Souvenirs

While researching the book, I met two fans of Rock Springs Park who have what I believe must be the most extensive collections of memorabilia of the now defunct amusement park once located in Chester, WV (See pages 125 and 126 of Images of America: Rock Springs Park). Their postcards and pictures were extremely valuable to me in completing my Images book, but I was most impressed with their collection of souvenir glasses, pins, and pottery. Based on their collections and the items which often come up for bid on Ebay, Rock Springs Park must have sold a unique variety of souvenirs over the years. Here is just a small representative sampling of them.

Darleen Daugherty (left) and Betsy Urie holding Rock Springs Park pennants in front of the souvenir stand circa 1969.

The Kiddie Train

From the mid to late 30s, until it was sold in 1948, the Kiddie Train ran next to the Cyclone in the southern end of the upper midway section of Rock Springs Park. The ground upon which the 35’x85’ track was laid had been the splash lagoon section of the Shoot-the-Chutes Ride during the C.A. Smith years. Later, under the ownership of C.C. Macdonald, the cement pool was drained and converted into a go-cart track (See Images of America: Rock Springs Park p. 59). The Chutes pool was subsequently filled in during the Hand Years and was the location of several rides including the Caterpillar, the Aerial Joy Ride, and the Kiddie Train. In the January 24, 1948 edition of Billboard Magazine, the train and 2 cars were advertised for the unbelievable sale price of just $700. (Seen pictured from left to right are Jim Wilson and Dickie Hand; photograph courtesy of Sherry Emery)

First Post-War Tri-State Community Picnic

The First Post-War Tri-State Community Picnic was held on Wednesday, August 6, 1947. The celebration was sponsored by The East Liverpool Junior Chamber of Commerce. The Program included a treasure hunt and penny scramble for the kids, Tom Brenneman’s “Breakfast in Hollywood” show, and a quiz program featuring East Liverpool trivia.

Orchestra leader Bobby Byrne, best remembered for his romantic but forceful trombone style, presented a one-hour “top flight” musical revue, according to the souvenir program. Byrne long expressed an interest in flying and served as both a bandleader and a pilot during the war. He had only been discharged in 1945 and had been freelancing around the New York City area until forming a new orchestra in 1946.

Music and contests were the theme of the day at the First Post-War Tri-State Community Picnic with the top prize being a 1947 Four-Door Ford Sedan. The drawing was held at the entrance to Virginia Gardens. Even the souvenir program itself was numbered for a contest drawing. To end the evening, a queen was crowned at midnight. Valley Motor Transit had buses running between the park and the terminal at East Liverpool all day with the last bus departing after the dance at 1:00 AM. Advanced dance tickets were $2.50 and the cost at the door was an additional 25 cents.

Rock Springs Park had been closed during the war with the Hand Family only returning to the log house in the winter of 1946. Owner Bob Hand had just been released from the army, and reopened the park for the first time since the start of WWII that summer.

Click below and enjoy a great sampling of Bobby Byrne’s Orchestra.

Chester Bridge Overlook

I was saddened to read that the Chester Overlook, now the Dr. David S. Pugh Memorial Overlook, has been vandalized since it reopened last year. (Read more here.) The overlook began as the southern portal of the original Chester Bridge built to connect East Liverpool with the new town of Chester in 1897. Just three days after its inauguration, a trolley carried people from Liverpool to the grand opening of Rock Springs Park on Memorial Day 1897.



The photograph above shows the Overlook as I remember seeing it during my childhood. Below, the outline reveals where a toll booth once stood before my time.


Ironically, the photograph below, from the Review’s article, reveals the Jennings Randolph Bridge in the background through the gap created when vandals “pried up large stone blocks from the top of the wall and tossed them into the river.” The original Chester Bridge marked the beginning of the life of Rock Springs Amusement Park while the truss bridge in the distance marked its end. (Photo by Nancy Tullis of the East Liverpool Review)

Library Book

My school district has a professional development program called “Differentiated Supervision.” Simply stated, it means a teacher has the option of choosing a self-directed project over the standard annual observation and rating by an administrator. Last year I was able to use my experience authoring Images of America: Rock Springs Park as my differentiated project. I enjoyed sharing all aspects of the book writing experience with my students, including researching, editing and choosing photographs and postcards to clearly illustrate the story of the now defunct amusement park. One of my favorite lessons was showing the stack of revisions required to complete the project. I enjoyed pointing out that though they might get frustrated when a teacher returns a paper for revisions one time, I had that experience over and over again. I think it was also good for them to see the process from beginning to end, including seeing a copy of the published book in our school library.

The Only Difference Between the 1st and 2nd Printing

If you ever wondered if your copy of Images of America: Rock Springs Park is a first print edition, there is one quick way to find out. Although there is no discernable difference between first or later printings of Arcadia books, you can tell if your copy of my book is a first print edition by turning to page 10 and looking for a typo which occurred after the book was out of my hands and at the printers. In an effort to eliminate using the phrase “clearly illustrates” too often, I reworded a few of them at the last minute. By changing “illustrates” to displays on the top caption on page 10, the word displays was incorrectly written as “dislays.”

In the second printing, as you can see in the illustration below, this mistake has been corrected.
Unfortunately some other corrections I suggest for the second printing were not made, so I have listed those below for any readers or historians who may be interested. Most of these were just my attempts to fine tune word usage, but some were errors made in the first print run, like the 18,000-square foot dance floor reading “1,800” on page 51. A few of my suggested corrections (below) were made after I discovered some of my primary source information did not mesh with recently discovered newspaper articles from the time the park operated to its closing.

Feel free to make corrections for yourselves.

I’m guessing the typo that made me heartsick over a year ago will make the first edition copy all the more valuable one day. My wife also teases that an unsigned copy will be worth more, as well, because I have signed nearly every first edition copy out there!

Corrections for Second Printing of Images of America: Rock Springs Park

P10 (top) dislays (change to) displays

P13 (first paragraph) less than a dozen homes (change to) fewer than a dozen homes

P16 (bottom) dining pavilion (change to) loading station

P21 (3rd paragraph) constructed in 1918 (change to) constructed in 1915

P22 (top) back row center (change to) back row, 6th from left

P29 (bottom) replace the original dance hall (change to) replace the Casino dance hall

P51 a 1,800-square-foot (change to) an 18,000-square-foot

P53 (3rd paragraph) got showboats (change to) booked showboats

P59 (bottom) “Goat Island” (change to) “Goat Mountain”

P64 (top) Unlike other sources that claim (change to) Unlike other sources which claim

P71 (top) Golden Anniversary of Chester Dance Court (change to) Golden Jubilee of Chester Dance Court

P80 (caption) at end of tree lined street (change to) at the end of tree lined street

P99 (top) historical carvings (change to) historic carvings

P101 (redo final paragraph from original to…)
By the end of July, the twenty-one remaining structures were sold in auction for $5,200. William W. Harper, a well-known business man in Chester, bought the Virginia Gardens dance hall for $550 and William Johnson of East Liverpool bought the mile-long Cyclone for one dollar. According to the Youngstown Vindicator, Johnson planned to use the wood from the coaster to build a new structure at an auto wrecking business he and his father operated near Calcutta, OH. The deconstruction of the park was completed quickly and “within 45 days,” wrote Susan Weaver, “the park was stripped of all its buildings and the bulldozers, backhoes, and earth-movers were brought in.”

Happy 1st Anniversary

This week marks the 1st Anniversary of the publication of Images of America: Rock Springs Park. Working on the book and sharing it has been a blast! I look forward to meeting more fans of the park and hearing their wonderful stories in the years to come. Thank you for your support!