A Motto Too

Amusement Parks are often advertised with a catchy slogan to define them and attract potential fun-seekers. Many are familiar, for instance, with Kennywood Park’s designation as “The Roller Coaster Capital of the World.” Rock Springs Park, too, had a view such monikers over the years.

Here are three:

Slovak Day

PÁS Junior Group at Kennywood's Slovak Day.

Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh, PA, still holds annual community picnic and cultural heritage days including Serbian Day, Greek Day, Italian Day, Slovak Day, and others. The Slovak celebration is typically held on the third Thursday in July and includes a mass celebrated on the park grounds, food and music. This tradition is carried over from Rock Springs Park who hosted the event as late as July 18, 1965, according to a news brief in the Beaver County Times.

Beaver County Times - July 16, 1965

30th Slovak Day Slated Sunday

The 30th Ohio Valley Slovak Day, which includes the entire tri-state area, will be held Sunday at Rock Springs Park, Chester, W.Va. Rock Springs Park is located on Route 30, about 36 miles west of Pittsburgh.

The program will open with a Slovak dialogue mass in honor of SS. Cyril and Methodius, the national apostles of the Slovaks, at 10:30 a.m. at St. Joseph Catholic Church, Toronto, Ohio. This will be the first Slovak mass to be celebrated in this area. Msrgr. Andrew R. Beros will celebrate the mass.

Following the church services, a picnic basket dinner will be held at Rock Springs Park dining pavilion from noon till 4 p.m. Coffee and soft drinks will be available at the park.

The Slovak Republic (short form: Slovakia) is a landlocked state in Central Europe bordered by the Czech Republic and Austria to the west, Poland to the north, Ukraine to the east and Hungary to the south.

Directional Arrows

Kennywood Park in Pittsburgh is famous for its yellow directional arrows meant to guide motorists to the one-time Coaster Capital of the World. But until I read the article below, I did not realize that, at least for one automobile excursion, Rock Springs had its own arrows.

First Syria Auto Club Picnic

The Pittsburgh Press - August 12, 1928

The first free basket picnic of the Syria Temple Automobile Club will be held at Rock Springs Park, Chester, W. Va., Friday, Aug. 17. There will be a caravan leaving West Carson St. just below the new Point Bridge at 9:30 a.m. (Daylight time), under police direction. It will proceed through Coraopolis, Carnot Sheffield, Monaca, Rochester, Beaver to East Liverpool and then to Rock Springs Park. Syria auto arrow signs will be posted along the route. There will be swimming, skiff and other races at the park, together with a circus, dancing and other amusements for both children and adults.

So, what type of cars were auto club members driving in 1928? This ad on the same page as the article introduces five new Oldsmobiles.

Based on the directions, the caravan must have traveled north along the western edge of the Ohio River and crossed over from Monaca to Rochester and proceeded west along the northern bank of the Ohio to East Liverpool and then crossed the river again on the Chester Bridge south to Rock Springs Park.

Perhaps the Syria Temple Automobile Club arrows pointing to Rock Springs Park looked something like this.

What Led to the Demise of Rock Springs Park

If Rock Springs Park was still operating today, it would be the oldest amusement park in the United States. Although it officially opened on Memorial Day 1897, its history dates back to pre-Civil War picnics and prize-fights in 1857. The amusement park had been in continuous operation during the summer months (barring a few years during World War II) for more than 70 years when it closed for good after Labor Day 1970.

Just what really caused the decline of Rock Springs Park and led to its eventual demise in 1974, no one knows for sure. It is perhaps not any one reason, but more likely a combination of factors.

If the historic marker on Carolina Avenue is correct, the “automobile and changing social customs led to disuse and sale by 1970s."

Some say it was the tremendous increase in the use of the family automobile following WWII. Soldiers who had seen the world returned home and wanted to drive and see the country they served to protect. The car was their “escape vehicle” and allowed them to go anywhere they chose. They did not choose the neighborhood trolley park.

In Images of America: Rock Springs Park, I suggest that owner Bob Hand was politically connected and knew of the plans to remove the park in order to widen Route 30 and construct a cloverleaf approach to the new bridge long before 1970. Picture evidence backs this theory as it is clear the buildings in the park had not been painted for many years prior to its final season.

The Cyclone’s red letters were nearly completely faded from the loading platform in 1974.

The Arcade building in later years looked as if it had not been painted since the Macdonald’s upgraded the park in 1927.

Others say the park did not keep pace with times. With the opening of Disneyland in 1955, the new trend was toward theme parks like Freedomland in New York. Unlike Idlewild in Ligonier, Pennsylvania, which also faced a threat from a highway expansion project, Rock Springs Park was not in a resort area like the Laurel Highlands. Kennywood, another trolley park in Western PA, billed itself as “The Roller Coaster Capital of the World”, and continued to add modern coasters and water rides, while Rock Springs seemed frozen in the 1930s.

When I first heard about the park closing, I was in elementary school. I remember feeling sad. Like a lot of kids in town, I imagined that some rich guy would come along and make it a showplace once again. I especially wanted to see the carousel in operation again as my mother explained to me that it was still locked inside the pavilion and mentioned on more than one occasion how beautiful it was. By the time I was in 4th Grade at the old high school building and could reach out and touch the Cyclone and stare at the park from the kickball field, the park’s fate was locked in place. By the next year we heard and felt the dynamite blasts which shattered the age old rocks of Rock Springs Park into pieces.

Some people blame television for the demise of Rock Springs Park. This photograph of me (left) and my cousin Danny Ibbs (right) was taken at the new Beaver Valley Mall. I was more than happy to leave Chester and Rock Springs Park behind in December 1970 to meet Burt Ward of TV’s Batman. Parks like Kennywood took advantage of television’s popularity and hosted TV personalities such as The Lone Ranger and Timmy and Lassie.

Over the years, it was the company and community picnics which made the most money for the park. There is no question that these were in decline in the last ten years of operation. Paul H. Zender of the East Liverpool Review wrote, “Large Corporations, feeling the pinch of money needed for expansion, stopped holding traditional yearly get-togethers for employees and their families. Other special events simply didn’t draw crowds large enough to assure financial solvency.”

The more I learn about amusement park history, the more I have come to appreciate that Rock Springs Park lasted as long as it did. Most Victorian trolley parks did not survive beyond the Twenties due to the stock market crash. The Hands began operating the park in 1935 and kept it going longer than any previous owners. Ironically, the reason many were attracted to the park in later years was due to the fact that it hadn’t changed much in over 30 years. They wanted a chance to ride their old favorites from childhood.

Although the park has been gone for nearly 40 years, it still lives on in the hearts and minds of area residents. Images of America: Rock Springs Park is just one part of a larger conversation which keeps those memories alive. In the last chapter of the book, I discuss some of the ways others have preserved the history of the park with their stories, pictures and collections. Won’t you add your own thoughts by commenting below? Tell us your tale of Rock Springs Park.

Chester Resident Named for Child Killed in Old Mill Fire 1915

The Old Mill at Rock Springs Park (top left) and the Old Mill at Kennywood Park (bottom right) share a similar design as is evidenced by these two postcard images. Kennywood’s dark ride still thrills park visitors while Rock Springs’ burned to the ground in a tragic fire on June 5, 1915.

In November 2009, just before the book’s due date, I traveled to Chester, West Virginia, to give a slide show talk on Rock Springs Park at Peachtree Inn, an independent living community on the grounds of Fox Nursing Home. It was my hope that by showing pictures and reviewing the general history of the park with residents, I could glean some interesting stories and firsthand accounts of the trolley park from those who remembered it while growing up in the area during the Great Depression. They did not disappoint.

Many of their memories have been captured in the pages of Images of America: Rock Springs Park, Including Evelyn Fersch’s mother’s tale of traveling to Rock Springs Park by horse and buggy from New Cumberland in the 1890s (page 11). Sadly, Evelyn passed away just months after inviting me to her home at Peachtree and never saw her story in the book, but her memory, often shared with family members, is now shared with hundreds of readers. Just 3 sentences long, her humorous anecdote beautifully encapsulates the joy and excitement felt by young children at the end of the 19th Century when on their way to “Nature’s Beauty Spot” with a picnic basket in their buggy.

As I mentioned before on this site, one of the reasons I began researching the history of the park about 5 years ago, was to flesh out a middle grades novel I was writing entitled, “Rock Springs.” In one scene, Joey and Muna, two children growing up in Chester in the 1970s, attend a church prayer meeting in which parishioners, like the residents of Peachtree Inn, share their memories of Rock Springs in a public forum. Here is an excerpt:

“My memory is bitter-sweet, you might say, but I have a real connection to that park that most of you don’t know about,” Miss Abernathy stood, leaning on the back of a folding chair for support. “Most of you are too young to remember, but you’ve probably read or heard about the fire that burned down The Old Mill in 1915. It was such a tragic fire; so many children were in the park that day. It was the annual school picnic day.”

Muna and I stopped writing and exchanged looks.

“The Old Mill was a dark ride with boats and historic scenes. It was never called the ‘Tunnel of Love’, but my mother told me that a lot of young teenagers got their first kiss on that ride.”

Someone giggled in the back.

“The cause of the fire was never determined. The park blamed it on a patron’s cigarette and the public, well they blamed the park, of course. Witnesses said it started in the dynamo used to power the big paddle wheel. The sad thing, of course, is that three youngsters died in that fire, and a fourth, Hyacinth Mackey, passed away two weeks later from burns sustained from the accident.”

“But Miss Abernathy,” Bert Langston called out. “Hyacinth’ is…”

“Yes, Bert. Hyacinth’ is my name. My mother was pregnant with me that summer and named me after Miss Mackey.” Miss Abernathy closed her eyes as she continued. “As a child I didn’t like my name. I thought it too old-fashioned, and, of course, when I found out I was named after one of the children who died in the fire, I was haunted in my dreams. Terrible nightmares, in which, the children tried to make me ride with them.” Miss Abernathy shuddered. “Many nights I would wake up screaming. It seemed so real. My mother let me sleep with a light on, even though the Depression was still going on.”

After my talk at Peachtree two elderly twin sisters came up to introduce themselves. They were Ina and Nina France, longtime Chester residents. They asked about park owner Virginia Hand and were sad to hear she had passed away. They spoke fondly of Bob and Virginia Hand and told a story about how Bob helped their father when a bad rainstorm and mudslide destroyed their home in the Thirties (page 67). But they also told me a story that sent chills down my back.

This house, at the eastern end of Indiana Avenue was moved just like the Rustic Log House to avoid the “Path of Progress” when Rock Springs Park was razed to make way for Route 30’s approach to the Jennings Randolph Bridge. The home was the residence of Ina and Nina France. Their father was given permission to build the house on park property by owner Bob Hand in the 1930s.

Here, the France Home is being leveled on a new basement foundation in 1974.

Ina said that her mother named her after one of the girls who died in the Old Mill fire. It was an eerie example of life imitating art, or so I thought. I questioned the sisters about their account as the only girls who were reported dead following the fire were named “Eva”, “Glenna,” and “Hyacinth”. They were confused about the details, but were firm in their conviction that their expectant mother had been friends with one of the young mothers who lost a child that day in 1915 and so named one of her twin daughters in her memory, almost the exact account of the fictional Miss Abernathy in my novel completed four years earlier.

Then, when reviewing Roy C. Cashdollar’s History of Chester: The Gateway to the West (Part II) recently for a blog post, I was reminded of another story, perhaps one that had been lodged in the back of my mind and resurfaced as Miss Abernathy’s tale. Roy wrote:

Here is an interesting and full account of the fire that swept the “Old Mill” ride at Rock Springs Park on June 5, 1915. The fire hit at 7:00 taking three lives; Albert Raymer [sic], age 12 of Chester, Eva Dales, age 14 and Glenna Stout, age 17 of Newell, West Virginia. I was given this account by Glenna Miller of Chester whose mother named her after one of the victims. Mrs. Miller was born a few weeks after the fire.

I don’t claim to be psychic or even necessarily believe in that sort of thing, but there have been more than a small number of unusual coincidences involving my work on the book and subsequent experiences sharing the history of the park. Keep checking back for MORE!