Podcast cover background photo is by 4045 on freepik.com. Joyland photo is by newsplusnotes. Theme music is from “Aerobatics in Slow Motion” by TechnoAXE. Incidental music all by Kevin MacLeod / incompetech.com: “Midnight Tale”, “Plucky Daisy”, “Constance”, “Relent”, and “Simple Duet”. Images, audio, and video are all the property of their respective owners, as credited.

Joyland: beginnings

Joyland was an incredible place. More than just a theme park, for most of a century, the park has served as a community connection, a home for those seeking light and joy in their lives.

Joyland was the creation of the Ottaways: Lester Ottaway and his sons Harold and Herb, of Wichita, Kansas. In particular, Herb was interested in motorcycle racing, winning several big races in the 1930s. Through racing, he met the Chance family, including Gerald and his son Harold. 

Both families had an interest in steam-powered vehicles. The Ottaways purchased a miniature steam-powered train, and the Chances built a set of steam-powered kiddie cars. Together, the families spent summers throughout the 1930s hosting a small carnival for residents of Wichita, Kansas and Manitou Springs, Colorado.

As World War II began, the carnivals stopped. The population of Wichita and the surrounding areas was booming, literally doubling between 1940 and 1943, due to the aviation industry and companies like Cessna, Beech, and Boeing. The population was in need of diversion and recreation. 

The Ottaways opened up Ottaway Amusement Company and hired Harold Chance to start producing miniature steam trains based on their original train. By 1945, they’d sold seven trains. At the same time, Herb and Harold set up a small amusement park in Planeview, Kansas, a Wichita suburb built for aviation factory workers. The park had a few rides, and was hugely popular with its local audience.

Inspired by the success of the Planeview park, the Ottaways purchased land in the heart of Wichita, and opened Joyland Central around 1946. The original Ottaway steam train ran there, as well as a Ferris wheel, dodgem bumper cars, a carousel, a roll-o-plane, and other small midway rides.

The park was a success for a population still looking for lightness and leisure after the war, and the Ottaways began eyeing improvements for Joyland. They realized that they needed more space, so they purchased land on Hillside, further out in Wichita.

Joyland

With Joyland Central still operating, Joyland Hillside opened on June 12, 1949 – the biggest amusement park in the area, with the shiny new rollercoaster being quote “A huge deal. It was amazing”. The coaster was simply called Roller Coaster, and was designed by Herbert Paul Schmeck, and built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company. Entirely wood, Roller Coaster was one of the last all-wood coasters, and was designated an ACE coaster classic. It was said to have the steepest drop of any in the country at the time. 

The coaster originally cost $0.25 per ride and operated with a full ridership from morning until night.

Besides the star attraction, there were many other popular rides at Joyland Hillside. There was a custom-built Allan Herschell carousel, with distinctive hand-carved wooden-and-aluminium horses. 

The park had a number of classic flat rides, including a paratrooper, Dodgem bumper cars, and an Eli Bridge Ferris wheel. And, of course, the miniature steam train. 

When Joyland Central closed, its assets were merged with Joyland Hillside. One of the two Dodgem buildings was repurposed as a simple dark ride. 

Another iconic feature of Joyland, there from opening day, was the Wurlitzer Mammoth 160 Organ. This was the largest of the early Wurlitzer models, and had been built around 1905. The organ had been sitting abandoned in a Coffeyville mansion for two decades. The Ottaways purchased the organ, had it refurbished, and gave it a position of honor in their newest theme park. They added the piece de resistance: an animatronic clown called Louie, who sat in front of the organ and “played”. 

In 1948, the Ottaways chose to focus on their amusement park business, and sold their miniature train business, Ottaway Amusement Company, to Harold Chance. As part of the deal, Joyland received a set of miniature ABA Santa Fe steamliners in 1951, increasing the size of the Joyland fleet.

In the 1950s, a pool was added to Joyland, featuring a slide and a very tall high dive. This was incredibly popular during the days when air-conditioning wasn’t widespread in the average home. The park even sold swimtrunks for those who forgot their own. Quote: “ That pool seemed so big, and the slide was so tall. The diving boards were really high up. There were always a lot of people in and around the pool.”

The park expanded, with a Frontier Town section as part of the celebration of Kansas’ centennial in 1961. There were several buildings, a stage for performances, and of course, a classic fake Old Western gunfight staged daily. 

In the mid-1960s, the Ottaways retired from Joyland, and took their original miniature steam train with them. A new train joined the park in its place, direct from Harold Chance and his newly-incorporated Chance Rides. It was a miniature C. P. Huntington steam train, with serial #1. 

Quote: “Joyland’s train really launched Chance Rides.” To date, Chance Rides has produced over 400 of these miniature trains, and the company reportedly became the largest amusement ride manufacturer in the world.

Joyland’s New Ownership

Under new ownership (Jerry Ottaway and Stanley Nelson, and later Stanley and Margaret Nelson) the park continued to prosper and grow through the 60s and 70s. 

The park’s original dark ride was rebuilt into something new by noted dark ride designer Bill Tracy. The Joyland “Whacky Shack” was the last dark ride to receive Tracy’s personal touch. Riders entered through a spooky facade and rode through the dark haunted house, with glow in the dark scenes and spooky lighting used to great affect. The facade of the Whacky Shacky has been one of the most iconic images from Joyland since the shack opened in 1974.

Joyland continued to thrive. It participated in numerous local cross-promotions like the Good Grades program, where good report cards earned ride tickets. A movie (King Kung Fu) and a commercial (Kellog’s Mini-Wheats) were filmed at Joyland. 

There were ups and downs as competition from larger parks like Six Flags became more intense and guests began to desire more thrills. Quote: “Joyland doesn’t pretend to be the park to end all parks,” Nelson said. “It’s simply a hometown recreational facility that draws from a radius of about 100 miles.” 

In 1985, the Log Jam was added, a classic log flume ride designed by O. D. Hopkins. The Joyland pool had closed some years earlier, and the Log Jam became the new hit during hot summer days and nights. Guests were guaranteed to get wet. 

And in 1996, the last new ride in the park: the Skycoaster, where guests were hoisted to the top of a tower and then allowed to free-fall swing from a giant arch. The ride was located where the pool originally had been, and cost an extra fee to ride.

Despite guests’ current-day fond memories, Joyland began to stagnate. There had been several deaths at the park. The neighborhood was taking on a rougher vibe. Attendance was down. In the modern day, theme park tourism is primarily driven by location: on large highways near major population centers. This is not Wichita. When Joyland was built (before the rise of the insterstate), theme parks were a much more regional situation.

A flood in 1997 closed the park for 11 critical days in the middle of the summer season, leaving behind damage to the Roller Coaster and half an inch of sludgey mud. 

The park was leased to new owners, and the formerly-pristine maintenance park began to look shabby. The Frontier Town section of the park was abandoned and closed off. And still attendance was low.

Finally, in Spring of 2004, a guest fell out of the Ferris Wheel. She was massively injured but fortunately didn’t die. Still, this was the last straw as the Consumer Product Safety Commission got involved to investigate the accident, and the park abruptly closed in July 2004. 

A series of lawsuits followed, with the new owner missing payments on both property loan and property taxes. The park sat in uncertainty, empty of guests. By December of 2004, the sheriff’s office owned the park, and the Nelsons were able to buy back the property.  

For all of 2005, the park sat empty, all rides still in place, its future uncertain.

In early 2006, the park was leased to a new group. They began investing money in Joyland. The park did open Easter weekend, but without any rides. A contemporaneous park visitor posted about the reopening, saying it was “worse off than it was before. The roller coaster was closed, Whacky Shack was closed, go-karts closed, sky-coaster closed, the Log Jam was open but did not work properly; the Slide did not have wax so you could not slide. This image of Joyland was one that people did not like to see.” 

The park closed for some legal squabbles and additional renovations, mostly cosmetic. They reopened in May 2006 with a blue and pink paint scheme. The Roller Coaster was given a new name (Nightmare) and a new coat of paint. 

Despite all this, the troubles continued. Neighbors continued to file noise complaints, and there were constant squabbles with the city about permits. Attendance didn’t improve.

In fall 2006, the park closed for the season, and never reopened.

Abandoned

“The unfortunate thing is that a lot of times, what we’d hear from people is ‘Oh, you’re closing Joyland down? Gosh, I haven’t been out there in 20 years,’ and we’d go ‘Yeah, we know,’” Nelson, the former owner of the park, was quoted as saying. 

The park sat, abandoned. Weeds began to grow.

Rides were either sold or stored.

The Nelsons held out for a few years, reportedly only interested in buyers who would keep the property as an amusement park. A deal never went through.

By 2008, they were resigned, and listed the property for sale for $2 million dollars, open to any buyer. The local paper described the state of the park at the time:  “Weeds have grown up in concrete cracks. The wind whistles through buildings with no windows and through the ghostly skeleton of the roller coaster, now silent.”

While wheels spun on the business front, vandals and thieves made merry at the abandoned Joyland park.

Nelson remembered one weekend in particular: quote “they [vandals] came in and just ripped the guts out of the electrical system and that left us absolutely unable to defend the place because we couldn’t leave any lights on.” end quote.

With the constant vandalism at the park, it was difficult to keep a basic level of maintenance at the abandoned Joyland park, much less to sell it. This in turn made the banks reluctant to invest in either the refurbishment or the sale of the park. The city did their part to make the process even more difficult, declaring the Joyland property a flood zone.

In 2010 and 2011, an ambitious group of high school students organized the “Joyland Restoration Project”. The Joyland Restoration Project had ambitious goals for buying, restoring, and expanding the park, and was looking to run the park as a non-profit. Their plans included expanded concessions, a second roller coaster, and a water park after ten years. However, their plans did not ever come to fruition.

It seemed as though any and every possible idea to save the park was tried. The park was even listed for sale on eBay for a time. Everyone speculated about the reason the park wasn’t moving.

A member of the Joyland Restoration Project said in a website interview, “Joyland is not on the best side of town and that is why nobody has purchased the land and torn it down already; the only things that the land could really serve as is something unique like Joyland.”

Vandalism continued to rise at the abandoned Joyland park. 

Later that year, the Opera House at Joyland, known for its picnics, puppet shows, movies, and corporate retreats, was completely burned down by fire. Police suspected arson.

In 2011, the bathrooms were destroyed in a fire. Police suspected arson.

In 2012, a storage building was partially damaged by fire. Three teenagers were seen fleeing the park, and police suspected arson. 

By 2014, the city of Wichita stepped in. They claimed that the Nelsons had failed to properly maintain and secure the premises. Joyland had become an attractive nuisance, and it needed to be demolished. Plagued by constant vandalism, the park was simply beyond repair.

What was once a vibrant, thriving family theme park was now a hazardous wasteland, covered in graffiti and weeds, ruinous and sad. One urban explorer commented in 2017: “There are heaps of debris everywhere and evidence of fires and graffiti at every turn. It is eerie and sad to remember having fun there and now it’s just an abandoned ruin.”

A windstorm swept through Wichita in April of 2015, massively damaging Joyland’s Roller Coaster. Portions of the track collapsed, and the entire coaster structure was visibly structurally unsound. 

On July 23, 2015, the remainder of the historic Philadelphia Toboggan Company wooden Roller Coaster was demolished.

The final insult to the once-thriving Joyland park came on August 8, 2018. The iconic Whacky Shack building was completely destroyed by fire.

Police suspected arson.

In November of 2018, the land where Joyland once sat was purchased at auction by a private buyer for $198,000, ten percent of its asking price ten years earlier.

After my original episodes on Joyland were released, it was announced that these new owners, Gregory and Tina Dunnegan, have plans to transform the eyesore into a new attraction. They intend to use part of the property for tent rentals, private events, outdoor festivals, and a paintball range. The plans come before the city council this summer, and it’s wonderful to hear plans about the property’s revitalization.

Remnants

Remnants of Joyland are still present in the community and in private collections. 

Local shops have some items, including the lion drinking fountain at the Donut Whole, and the original Joyland Arcade sign at the Churn & Burn. The original Ottaway train is in a private collection, and can be seen on occasion during Ottaway or Chance events.

The Historic Preservation Alliance of Wichita and Sedgewick County has a number of artifacts, such as the large caboose that formerly resided in Frontier Town. The original neon animated sign that once lived at Joyland Central was also purchased and saved, featuring an animation of two clowns. Along with the stagecoach, the Old Woman’s Shoe, and the original Roller Coaster ticket booth, these artifacts were reportedly purchased in 2010 for $22,000. These larger items sit dismantled in storage, waiting for eventual restoration.

The biggest remnant of them all, the 1949 Herschell carousel, was donated in 2014 to the local Botanica, a community garden in Wichita. The entire carousel is in the process of being restored, including a complete rewiring, a new paint scheme, and new LED. Each of the carousel’s original horses have been hand-restored by local carousel restoration artist Marlene Irvin. “This one is special to me because it is the carousel of my youth, in my town,” Irvin is quoted as saying. “I imagine I have ridden every horse several times during my lifetime.” Each horse takes at least one hundred hours or more to restore. Botanica is building a brand new pavilion complex to house the Herschell carousel, where it will reportedly be one of only five remaining Herschell carousels in the world. Irvin completed the restoration of the carousel horses in April 2019, and the expected opening date for the restored carousel in Botanica’s Carousel Gardens is fall 2019.

Memories

Joyland still inspires fond memories today. Everyone who talks about Joyland remembers it in the context of family and community. First coasters, first kisses, first dates: all that happened at the park. The rides were the icing on the cake. It was all about the people you met and the connections you made.

Yes, the park is iconic in its abandonment and became a haven for vandals and urban explorers. But the park remains far more than that.

True to its name from the beginning, the amusement park brought joy to Wichita for decades, and it will forever hold a special place in the hearts of those who visited.

“It was a place where you could take your kids,” Nelson is quoted as saying. “It was just a nice, pleasant uncrowded place.”

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.

References

I’ve included a complete list of references used while researching this topic. It’s hidden under the link for brevity.

The post Joyland (a condensed history) appeared first on The Abandoned Carousel.

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One thing that I’ve learned even over the short course of this show, is that despite the fascinating images of abandoned places, these parks are really all about people and families and communities. The story of Joyland, in particular, epitomizes that community connection.

The Ottaway Family

Joyland all started with a family: the Ottaway family, of Wichita, Kansas. Our story begins with the patriarch, Lester A. Ottaway.

Lester was a businessman, farmer, and mechanic who arrived in Wichita around the turn of the century, in 1904. He opened and ran the Ottaway Alfalfa Mill from 1909 until 1921. From 1929 to 1945, he opened and ran the L. A. Ottaway Sand Company. During this time, he married Ms. Gladys Woolworth, and they began having children. Lester had ten children: three daughters and seven sons.

Herbert Ottaway, born in 1912, was a mechanical whiz and a bike aficionado. The story goes that he walked home from school each day. One day in the 20s, he spotted a 1913 Indian motorcycle leaning up against the house – the next day he returned, found the owner, and tried to buy it. The owner, a Mr. Laff Glatner, refused. Herb came back the following day with a bag full of change, $12 (“which was all the money I had managed to save in my life”) which would be about $300 in today’s dollars. Glatner took the bag without counting the money and gave Herb the broken-down motorcycle, which Herb pushed all the way home.

This was the start of Herb’s love of racing and motorcycles, and an indicator of his persistance in accomplishing his goals.

Herb Ottaway and Motorcycles

Professionally, Herbert began as a welder in the local Wichita aircraft plants. In the mid-20s, Wichita was already throwing off its image of a “sleepy cow-town”, and was well becoming essential for both agriculture and aviation. Boeing, Beech, Culver, and Cessna were all big names in the area, as the Depression shifted into wartime production.

By the age of 17, Herb had built his own motorcycles from the ground up. He won the biggest race of his career, The Oklahoma State Championship, in the 1930, winning roughly $600 (about $9000 in 2019). He continues to race on tracks throughout Kansas in the 1930s, retiring without injury from the sport.

Population was booming in the formative time period between the world wars. With the huge amount of aviation production booming in Wichita starting in 1927 (Beech, Cessna, and Boeing, among others), the population was growing rapidly as well. Wichita was essential for warcraft production prior to and during the second World War. The city’s population doubled between 1940 and 1943 alone. Against this background arose Joyland: the perfect thing for a population in need of diversion and recreation.

The Early Seeds of Joyland

Motorcycles and Miniature Trains

It was through motorcycle racing that Herb met some friends that would help him along in his future career goals: Gerald Chance and Max Wilson. Gerald Chance was the Indian Motorcycle dealer in Wichita in the 1930s, and Herb and Gerald became good friends. Gerald introduced Herb to his son, Richard “Harold” Chance. R. H. Chance was nine years junior to Herb, and also served as a welder at the local aviation manufacturers in the years prior to the war draft in 1944.

Max Wilson, also a fellow motorcycle rider, was interested in miniature trains. This inspired Herb.

The First Ottaway Train

Here is where stories diverge. If you do a quick search for Joyland, you’ll see the same block of text copied over from nearly every single site: the Wikipedia text. “The park was founded by Lester Ottaway and his sons Herbert and Harold to serve as the home for a miniature 12-inch (300 mm) gauge steam locomotive that Herb Ottaway had purchased in Fort Scott, back in 1933. The train had been part of a defunct amusement park there and was originally built by the Miniature Railway Company of Elgin, Illinois, between 1905 and 1910.”

It’s difficult, given that the relevant articles from the main Kansas paper aren’t available online for these years, but this Wikipedia account doesn’t ring quite true. Fort Scott is a small place that had one amusement park: Fern Lake Park, which later became Gunn Park. This was a fairly typical pleasure garden of the time, which operated movie theaters, vaudeville acts, and even a zoo. The park was purchased by the city somewhere between 1910 and 1912, however, and the amusement aspects were stripped away to become a typical city park. Nowhere in the newspaper sources at the time was there mention of a miniature train, which would’ve been huge news in the papers and magazines of the time.

Another possible source could be nearby Hutchinson, KS, the former home of Riverside Park. This amusement park was known for its miniature train; however it was sold in 1916, also far earlier than the known acquisition date in the mid-1930s.

Other Accounts of the First Train

A more reliable source may be the account of Jerry Ottaway, Herb’s son, on “The Ottaway Steam Train”. Jerry wrote: “About 1932 my Dad, Herb Ottaway, purchased a steam train from a popular recreation area located on South Meridian (Avenue). He rebuilt the engine and coaches the following winter.” Another account states: “Herb had built a miniature live steam locomotive” following advice of his friend Max Wilson.

One final source may hold the ultimate key to tie all these accounts together. In 2004, Ed Kelley wrote a history of the Ottaway Amusement Company. The site is now defunct, but was fortunately saved by the Wayback Machine. Quote: “An important chapter of ‘park train’ history began in 1933, when a Kansas family by the name of Ottaway bought a 12” gauge steam locomotive from an old amusement park at the Kansas/Missouri border in Fort Scott, Kansas. This locomotive was built between 1905 and 1910 by the International Miniature Railway Company of Elgin, Illinois for White City, a Chicago amusement park. Replaced by a larger 15” gauge Cagney locomotive, the little engine passed through amusement parks in Iowa, and Kansas…as well as received many extreme modifications.”

Kelley’s post references a photo of the train taken in Iowa, which unfortunately was not archived.

One way or another, we know that Herb purchased a miniature steam train, after getting into the hobby via his motorcycle friend Max Wilson.

Traveling Carnivals (1933-1946)

So in 1933, Herb Ottaway acquired a miniature steam train. Together with Harold and Lester, he rebuilt and refurbished the little train over the next year. The train was styled as a miniature  AT&SF (Atchison, Topeka, and Santa Fe) railway.

The trio began taking the train around for rides for children in Kansas, which was quite popular. They expanded their reach, setting themselves up with Gerald Chance and his family (remember Gerald, the owner of the local motorcycle shop?). Chance built “four gasoline powered cars and a kiddie auto ride” that was called “the Little Motorcycle”. Together, they spent spring and summer in Manitou, Colorado, providing rides on their small carnival, each summer from 1934-1940. The carnival came to a halt with the onset of war in 1941.

Ottaway Amusement Company

The train was the star of the show, and in 1940, they Ottaways opened Ottaway Amusement Company, a business for building the trains. By 1944, their shop was set up in Wichita and had produced two engines. They hired Harold Chance, Gerald’s son, to work in the train shop, located at that time on North St. Francis St in Wichita.

By 1945, five more locomotives had been built from scratch, and the Ottaways were advertising their locomotives in papers and magazines. It was essentially a complete mail-order miniature railroad setup: an engine, three cars, and 270 feet of track, plus maintenance accessories, for $2500. (In today’s money, about $35k.)

The Ottaway Theme Park in Planeview

Around this time, Herb and Harold opened a small amusement park in Planeview, Kansas, a suburb on the outskirts of Wichita. With the war in full swing, a town called Planeview had sprung up near the Boeing and other aviation plants. Thousands of people were looking for entertainment, and the Ottaways provided.

This park was quite small. It opened in 1942 or 1943, and was called Playland or Playtime, depending on the source. There was a Tilt-A-Whirl, a Ferris wheel, and a merry-go-round.

This was a difficult time to have a leisure business during the war years. It’s said that any non-war business uses, say such as a theme park, were taxed at 20 percent (compare to your current state tax rate that might be somewhere around 5%). But the park was hugely popular with its captive crowds.

Joyland Central (1946-1949)

Perhaps inspired by his sons, patriarch Lester Ottaway purchased the land in the heart of Wichita, between Central and New York streets. Joyland first opened at 1515 E. Central, on the south side of the street, sometime in 1946. Soon afterwards, Herb and Harold closed the small park in Planeview, moving the rides from Planeview to what we’ll call Joyland Central.

Joyland Central is sometimes confused with “Kiddieland” in modern accounts; however, these were separate parks. Kiddieland was another Wichita theme park, owned by the Consolver family. This park opened in 1947. One visitor remembers “The things that made it special for me were the boats and the pony rides, two attractions that Joyland did not have”. Kiddieland in Wichita was closed in 1968 and torn down to build what is now the Wichita Mall. There is, of course, a Facebook group for fans of the Kiddieland park.

More Rides for Joyland

New rides were added to Joyland Central, including a shooting range, a child’s auto ride, a Roll-o-Plane, and the Dodgem bumper cars. The fondly-remembered “Old Woman’s Shoe” attraction (a giant shoe that kids could climb in) also was located at Joyland Central originally.

The city’s electric company also would not provide service to the park – they didn’t think it was “necessary”. The park therefore had to operate on a generator, which had to be turned on by hand each time the park opened.

Success of Joyland Central

Still, the people came to Joyland. After the end of World War II, people were hungry for lightness, entertainment, and leisure. Joyland was a hit with both children and adults, and business was booming.

As the Ottaways eyed the addition of a large roller coaster at Joyland, they needed to look for a new location for their park: the Central location was just too small. The Wichita Eagle wrote about the planning of the park in November of 1948.

Joyland

The Ottaways found the land they were looking for at 2801 South Hillside. Joyland Hillside, or just Joyland, had found its new home.

1949 Opening of Joyland Hillside Opening

Joyland Park opened on June 12, 1949.

At the time, it was considered the biggest amusement park in the area, with the roller coaster being a particularly big deal. “A huge deal. It was amazing,” said Roger Nelson, son of Stanley and Margaret Nelson, who would later own the park.

More than 1200 people attended on the day the mayor cut the ribbon for the roller coaster’s opening ceremony. “The coaster is said to have the steepest drop of any in the country,” they said at the time.

Two Joylands Become One

Joyland Central and Joyland Hillside were open simultaneously for only a short period of time. The land value of the Central location was increasing, so the Ottaways sold Joyland Central and combined the parks at the Hillside location.

Some of the rides moved to Joyland’s Hillside location, but the Joyland Central carousel was sold, and a brand new 1949 carousel made by Allan Herschell, under the Herschell-Spillman name. By the time of its closure, every single one of its original horses was still present and accounted for, primarily because the carousel was completely disassembled every winter beginning in 1951. The horses were hand-carved, with wood bodies and aluminium heads and tails for durability. These can be dated to a specific point in history, as these were only manufactured for a short time before and after World War II.

Joyland opened with several rides right from the start in 1949, including the famous Roller Coaster, the Dodgem bumper cars, the Carousel, and the Ferris Wheel.

Joyland’s Roller Coaster

The park’s coaster, called “Roller Coaster”, was built in 1949 for Joyland by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, and was ready on open day. The coaster was designed by Herbert Paul Schmeck, whose work has often been listed among the top ten coasters in the world.

“Roller Coaster” was one of the last original wooden coasters, one of the 44 “ACE Coaster Classics”. Not until 2006 was the park given any other name, at which point it was briefly called “Nightmare”.

“They ran that roller coaster from one in the afternoon until one in the morning at 25 cents a ride, and it was full every time,” Roger Nelson said.

A 2001 trip report describes the ride thusly: “The ride, featuring an ‘L’ dog leg and a lift hill that is slightly askew from the “out” run of the coaster, is bigger than you think. Immediately off the lift, riders are shot skyward as the train tumbles down the steep first hill, then slammed down as it bottoms out. The first three hills all have great air time”. The report goes on to say “Rarely do I find a roller coaster that changes in intensity so much over the course of a day. This coaster, tame in its early runs, becomes an airtime machine by late afternoon and a bat out of hell by nighttime.”

Roller Coaster’s Operating Stats

The coaster covered 2,600 feet, with an 80 foot drop and 50mph top speed. The ride was notable as the years went on for being only North American coaster using vintage cars with fixed lap bars, allowing for great “airtime”.

The coaster used what is called “skid brakes” to slow the coaster cars. Sections of the track had manually operated brakes, which were controlled by the ride operator using large, four to five foot tall levers. A barrel underneath the tracks hung, filled with cement, which also tripped the skid brakes.

Ferris Wheel at Joyland

The Ferris wheel was an original Joyland attraction from the park’s opening in 1949, though it wasn’t always bright yellow. Eli Bridge is the country’s oldest maker of Ferris wheels, and they manufactured this wheel in Jacksonville, IL. The company actually still operates in their original production building there, opened in 1919.

In earlier days, the Ferris wheel was silver, with its 16 chairs painted in bright blue, red and yellow. As the years went on, the frame was painted a distinctive sunshine yellow. Bucket seats featured a detailed “JP” on the backs, for Joyland Park.

Joyland’s Mammoth Wurlitzer Organ

As you entered Joyland, you passed a small showbuilding. It was impossible to miss, with the cheerful organ music playing and the strange, grinning clown in front. This was Joyland’s Mammoth Wurlitzer 160 Organ, and Louie the Clown.

The Mammoth was the largest of the early Wurlitzer models, and was built around 1905.

Jess Gibbs and the Joyland Mammoth Wurlitzer

In 1947, the Ottaways were contact by organ man Jess Gibbs, about an old band organ that was sitting at an estate in Coffeyville, the old Brown Mansion, where it had reportedly sat abandoned for the previous twenty years. The Brown Mansion had served as a spa in the heyday of the 1920s known as the Siluran Springs Bath House, where guests whirled in the ballroom to the music of the Mammoth Wurlitzer. When the Brown Mansion closed during the Depression, the organ sat, abandoned and forgotten.

Harold and Herbert went out to take a look, They bought the organ “as is” for somewhere between $350-500 (roughly $4000 to $5500 in 2019 dollars). Gibbs took the organ and repaired it for the Ottaways, a process which took two years. Mice had eaten the glue joints, and there were no brass pipes in the organ, having been reportedly removed for the war effort between 1941-1945. Additionally, the organ was water damaged, which took time and skill to repair. The Joyland Wurlitzer was one of only two Mammoth organs still in existence, and at the time was the only one available for public viewing.

After delivery of the completed organ to Joyland, Gibbs stayed on with the Ottaways, being one of only three people throughout the tenure of Joyland to maintain the organ and its creepy clown player.

Joyland’s Louie the Clown

Perhaps the most memorable part of the park for some, Louie was an essential part of the Joyland Wurlitzer experience. The story goes that the Ottaways acquired Louie at an amusement park tradeshow they were attending sometime in 1949.They purchased Louie for $750, and set him up in front of the organ, where he “pretended to play”, his randomized movements reportedly good enough to fool some guests.

Visitors either loved or hated Louie. He had a white face, painted with blue swirls amongst the classic clown makeup. Each season, he wore a new outfit. One visitor remembers: “I loved Louie. He was the first thing I’d run to see when I entered the park as a little girl, before hopping in line to ride the merry-go-round.”

“Louie was very important to the park and the whole atmosphere of going to Joyland, It just provided excitement instantly as you walked into this park,” said Hal Ottaway, son of Harold. Excitement, or fear, it was always hard to tell which.

Original Darkride at Joyland

During the Joyland Central years, Dodgem (bumper cars) was one of the most popular rides. When the two parks were merged into one, management decided to install both Dodgem rides in the park to double capacity. The idea, of course, being that two must be better than one. This didn’t work in practice, and so one of the buildings was closed.

This closed building was reused, however, as the park’s first dark ride, a one-story fright house common for the era. Some sources say that the Philadelphia Toboggan Company may have been involved. The ride later was updated with a safari theme, including lions, alligators, snakes, and other scares.

Porky the Paper Eater

Not a ride, but memorable still the same, Porky the Paper Eater was also there at Joyland from the beginning. Porky was developed by Harry J. Batt Associates for the Ponchartrain Beach fun center. He is one of several models, which also include Leo the Lion and Pepe the Clown.

Joyland’s Porky was housed in a mushroom, where he waited for visitors to bring him trash to suck up through his open mouth (a vacuum). Slightly menacing from an adult perspective now, kids at the time loved Porky.

“Porky was the best thing because the kids would run all over picking up trash,” Roger Nelson said.

Booming Business at Joyland

Joyland worked with the State Department to help promote their park in the first few years. The Ottaways were cognizant that they wanted to promote the park differently, in order to avoid comparisons with the carnivals of the time, which were seen as “seedy”. They took a number of tacts, including humanizing themselves and tying the welfare of their park to the growth of Wichita.

The Ottaways also took surveys to identify their target audience: most of the Joyland attendees, at least in the first few years, were from rural farms around Kansas. With this in mind, much of the early advertising was directed at the rural audience and not the city audience of the time. Since the Ottaways were all avid collectors of steam and gas engine tractors, they held “Steam Tractor Shows” and tractor-pulling contests at the park through at least 1956. (As an interesting side-bar, Herb Ottaway invented the steam-powered pogo stick!)

Programs were tied in with schools and the local police department. In one, the “School’s Out” party, students got free admission to the park by bringing in school supplies, which were then sent to partner schools in Europe by the state department. (This particular promotion occured in the years after the second World War, remember.) Films were then jointly taken at both Joyland and at the partner school, allowing for cross-promotion of all entities involved.

Other Local Joyland Promotions

Later on, Joyland offered a “good grades” promotion, where students would receive free entrance to the park with good grades on their report card. Wichita resident Erica Davis remembers, “My parents used to take me when report cards came out. It was an excellent motivator.”

Other promotions included days only for employees of local groups and businesses, such as the local aviation industry. Resident Jaqueline DeFever remembers: “My Dad worked at Beech Aircraft and they had nights where if you brought a can of pop you got in free. We would go all the time! Loved the Tilt-A-Whirl, Log Jam and Whacky Shack! Super scary!”

The Sale of Ottaway Amusement Company

In 1948, with the park business booming, the Ottaways had their hands full, and couldn’t devote the attention to their miniature train business, Ottaway Amusement Co. They sold their train business to Harold Chance, who continued to build the miniature steam trains, adding gasoline and electric powered trains to the fleet.

Chance built some new trains for the park in 1951 as part of the transaction: a set of ABA Santa Fe Streamliners, sleek and modern in contrast to the more classic styling of the Ottaway model that had opened the park.

By 1961, Harold Chance had incorporated Chance Rides, which went on to become the largest amusement ride manufacturer in the world.

The Joyland Pool

In the 1950s, after Joyland had been open for several years, it was time for renovations, including the Olympic-sized pool. This pool had a tall slide and high dives, and if you forgot your swimsuit, you could buy a Joyland pair right at the park.

The pool was, unsurprisingly, a huge crowd-pleaser during the hot summers, when air conditioning wasn’t a regular feature in the average home.

Resident Angi Amos remembers: “I remember as a little girl getting to go to the pool that was there for years. That pool seemed so big, and the slide was so tall. The diving boards were really high up. There were always a lot of people in and around the pool.”

Joyland later won an award in 1964 for its “Moonlight Swim” promotion, in conjunction with the local radio station KLEO.

Joyland’s New Frontier Town

Kansas celebrated its centennial as a state in 1961. To celebrate, Joyland added an old West town section, called “Frontier Town”. This old West section had a genuine old Aitchison, Topeka and Santa Fe Railway caboose, which had originally been built in the 1920s. This new section also had a general store, dry goods, and saloon. Of course, an old West town wouldn’t be complete without “cowboys” who regularly performed shootouts on the town’s main street, much to the delight of Joyland’s visitors.

Passing of the Joyland Torch

Life at Joyland was moving along smoothly, and the atmosphere was thrilling. “I walked through the screams, shots, cries, laughter, music, bells, buzzers, rails, rollers, rides, explosions, flashing lights and grinding gears,” guest John Roe said, describing the atmosphere of the park. Joyland park continued to increase in popularity with guests.

So…

In the mid-1960s, the Ottaways retired from the park business (Lester had passed away in the 1950s).

The original steam train retired with them, moving into their personal collection. A new train joined the park in its place, in 1961, manufactured by Harold Chance and Chance Rides. It was the first-ever C. P. Huntington miniature train from Chance Rides, and it came with serial number 1 from the factory.

“Joyland’s train really launched Chance Rides,” said Larry Breitenstein, National Sales Director at Chance Rides, some time later. The C. P. Huntington miniature train is one of Chance Rides’ most popular offerings.

Joyland would continue in a new chapter under the ownership of Stanley and Margaret Nelson.

We’ll continue next week with the second half of the Joyland story.

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References

I’ve included a complete list of references used while researching this topic. It’s hidden under the link for brevity.

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