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    Rock Springs Park
    Rock Springs Park
    Rock Springs Park
    Ebook191 pages2 hours

    Rock Springs Park

    By Joseph A. Comm

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    About this ebook

    Once described as "a place where God and man went fifty-fifty to produce perfection," Rock Springs Park remained a landmark along the Lincoln Highway in Chester until 1970. In its heyday, this panhandle playground captivated 20,000 visitors daily with attractions including the World's Greatest Scenic Railway, the Cyclone Roller Coaster, and a hand-carved 1927 Dentzel Carousel. Images of America: Rock Springs Park features over 200 rarely seen images and portrays the lifespan of the park from its history as Native American hunting grounds to its development as a local trolley park and full-fledged amusement park. The park hosted business and community picnic excursions and countless celebrity entertainers. Performer Bobby Vinton remembers the era of dances at the park as "a very romantic time . . . almost like something in the movies. There was the carousel, the guys in white shoes and girls that were all dressed up with their crinoline skirts."
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherArcadia Publishing
    Release dateSep 18, 2012
    ISBN9781439641286
    Rock Springs Park
    Author

    Joseph A. Comm

    Joseph A. Comm is an elementary gifted support teacher with an interest in local history. He studied theater arts and elementary education at the University of Pittsburgh, receiving both a bachelor�s degree and master�s degree. He grew up in Chester at a time when the sun-bleached skeleton of the Cyclone bordered his school�s ball field and remembers well the many tales of the magic of Rock Springs Park.

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      Book preview

      Rock Springs Park - Joseph A. Comm

      everything.

      INTRODUCTION

      Rock Springs Park was an amusement park located in the Upper Ohio River Valley town of Chester, West Virginia. Chester, situated at the extreme northern limit of Hancock County, lies directly across the Ohio River from East Liverpool. The area is best known for its iconic World’s Largest Teapot and pottery industry, including Homer Laughlin China Company with its world-renowned Fiesta Dinnerware.

      A onetime stop along the Catawba Trail, the area attracted Native Americans and early settlers with its bubbling mineral springs and abundance of wild game. It is widely believed that George Washington drank from Rock Springs when he and his party, including the Native Americans Half King, Pheasant, and White Feather, camped near the entrance to the park on the night of October 21st, 1770.

      The site of the springs was first used for picnics in 1857; its wondrous scenic setting was advertised as the perfect getaway for church outings and other civic affairs. In the early 1880s, wharf master Patsy Kernan leased the Marks Farm, including Rock Springs Park, and arranged for the ferryboat Ollie Neville to carry pleasure seekers to his scenic wonderland.

      East Liverpool attorney James (J. E.) McDonald acquired 170 acres of the Marks estate in 1890 with a plan to commercialize the spring grove by building a local amusement park in conjunction with a new bridge project and streetcar line. Despite several setbacks, work on the bridge and park began in 1895. The 1,466-foot bridge was completed in just over a year, and the trolley had its first run on May 26, 1897. Three days later, on Memorial Day 1897, Rock Springs Park had its official opening, where, according to author and Chester historian Roy C. Cashdollar, more than 5,000 jammed the dance pavilion, café, dining hall, shooting gallery, bowling alleys, walked the shady paths, or watched a ballgame.

      Over the next 10 years, wrote Susan Weaver in a 1985 edition of Goldenseal Magazine, through the leadership and financial support of men such as McDonald and his successor, Charles (C. A.) Smith, Rock Springs Park grew to become the showcase of the area. It offered many popular attractions, such as swimming, boating, picnic grounds, promenade walks, and amusement rides—including the merry-go-round, Shoot-the-Chutes, Old Mill, and Smith’s crown jewel, the World’s Greatest Scenic Railway. The park flourished until 1912, when the Central Passenger Association rescinded all Pennsylvania Railroad excursion business, and a series of devastating fires forced park management to proclaim it the poorest season the park had ever seen.

      Charles (C. C.) Macdonald and wife, Grace, owners of Summit Park in Akron, Ohio, purchased Rock Springs Park in 1926. Macdonald pledged, according to Weaver, to bring the park back in popularity and in improvements to the days when it was a popular playground and outing spot in West Virginia. Part of Macdonald’s plan to modernize the park included replacing the scenic railway with a $25,000, state-of-the-art wooden roller coaster, adding a small zoo, and upgrading the dance pavilion, which he christened Virginia Gardens in honor of his 18-year-old daughter. For two seasons, the park saw record attendance and profits, leading former owner C. A. Smith to comment that the crowds were the largest he had ever seen within the gates of the park.

      With the onset of the Depression, Macdonald needed to diversify in order to keep Rock Springs Park going. To that end, he moved his family to Ligonier, Pennsylvania, in 1931 to become partner to Richard B. Mellon and part owner of Idlewild Park. Grace Macdonald went back and forth between Rock Springs and Idlewild for four years until turning the entire operation of Rock Springs Park over to her newly wedded daughter, Virginia, and son-in-law, Robert L. Hand, in 1935. The Hands would spend the next 35 years in Rock Springs Park, raising two sons and sustaining a modest but profitable existence until the park was purchased, rides and all, by the State of West Virginia in 1974.

      Peering down the chain-lift hill of the Shoot-the-Chutes ride, this panoramic postcard clearly illustrates the development of industrialization and entertainment at the dawn of the 20th century. In the foreground is Rock Springs Park, the tri-state area’s premier panhandle playground, and rising in the background is the black smoke of a tin mill (left) and a series of cone-shaped pottery kilns (right).

      One

      THE ALLURE OF ROCK SPRINGS EARLIEST HISTORY–1889

      It is difficult to pinpoint exactly what draws people to an amusement park that has been gone for nearly 40 years. Perhaps it is the same force that attracted the early Panhandle Archaic Indians to the Upper Ohio Valley well over 4,000 years ago. To the native people, the shaded grove of trees along Marks Run was a sacred hunting ground. Not far from the park, at the northernmost bend of the Ohio River, a great treaty was made between six powerful American Indian nations. This council met at a large flat rock on the beach, confirming their peace agreement by carving tribal symbols on the rock face. Rock Springs Park owner C. A. Smith offered a 15-minute sightseeing tour to the stone drawings in 1910, explaining that they would soon be forever covered by the rising waters of the Ohio River—a direct result of the completion of Dam No. 8.

      Before the land was used for picnics and amusements, George Washington took an interest in the area. He travelled through this region on more than one occasion, camping on western lands. In July 1758, his journal recalls Babb’s Island directly across from Rock Springs Park, where to lighten his load and flee Native Americans he buried a barrel of crackers. Then in October 1770, Washington reportedly camped near the entrance to Rock Springs Park and drank from its refreshing mineral spring waters.

      Rock Springs Park marks its beginning in 1857, when the land known as Rock Springs Grove was first donated for church picnics. Local wharfmaster Patsy Kernan leased the property and arranged for the ferryboat Ollie Neville to carry picnickers across the Ohio River to what was then called the southside in Virginia. For the first time, visitors could spend the day enjoying the simple pleasures of hiking trails, picnic shelters, and a 16-foot

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