The Giant Dipper, also known as Mission Beach Roller Coaster and historically by other names, is a historical wooden roller coaster located in Belmont Park, a small amusement park in the Mission Beach area of San Diego, California. Built in 1925, it and its namesake at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk are the only remaining wooden roller coasters on the West Coast designed by noted roller coaster designers Frank Prior and Frederick Church, and the only one whose construction they supervised. It was added to the National Register of Historic Places in 1978 and designated a National Historic Landmark in 1987.
Fred Wilder Swanton (1862–1940) was an American entrepreneur and real estate developer who served as mayor of Santa Cruz, California from 1927 until 1933. He promoted the expansion of Santa Cruz as a beach resort city. The seaside resort he established in 1904 remains today as the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk.
A boardwalk is a pedestrian walkway. It can also refer to an entertainment district on an oceanfront.
The Giant Dipper is a historic wooden roller coaster located at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, an amusement park in Santa Cruz, California. The Giant Dipper, which replaced the Thompson's Scenic Railway, took 47 days to build and opened on May 17, 1924, at a cost of $50,000. With a height of 70 feet (21 m) and a speed of 55 miles per hour (89 km/h), it is one of the most popular wooden roller coasters in the world. As of 2012, over 60 million people have ridden the Giant Dipper since its opening. The ride has received several awards such as being named a National Historic Landmark, a Golden Age Coaster award, and a Coaster Landmark award.
Fascination is a game commonly found in North American amusement parks, boardwalks and arcades. The game is a redemption game, in that prizes are often won for playing the game. The game dates to 1918, with the first location opening at Coney Island, NY. It became popular during the 1920s and spread quickly from coast to coast, as evidenced in pictures of Chutes at the Beach in San Francisco, a park that operated from 1903 - 1928. Over a century later, there are still a handful of locations that are in operation, mostly in the Northeastern US.
Laffing Sal is one of several animatronic characters that were built primarily to attract carnival and amusement park patrons to funhouses and dark rides throughout the United States. Its movements were accompanied by a raucous laugh that sometimes frightened small children and annoyed adults.
Playland was a 10-acre (40,000-square-meter) seaside amusement park located next to Ocean Beach, in the Richmond District at the western edge of San Francisco, California, along Great Highway, bounded by Balboa and Fulton streets. It began as a collection of amusement rides and concessions in the late 19th century, and was preceded by Chutes at the Beach, opened in 1921. Playland closed Labor Day weekend in 1972.
Swanton is a small community in an unincorporated area of Santa Cruz County on the Pacific coast, situated about 5 miles (8.0 km) north of the town of Davenport, to the east of State Route 1 on Swanton Road. The US Geological Survey designates Swanton as a populated place located at latitude and longitude 37.06417°N 122.22639°W with an elevation of 135 ft (41 m). The ZIP Code is 95017 and the community is inside area code 831.
The Rock-O-Plane is an amusement park ride designed by Lee Eyerly in 1948 and manufactured by the Eyerly Aircraft Company of Salem, Oregon.
Charles I. D. Looff was a Danish master carver and builder of hand-carved carousels and amusement rides, who immigrated to the United States of America in 1870. Looff built the first carousel at Coney Island in 1876. During his lifetime, he built over 40 carousels, several amusements parks, numerous roller coasters and Ferris wheels, and built California's famous Santa Monica Pier. He became famous for creating the unique Coney Island style of carousel carving.
Double Shot is a type of amusement ride manufactured by S&S - Sansei Technologies.
Santa Cruz Looff Carousel and Roller Coaster On The Beach Boardwalk is a National Historic Landmark composed of two parts, a Looff carousel and the Giant Dipper wooden roller coaster, at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in Santa Cruz, California, United States. They are among the oldest surviving beachfront amusement park attractions on the west coast of the United States. They were listed as a pair as a National Historic Landmark in 1987.
Amusement Today is a monthly periodical that features articles, news, pictures and reviews about all things relating to the amusement park industry, including parks, rides, and ride manufacturers. The trade newspaper, which is based in Arlington, Texas, United States, was founded in January 1997 by Gary Slade, Virgil E. Moore III and Rick Tidrow. In 1997, Amusement Today won the Impact Award in the services category for "Best New Product" from the International Association of Amusement Parks and Attractions (IAAPA). A year later, in 1998, the magazine founded the Golden Ticket Awards, for which it has become best known for throughout the amusement park industry. On January 2, 2001, Slade bought out his two partners, giving him sole ownership of the paper. The paper has two full-time and two part-time staff members at its Arlington office, along with two full-time writers and several freelance writers in various parts of the world.
Undertow is a steel spinning roller coaster at Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, built by Maurer Söhne.
Pixar Pier is a themed land at Disney California Adventure, based on that of Victorian boardwalks that were once found along the coast of California. Despite its name and the presence of a nearby human-made lake, Pixar Pier is not actually a pier, but a waterside area of the park. Incredicoaster sprawls across much of the area, with various other attractions and forms of entertainment scattered around it.
The Suntan Special was a summer excursion train service operated by the Southern Pacific Railroad between San Francisco and Santa Cruz, California, from 1927 to 1959.
Casa del Rey Hotel was a resort hotel in Santa Cruz, California. During World War II the hotel was converted to the Naval Convalescent Hospital, Santa Cruz. The hotel was built in 1911 by Fred Swanton on Beach Street as a Santa Cruz Boardwalk development plan. The Resort Hotel had: a pool; gardens; and a grand pedestrian bridge to cross the street to visit the beach. The hotel was at about 500 Beach Street and Cliff Street. In addition to the hotel, there were built Cottage apartments. Later after the war the hotel became a senior citizen housing. In the 1989 Loma Prieta earthquake there was serious damage to the hotel and was taken down. The site now is the parking lot across the street from the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk amusement park.
A boardwalk is a promenade along a beach or waterfront. In North America, and particularly in the United States, many waterfront commercial boardwalks have become so successful as tourist attractions that the simple wooden pathways have been replaced by esplanades made of concrete, brick or other construction, sometimes with a wooden façade on the surface. An entertainment boardwalk often contains an amusement park, casinos, or hotels on a pier-like structure. One of the earliest such boardwalks was designed in New Jersey and opened June 26, 1870, in Atlantic City.
