Ohio River Bridge Becomes Toll-Free

Friday, June 15, 1951

On this date, the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette reported that the Chester Bridge officially became toll-free.

Ceremonies Held At East Liverpool

East Liverpool, O., June 15 (Special) - The state-owned Ohio River Bridge between here and Chester, W.Va., became toll-free today.

Ohio Atty. Gen. C. William O'Neill and William Ansel Jr., West Virginia state treasurer, spoke at ceremonies marking the end of tolls on the 55-year-old span.

Operated by Commision

The Bridge has been operated by the Ohio Bridge Commission since 1938. An East Liverpool delegation, headed by Chamber of Commerce President Robert Hays, had accused the commission of deliberately holding up freeing the bridge in order to keep the commission in business.

Route 30, the Lincoln Highway crosses the structure. Many Pittsburgh residents use the bridge.

The commission announced it has some $80,000 more than necessary to pay off all obligations on the East Liverpool bridge.

Chester VFD's First Annual Picnic Held at RSP

Thursday, June 14, 1928

On this date in Rock Springs Park history, the Chester Volunteer Fire Department held its first annual basket picnic and frolic at the park. The day included guest fire departments from the surrounding area, sporting events, dancing, beauty contests and a special added event "a spectacular fireworks display showing burning buildings with firemen in action.”

Frolic At Rock Springs Park

Beaver Daily Times - June 8, 1928

The volunteer fire department of Chester, W.Va., will hold their first annual basket picnic and frolic at Rock Springs Park, Thursday, June 14. Guest volunteer fire departments are expected from surrounding towns, New Cumberland, Weirton, Clinton, Imperial, Burgettstown, McDonald, Midway, Carnegie, Wellsburg, Midlway, Carnegie, Wellsville, Salinesville, Toronto district, Lisbon and many others.

There will be prizes for the oldest fire equipment, the best fire eguipment, and a prize to the company having the most members present on this day. A popularity and beauty conteset will be held, also a baseball game and sport events.

There will be dancing afternoon and evening in beautiful Virginia Gardens and a special added event will be a spectacular fireworks display showing burning buildings with firemen in action.

Chester’s first self-propelled fire engine replaced an earlier horse-drawn rig, and was built by American LaFrance. By 1916, American LaFrance produced a 6-cylinder, gas-powered pumping apparatus that performed so well it literally spelled the end of the steam engine. American LaFrance continues to produce fire equipment after nearly 200 years of service.

Freels Foundation Sells RSP Carousel Horses

Saturday, June 13, 1998

On this date in Rock Springs Park history, The Freels Foundation’s American Carousel Museum in San Francisco, a non-profit organization for the preservation of carousels, sold its rare collection of Rock Springs Park’s Daniel Muller-designed horses at auction. On its website Brass Ring Entertainment of Sun Valley California, the present owner of the Dentzel, is offering the carousel with a combination of original and reproduction horses at an estimated cost of 1.5 million dollars.

Pinterest Interest

A new website called Pinterest, a self-described online pinboard, offers users the chance to "organize and share things (they) love."

What is shared under the heading "History and Vintage" are images of historical figures, newspaper headlines, antique advertisements, vintage gowns, and unusual toys and signage. Most have some heavy historical significance, including the assassination of JFK, the construction of the Statue of Liberty in Paris, and many photographs of Abraham Lincoln, ranging from his youthful beardless days to weathered and worn war portraits.

Of the 108 "pins" uploaded so far, one includes Rock Springs Park; a postcard image which also appears on the dedication page of Images of America: Rock Springs Park. It shows a wedding ceremony held in the park in 1908.

Rock Springs Park hosted an outdoor wedding in 1908. The wedding party stands on the arched bridge that once spanned the Shoot-the-Chutes ride in the upper park. In the background, park patrons take a thrilling ride on the Figure Eight coaster, while the bride and groom, dressed like two figures atop a wedding cake, exchange their vows.

The pinup from appalachianhistory.net incorrectly describes the wedding as taking place "on the roller coaster track." Closer inspection shows the coaster in the background and the soon-to-be-married couple standing on an arched bridge which spanned the Shoot-the-Chutes Ride. Still, it is nice to see the park get a nod among so many iconic images.

Here, Leap the Dips replaces the Figure Eight, but the arched bridge still spans the Chutes drop.

See the image at http://pinterest.com/pin/149533650097889191/.

The Proposal

Before there was an Images of America: Rock Springs Park book, there was a proposal.



Summary of Proposed Book Content

Rock Springs Park was an amusement park located in the Ohio River Valley town of Chester, West Virginia. Native Americans originally visited the springs and surrounding glade for hunting, and it is widely believed that George Washington drank from Rock Springs on one of his trips along the Ohio River. According to A History of Chester: The Gateway to the West by Roy C. Cashdollar, the land for the park was first donated for church picnics in 1857. Rock Springs Park was developed in 1897 in conjunction with a local bridge company to increase ridership on the new street car railway. Over the years, the park grew steadily, attracting large crowds daily until it was closed in 1970 to make way for a new bridge and cloverleaf ramp.

The story of Rock Springs Park is the story told in many communities across the United States in the twentieth century. A local trolley park was created at the turn of the century as a profit-making venture for a big transit company, became a weekend destination for hard-working men and their families, sponsored school picnics and offered boating, bathing, dances, and amusements, until peaking in attendance and profits around 1927. It then began a gradual decline and, like others of its kind, disappeared completely due to the automobile and returning war veterans who saw the world and did not want to sit at home. The park represents a significant period in American history, and even though it no longer exists, Rock Springs Park somehow draws people back to their lost childhoods.

I was only six years old when the park closed and eleven when the buildings were razed and the land leveled to make way for Route 30’s approach to the Jennings Randolph Bridge. But, for me, there was something hypnotic about the ghostly sun-bleached skeleton of the Cyclone roller coaster that ran parallel to the first base line of our school playground’s ball field. It was something that drew me away from my right-fielder responsibilities, so I found myself staring though the gate at a fantasy land wondering what magical things were happening on the other side. I could see the face of a green goblin mocking me from the front doors of the spook house dark ride and daring me to climb over the fence. I could practically reach out and touch the first hill chain lift of the Cyclone, and would imagine the carousel horses trapped inside the boarded up octagonal pavilion. I wanted to toss down my baseball mitt and wander over the tree-lined hillside and drink, just once, from the famed Rock Springs.

Those are my personal memories, but the fact is that this park was a magical place not only to me but also to thousands of others who hold memories of Rock Springs Park, people who would certainly enjoy the opportunity to share those memories with their children, grandchildren and great grandchildren through a book about the park.

My book will cover the history of Rock Springs Park, from its use by Native Americans through its heyday and eventual demise, with dozens of never before published photos. It will tell the story of the thirty-two year search for the park’s famed 1920s carousel, one of the last produced by the Dentzel Company, and recount for the reader the dramatic events of the sudden blaze that destroyed the Old Mill, in which “pandemonium reigned” and “scores of women fainted in the red glare of the flames.” My book will also highlight the pursuit of many from the Tri-State area who have tried to recapture the magic of Rock Springs Park. People like Dr. James Smith who left his hometown following graduation in 1944 and, influenced by his boyhood trips to Rock Springs Park, amassed one of the largest collections of penny arcade artifacts in the world. Lou Holtz, famed Notre Dame Football coach, who’s Hall of Fame Museum, houses the original carousel Wurlitzer organ from Rock Springs. And fifties teen heart throb, Bobby Vinton, who remembers the Rock Spring Park dances as “a very “romantic time with the music…almost like something in the movies.”

Please permit me to revisit Rock Springs Park and let the magic live again.

Virginia Gardens Baby Grand Was a Family Heirloom

Charles Clinton (C.C.) Macdonald and wife, Grace, owners of Summit Park in Akron, Ohio, purchased Rock Springs Park in 1926. Macdonald upgraded the aging Victorian park adding the Cyclone, a small zoo, and the Virginia Gardens Ballroom. For two seasons the park saw record attendance and profits, but 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 thirty-five 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.

During their years of operation and ownership of Idlewild Park, the Macdonalds lived in this home directly across Route 30 from the park. The home still stands today.

According to Tish Hand, “The fancy living room with the baby grand piano was in Grace and CC’s mansion in Idlewild. The piano came to Virginia Gardens after Grace's death (October 24, 1964) and was there for many years before the park closed. I don't remember what became of it, but it was offered to us and we had no place for it.”

As the baby grand is not listed among items to be auctioned off in this advertisement from the Beaver County Times, June 19, 1974, perhaps it was donated to a local church or sold to a local buyer prior to the auction. Does anyone know what happened to it?

(Click on image to enlarge.)

Rock Springs Park in Winter

"The Christmas Song" (commonly subtitled "Chestnuts Roasting on an Open Fire") is a classic Christmas song written in 1944 by musician, composer, and vocalist Mel Tormé (aka The Velvet Fog), and Bob Wells. According to Tormé, the song was written during a blistering hot summer, “In an effort to stay cool by thinking cool."

"I saw a spiral pad on his piano with four lines written in pencil", Tormé recalled. "They started, 'Chestnuts roasting..., Jack Frost nipping..., Yuletide carols..., Folks dressed up like Eskimos.' Bob (Wells, co-writer) didn't think he was writing a song lyric. He said he thought if he could immerse himself in winter he could cool off. Forty minutes later that song was written. I wrote all the music and some of the lyrics."

So perhaps, on this hot summer day, if we immerse ourselves in images of Rock Springs Park in winter, we can achieve the same effect.

View of Lower Park entrance in winter 1970, from the collection of Rich Brookes.  

Spring (left) and stairs in winter 1970, from the collection of Rich Brookes.

“On the Rocks” in winter 1970, from the collection of Rich Brookes.

Lower Picnic Park looking toward the lake in winter 1970, from the collection of Rich Brookes.

Rock Springs Park view of the Cyclone in winter 1946, from the collection of Sherry Emery.

Rock Springs Park view midway in winter 1946, from the collection of Sherry Emery.

Rock Springs Park view of the lower picnic park in winter 1946, from the collection of Sherry Emery.

Well, did it work? Here's my favorite version of the "The Christmas Song." Enjoy!