A Ghostly Image

At the top of page 111 in the book, under a photograph of the old arcade building, I wrote, “The arcade, in need of a good paint job during the final years of Rock Springs Park, looks spooky in this photograph taken in 1974. Many amusement parks today extend their season by offering Halloween-related activities during the fall. Based on these photographs, Rock Springs Park would have made for a terrific fright night.” But I did not discover until this week that there actually was a ghost in the photograph given to me courtesy of Mike West, or a ghostly image at least.

In my previous blog post, I wrote about the arcade building and how it was used as a beer garden in the 1940s and originally constructed as a Fun House. Last summer Sayre Graham shared the image below with me from his father’s collection. The photograph is not a postcard, but one of a series from The Finley Brothers Construction Company demonstrating various projects they built in the park and the Chester Area.

This is the only image I have ever seen showing the arcade with murals freshly painted on the façade. If one compares this picture with ones of the arcade in later years, including Mike’s photo (see previous blog post), it becomes clear that certain changes were made over the years. For one, the second floor center balcony window was boarded up and below on either side of the front door two small diamond windows were added. In addition, it seems that between the original mural painting in the late 1920s and the rustic look in 1970, the arcade most likely did not get repainted, or if it did, one ghostly image, that of the sun on the left tower remained visible, even if just barely so. See it?

The Beer Garden

Apparently, I am not alone in my frenzy to look up information in the 1940 U.S. Census. According to Google.com, the census was the most searched item when it was released on Monday, April 2, 2012 receiving some 22.5 million hits in three hours and crashing the system. Once it was back online, I looked up my family, as many others did, to see how much money they made and what they were doing when the nation was still trying to recover from the Great Depression. But I was also interested in finding out more about Rock Springs Park.

One new thing I learned involves the old park building pictured above.

The image is of The Arcade. It was taken along the midway in 1974, four years after the park closed, and sent to me by Dr. Mike West. Mike grew up on Louisiana Avenue in Chester, on a side street which ended at the Cyclone's chain lift hill. He fondly recalls playing the "5-cent pinball and baseball games" in The Arcade and listening to the screams of park patrons plunging down the first hill of the roller coaster.

Originally, The Arcade that Mike knew was built as a fun house during the C.C. Macdonald Years. It featured a giant two-story slide and a confusing hall of mirrors. There were actually two mirrors still outside the entrance in Mike's day (See below).

I have also seen a one of a kind 1920's photograph showing the facade of The Fun House completely covered with painted murals featuring bow-legged characters strolling about under the name “Honey Moon Trail” in all caps. The tower on the left in the photograph had a wide-eyed sun smiling down and the opposite tower a winking moon. Above the door was painted “Fun-Fun & More Fun.” Unfortunately by the time Mike took his photograph, the decorations were gone and the building was weather-beaten and bare.

According, to author and Chester historian, Roy C. Cashdollar, The Arcade or Fun House had a third use as well, which brings me back to my original purpose in writing this post. “Right across from the lunch stand was the horse race game, then the fun house, which in later years became a beer garden.” At the end of his description Roy added, “I purchased two chairs from the beer garden at the park auction and they are still being used – one as I write these notes.”

The Beer Garden Days of The Fun House and the park itself also get a mention in the 1940 Census. One listing shows 50-year old George Zagula as unmarried and living with his sister, Agnus Stabryla. Zagula was born in Poland and “ran the Beer Garden (Part of 39).” I am assuming “39” has something to do with Rock Springs Park as George’s brother, Jacob Zagula, age 53, married with nine children, was also identified on the Chester census with his job description being “labor - amusement park.”

So, Chester’s German Beer Garden was run by two Polish immigrant brothers. This seems to be fitting considering the strained relations of these two European countries throughout history.

A beer garden (a loan translation from the German "Biergarten") is most often an outdoor area in which beer, other drinks, and local food are served. Rock Springs Beer Garden was originally a Fun House walk through attraction. The painting is Im Biergarten or At the Beer Garden by Adolph Friedrich Erdmann von Menzel, 1883.

Where is it today? The Arcade along with most of the other buildings in Rock Springs Park were razed by 1975 when the land was sold to make way for a cloverleaf exchange to the new Chester Bridge.

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.