Hersheypark is a family theme park located in Hershey, Pennsylvania, about 15 miles (24 km) east of Harrisburg, and 95 miles (153 km) west of Philadelphia. The park was founded in 1906 by Milton S. Hershey as a leisure park for the employees of the Hershey Chocolate Company. As of 2016, it has been wholly and privately owned by Hershey Entertainment and Resorts Company. Hersheypark has won several awards, including the Applause Award.
In the United States and Canada, trolley parks, which started in the 19th century, were picnic and recreation areas along or at the ends of streetcar lines in most of the larger cities. These were precursors to amusement parks. Trolley parks were often created by the streetcar companies to give people a reason to use their services on weekends.
Geauga Lake was an amusement park in Bainbridge Township and Aurora, Ohio. It was established in 1887, in what had been a local recreation area adjacent to a lake of the same name. The first amusement ride was added in 1889, and the park's first roller coaster – later known as the Big Dipper – was built in 1925. The park was sold to Funtime, Inc., in 1969 and was expanded over the years with additional rides and amenities. Funtime was acquired by Premier Parks in 1995, and for the 2000 season, they re-branded Geauga Lake as Six Flags Ohio, adding four new roller coasters. The following year, Six Flags bought the adjacent SeaWorld Ohio and combined the two parks under the name Six Flags Worlds of Adventure.
Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters (PTC) is one of the oldest existing roller coaster manufacturing companies in the world. Based in Hatfield, Pennsylvania, it was established in 1904 by Henry Auchey and Chester Albright under the name Philadelphia Toboggan Company. The company manufactured carousels, wooden roller coasters, toboggans and later, roller coaster trains.
The Beast is a wooden roller coaster located at Kings Island amusement park in Mason, Ohio. Designed and manufactured in-house for $3.2 million, the ride opened in 1979 as the tallest, fastest, and longest wooden roller coaster in the world. Decades later, it is still the longest, spanning 7,359 feet (2,243 m) across 35 acres (14 ha) of hilly terrain. Two lift hills contribute to the ride's duration of more than four minutes, which also ranks as one of the longest among roller coasters.
Idlewild and Soak Zone, commonly known as Idlewild Park or simply Idlewild, is a children's amusement park in the Laurel Highlands near Ligonier, Pennsylvania, United States, about 50 miles (80 km) east of Pittsburgh, along US Route 30. Founded in 1878 as a campground along the Ligonier Valley Railroad by Thomas Mellon, Idlewild is the oldest amusement park in Pennsylvania and the third oldest operating amusement park in the United States behind Lake Compounce and Cedar Point. The park has won several awards, including from industry publication Amusement Today as the best children's park in the world.
American Coaster Enthusiasts (ACE) is a non-profit organization focusing on the enjoyment, knowledge, and preservation of roller coasters as well as recognition of some as architectural and engineering landmarks. Dues paying members receive the quarterly magazine RollerCoaster! and bi-monthly newsletter ACE News. Amusement parks have also invited members to exclusive ride events at amusement parks as well as sneak peek events at new roller coasters under construction.
Idora Park (1899–1984) was a northeastern Ohio amusement park popularly known as "Youngstown's Million Dollar Playground."
Camden Park is a twenty-six acre amusement park located near Huntington, West Virginia. Established in 1903 as a picnic spot by the Camden Interstate Railway Company, it is one of only thirteen trolley parks that remain open in the United States. Whereas most trolley parks were located at the end of trolley lines, Camden Park is unusual in that it was built where riders traveling between Huntington and nearby cities would stop to change lines. Not long after opening, the park soon gained a carousel and other roadside attractions. Camden Park is West Virginia's only amusement park. The park is home to more than thirty rides and attractions, including a full-size traditional wooden roller coaster, the Big Dipper, and several other vintage rides.
Playland was a 10-acre (40,000 m2) seaside amusement park located next to Ocean Beach, in the Richmond District at the western edge of San Francisco, California along Great Highway where Cabrillo and Balboa streets are now. It began as a collection of amusement rides and concessions in the late 19th century and was known as Chutes at the Beach as early as 1913. It closed Labor Day weekend in 1972.
Indianola Park was an amusement park that operated in Columbus, Ohio's University District from 1905 to 1937. The park was created by Charles Miles and Frederick Ingersoll, and peaked in popularity in the 1910s, entertaining crowds of up to 10,000 with the numerous roller coasters and rides, with up to 5,000 in the massive pool alone. The park was also the home field for the Columbus Panhandles for half of a decade. In the 1920s, new owners bought and remodeled the park, and it did well until it closed at the end of the Great Depression.
Gwynn Oak Park is a park that was the site of a privately owned amusement park, located in the community of Gwynn Oak, just outside northwest Baltimore, Maryland, in Baltimore County. The 64-acre (260,000 m2) park is at the corner of Gwynn Oak and Gwyndale avenues, about a quarter mile off of Liberty Heights Avenue. The amusement park, which existed from 1893 until 1973, was the site of protests against racial segregation due to a whites-only admissions policy.
Roller coaster amusement rides have origins back to ice slides constructed in 18th-century Russia. Early technology featured sleds or wheeled carts that were sent down hills of snow reinforced by wooden supports. The technology evolved in the 19th century to feature railroad track using wheeled cars that were securely locked to the track. Newer innovations emerged in the early 20th century with side friction and underfriction technologies to allow for greater speeds and sharper turns. By the mid-to-late 20th century, these elements intensified with the introduction of steel roller coaster designs and the ability to invert riders.
White City is the common name of dozens of amusement parks in the United States, the United Kingdom, and Australia. Inspired by the White City and Midway Plaisance sections of the World's Columbian Exhibition of 1893, the parks started gaining in popularity in the last few years of the 19th century. After the 1901 Pan-American Exposition inspired the first Luna Park in Coney Island, a frenzy in building amusement parks ensued in the first two decades of the 20th century.
Riverview Park was an amusement park in Des Moines, Iowa, from 1915 to 1978. What began in pre-1915 as a zoological garden and trolley destination in an area of Des Moines known as Highland Park would become Riverview Amusement Park, a popular family entertainment oasis in early Iowa history. It was built upon an island, accessed via a wooden bridge, by a group of nine local businessmen that were headed up by a Des Moines movie-theater mogul named Abe Frankle. In the early years various entertaining events and attractions that made Riverview Park a fondly remembered family get-away included free acts featuring death-defying daredevils and musical band concerts. The early amusement rides included in 1923 a new carousel (PTC#65) from the Philadelphia Toboggan Company, whose carousels represented some of the finest examples of hand carved carousel horses in America, and a large Carousel Pavilion building to house it. In 1928 a Herschell-Spillman menagerie carousel with intricate hand-carved animals replaced the PTC carousel. In 1920 John Miller–designed a figure-eight roller coaster featuring eight full dips that all went to the ground level for the park. In 1940, the Riviera Ballroom was added and provided big band dances throughout the 1940s and 1950s and teen dances in the 1960s and 1970s. The Riviera Ballroom was inducted into the Iowa Rock and Roll Hall of Fame in 2010.
National Amusement Devices in Dayton, Ohio was an American construction company founded in 1919 as the Dayton Fun House by Aurel Vaszin. Based on research, they built a 2-foot gauge miniature train that could be either gasoline or electric powered. This resembled a typical standard-gauge center cab electric train as early as 1922. Vaszin was an early environmental idealist and really pushed the idea of electric powered trains, as safer and less polluting.
Savin Rock was an American amusement park in West Haven, Connecticut. It was previously called The White City and was established in the 1870s. The park included a number of roller coasters, other rides and numerous funhouses.
Vernon Keenan was an American roller coaster designer best known for his involvement with the Cyclone at Coney Island.
Loop the Loop was an early looping steel roller coaster which operated at Olentangy Park in Columbus, Ohio during the first decade of the 1900s. It was one of the first looping roller coasters to operate in North America, and it was designed and built by noted inventor Lina Beecher.
Puritas Springs Park was an amusement park located in Cleveland, Ohio, overlooking the Rocky River Valley. It opened around the dawn of the 20th century and operated until financial difficulties led to its closure in 1958. The land on which it once stood is now home to a residential development.
