FB page describes the importance of events like Ride Night and Entertainment Night, which were held annually for the employees to mingle and get to know one another. On Entertainment Night, the entertainers performed for the rest of the park employees, while on Ride Night, the shoe was on the other foot, with the entertainers able to ride all the rides. Of course, there were plenty of free refreshments: hot dogs, beer, and soda.
Even though Gaslight Village was located in the village of Lake George, it’s remembered for being its own separate place, a true small village. “Gaslight Village employees were a Gaslight Village Family no matter what you did.”
The tone came from the top, from the inimitable Charles Wood. I really appreciated the story one person told online, about his reaction to the historic first steps on the moon. Of course, this occurred July 20, 1969, and was broadcast live across the United States. It would’ve occurred around 4 pm in New York. Wood reportedly closed down all of the rides and shows in the park for 20-30 minutes, and had the moon landing broadcast throughout the park’s speakers. “All over the park, families and small groups of people stood, mesmerized by the voice describing man’s first steps on another celestial body.”
Night view of rides at Gaslight Village. Image via https://www.facebook.com/GaslightVillageLakeGeaorgeNY/ used with permission.
Transition from Gaslight Village to Lake George Ride and Fun Park
As always, what goes up must come down. Nothing gold can stay.
Gaslight Village saw a small handful of accidents, with the notable incidents from my research being broken bones on the original fun house slide and on the Ferris wheel. A more well-known incident was a broken car on the Paratrooper in the 1970s, injuring one person and requiring the entire ride to be slowed down, losing its thrilling nature. But none of these had any significant effect on the park as a whole.
1974 saw attendance worries due to the gasoline crisis, but by all accounts, the park bounced back.
Truly, it wasn’t any one incident that led to the closure of Gaslight Village.
As the 1970s rolled into the 1980s, large theme parks were beginning to take hold, drawing people from far away across the country. No longer was the regional theme park king – people were being drawn to massive theme parks with larger and larger thrills, and flying larger distances for it with the rise of increasingly inexpensive airfare. People simply weren’t staying locally in the area anymore.
The late 70s and early 80s saw the rise of the Six Flags theme park franchise as they acquired and expanded their parks. Disney World’s Magic Kingdom, as we talked about last episode, opened in 1971, and EPCOT opened in 1982. Between 1982 and 1983, the nearby Storyland USA acquired at least eight major adult thrill rides and rebranded as The Great Escape.
Against this background, the gay nineties theme of Gaslight Village too seemed more anachronism than “yesterday’s fun today”, as the slogan went. The rides were older, standard at most every theme park, and the shows weren’t having the same draw they once did. There was no room for ride expansion to include a bigger coaster that might draw more folks.
And the weather, the weather was always a concern. Yes, there was the Opera House, but by the time a few hours had passed, a guest would’ve seen all the shows. Accounts from the Gaslight Village FB page describe the park and the village as a ghost town after a day or two of rain. And there was the age of Charley Wood, who would’ve been in his mid-70s by this point, perhaps with his passions turning to other things. 1989 saw him selling Storytown USA (now called The Great Escape).
Attendance numbers for Gaslight Village in the mid to late 80s reportedly dropped way down. Something had to be done, or it would be the standard story here on The Abandoned Carousel – not profitable to keep investing money in the park.
According to an account over at the Gaslight Village FB page, the operation budget for the entertainment alone in the late 80s was tens of thousands of dollars per week. That was a big line item that could be used to balance the books…
So the decision came down that in 1989, Gaslight Village as it was known would be closed. The entertainment acts were told first. See, it wasn’t the whole park that was closing, it was the Opera House and the Outdoor Stage that were closing. The park would now be rebranded and would only include rides. In an account from the Gaslight Village FB page: “it was the end of Vaudeville. I think it was what it felt like when the last theaters closed “. They went on to say: “The shows started at 2 PM and ended at 10:50 PM. 7 days a week. It was like an engine of a train. It was the lifeline of the park. Yes, the rides were a big part of it but the real soul of the park was the people who came to the park to see the shows. A lot of people came week after week to see the shows. We got to know them by name.”
The Gaslight Village FB page sums it up, saying “we knew that it wasn’t going to be Gaslight Village because without the Opera House, it was just rides.”
Lake George Ride and Fun Park / Lake George Action Park
Funnily enough, there’s not a lot of clarity online about the most recent iterations of the park post-Gaslight Village, despite being more recent. Most of my online research about the place doesn’t even mention the Ride & Fun Park name. I’m thankful to the enthusiasts for The Great Escape in particular, who’ve kept tabs on the park.
Lake George Ride and Fun Park
What is clear is that from 1989 on, “Gaslight Village” as it was was split in half, with half remaining a theme park, and half becoming a parking lot for the new boat on the lake that docked close by.
What remained was known as Lake George Ride & Fun Park first, reportedly from 1990-1992. During this time, a few more rides were brought in – I’ve seen reference to two different swinging boat rides: both a Pirat that later went to Great Escape, and a “Space Shuttle”. A Balloon trip spinning flat ride and a Dumbo-type elephant ride were also added. Now some of these might have been added in the later years of Gaslight Village, it’s just not clear.
After Ride & Fun Park shuttered in 1992, it sat closed for several years. In late 1994 or 1995, a Sea Dragon swinging boat ride moved from The Great Escape over to what we’ll now be calling Action Park. And there it reportedly sat, “racked up” for two years until the short-lived Action Park opened in 1996. (The Sea Dragon at Action Park was praised in the forums I found, for having such an exceptionally good swing, for what it’s worth.) It’s known that there was a powered dragon coaster at Action Park for at least a short time (this is listed on the RCDB with pictures), one of Zamperla’s more common models.
The go-kart track was one of the main features of Action Park. A guest remembers online: “The Action Park had really decent rides. The Bumper Cars were one of the best, and both [go-kart] tracks were top notch. The oval track in the back was cool, because you were actually enclosed in the car, and we would pour baby powder on the turns so the cars could skid.”
Another guest remembers: “The majority of the crowd was always at the front gocart track. The line would usually be about 30 mins or so; that’s how crowded it was. Plus, the timer was set for 9 mins, so you actually got your $4 worth.” They go on to say “The park was cool, because it really was never all that crowded.”
At the end of the 1997 season, possibly unsurprisingly, after only two years of operation, Action Park closed.
And that was it.
Abandoned Action Park sign. Image via Gaslight Village FB page, used with permission.
Thus comes my favorite part – the genealogy of the theme park attraction.
Some, as we’ve discussed, were demolished or are simply unknown prior to the closure of Gaslight Village – the Mystery House, the Bicycle Carousel, Flight to Mars.
Others went to Wood’s sister park prior to the auction, back to the still-operational Storytown, now called The Great Escape. In this category are the Pirate boat ride, the Flying Trapeze swing ride, the Trabant. The last of these was moved to the Great Escape around 1993, where it operated until it was forced to be removed “due to age” in 2011. The Pirate ship operated at TGE from 1995-2013, according to Wikipedia. The Flying Trapeze still operates today.
Several of the rides went to Delgrosso’s in Tipton, NJ. This includes the balloon ride and the Sea Dragon, both of which are located next to one another at DelGrosso’s. Or were, because some time between 2017 and 2019, both rides are reportedly no longer in operation there.
Balloon ride and Sea Dragon, formerly from Lake George Action Park, seen at DelGrosso’s. Image via Ron Shawley, used under the CCBY3.0 license. [CC BY 3.0 (https-::creativecommons.org:licenses:by:3.0)]
Of the cars, I could only find information on Chitty Chitty Bang Bang, though it appears several of the other cars have moved through multiple auctions. This was auctioned in 1990, and was displayed at a Chicago restaurant called “The Retreat” for several years until the restaurant went bankrupt. In 2007, it was auctioned again, and went to live with a collector in Florida, where it’s currently undergoing restoration.
Beyond this, the buyers of the remaining rides and attraction components aren’t readily available online.
With the rides sold, nothing but the buildings remained.
Abandoned Gaslight Village
As the buildings sat, moldering through long New York winter after long New York winter, let’s again ponder the park’s closure.
Abandoned buildings at Gaslight Village. Image via Bob Carroll.
Why the drawn-out years of this smaller, sadder park? Wood was getting older, and his interests were turning away from amusement parks towards philanthropy. Some suggest that there were legalities in Charley Wood’s contract with the village, preventing him from passing the park on. However, the details for this are unclear. Even the process of making the conservation park, which we’re about to get into, took decades and plenty of local political squabbles. As early as 1988, there was a local news article reporting that Wood was in negotiations to sell the site for a convention center. (The convention center never went forward.)
Gaslight Village, or Lake George Action Park as it was last known, sat abandoned, for a decade. The rides were all gone. A sign remained for some time, as did the bold blue and white paint on the entrance. Grass grew, rain fell, and the buildings went ever further into disrepair.
Abandoned Gaslight Village. Image via Bob Carroll.
It’s always the same story when it comes to abandoned parks, it seems, with flaking paint, overgrown grass, broken things…especially when the rides have been removed, it’s often hard to see the charm of the original site. From the exterior, it all just looks like sad shabby buildings.
As of 2008, the land was purchased from the Charles R. Wood Foundation. It was a joint purchase, with the town and village of Lake George took 19% ownership of the land, with the county taking 62% ownership. Three environmental groups held a conservation easement on the property, and plans were in place to convert the former Gaslight Village into a “wetland treatment facility to improve the water quality of West Brook and Lake George, while also creating a staging area for festivals.” It took almost a decade to get the purchase to go through in order to get the various groups on the same page about the funding and the future for the property.
The delays continued after the land was purchased, with newspaper reports describing delays due to disagreements between the multiple parties with ownership stake in the land. The news reports about the park once it was opened called it a ten-year collaboration, but it seems that the multi-decade operation was often more contentious than collaborative.
According to the paper, the original plans had called for restoration of the Opera House and other structures on the property. The town invested tens of thousands of dollars in the buildings, partially re-roofing the Opera House and tearing off the sides to begin preparation for an open air building to be used for festivals and events. In early 2010, however, demolition plans moved forward despite the money already invested; investigation had deemed the structures too badly damaged, saying that it would cost the same or less to build a new modern building than try to repair the decaying original structures.
Originally, the park was to be called West Brook Environmental Park. After an offer from the Charles R. Wood Foundation to donate three quarters of a million dollars to the park, the name was changed to Charles R. Wood Park.
We haven’t gotten to it yet, but towards the end of his life, Wood turned to philanthropy as a more major focus. He was known for wanting to own places where people were happy, and this began to broaden beyond the theme park scope. “‘I made money here and I want to leave it here,”” Wood was once quoted as saying. In the early 1990s, Wood got in touch with Paul Newman and boldly requested money to begin the Double H Ranch, a free camp for children with serious illnesses. He also founded the Charles R. Wood Foundation, which “focuses on assisting children who are critically ill and furthering culture for future generations.” Before his death in 2004 and afterwards, through his foundation, he donated millions to hospitals, clinics, libraries, and otherwise invested in the lives of the people in his area.
On the 12 acres where Gaslight once stood, are now 2.5 acres of festival ground, waterways, a skateboard course, a kid’s playground, and hiking and fitness trails. The bulk of the land was returned to wetlands, which the area once was prior to being filled in for the timber mills and railroads. Though some find the wetlands unsightly, they apparently serve as natural filters to maintain the clear water quality of the eponymous Lake George.
A local man donated his vintage Gaslight Village memorabilia sign, and it now stands on the site of the conservation park, marking what was once there, making sure that the memory of Gaslight Village lives on.
Current view of the Charles R. Wood Conservation Park, via Bob Carroll.
Gaslight Village Was Special
One account online called Gaslight Village an odd and wonderful place, which is a phrasing I love. “The secret of Gaslight’s appeal to me is the notion of a temporary community involved in one enterprise: Show Business. It’s like a play or building a sand castle: you rehearse, memorize, screw up, in the name of ephemeral art that will wash away. But we were there. We sang, told jokes, booed the villain, juggled, swallowed fire, did toe loops. We worked with skating chimpanzees, poodles and doves. There were clowns and brass bands and a guy who played with Paul Whiteman. It wasn’t all good: We fell for the wrong people; our bosses were petty tyrants; we lied and snuck out for a drink and too many people are gone.”
But in the end, Gaslight Village remains something special: a community, a place that’s more about the people than the buildings or rides or even the land. Charles R. Wood is quoted as saying “We do what we can for society, but it must come from our heart.” And Gaslight Village seems like it did embody that. It was a unique moment in time: yesterday’s fun, today.
Flight to Mars and other rides at Gaslight Village. Image via https://www.facebook.com/GaslightVillageLakeGeaorgeNY/ used with permission.
Acknowledgements
Thanks for listening to this episode of The Abandoned Carousel where I talked about the history of the unique Gaslight Village, yesterday’s fun today. I’d like to particularly thank Bob Carroll for being an inexhaustible resource on the topic of Gaslight Village. He’s got an incredible archive of videos on his YouTube page and on the Gaslight Village FB page, and I recommend you check them both out. He’s also the source for several of the audio clips used in this episode, and graciously allowed me to include his photos on this episode page. I’d also like to thank all the admins and members of the Gaslight Village FB page. It’s an incredible resource on the topic of this delightful park, and I’m so grateful there’s a place to gather and share memories of this special place.
Additional thanks to Brian Dorn, Addison Rice, and Jahnavi Newsom (aka The Love Sprockets), for allowing the use of their song about Gaslight Village and Frontier Town. Their work beyond this song is delightful to listen to, so check them out!
Remember what Lucy Maud Montgomery once said: nothing is ever really lost to us, as long as we remember it.
Rides That Aren’t There Anymore Gaslight Village Defunct Amusement Park – Final Season 1988 – Rides – YouTube. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=L3lRTz2L2Ks. Accessed November 16, 2019.
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