Waldameer Amusement Park

Waldameer Amusement Park is the fourth oldest still-operating trolley park in existence, the fourth oldest amusement park in Pennsylvania, and the 10th oldest amusement park in the United States, located at the entrance to Presque Isle. Waldameer began as a picnic area called Hoffman's Grove. Originally, the park's main attraction was its beach on the lake; it was a popular destination in Erie for people to go and escape the summer heat. The Erie Electric Motor Company purchased the 65-acre park in 1896 and renamed it Waldameer, German for woods by the sea. The trolley car company extended service to its new park, making Hoffman's Grove picnic area a terminus on the line in the hopes of increasing passenger traffic.Trolley Parks were started in the 19th century by streetcar companies to encourage people to patronize the trolleys on weekends. Picnic groves and recreation areas along or at the ends of streetcar lines eventually grew with the addition of pavilions, hosting dances, concerts and fireworks. Swimming pools, Ferris wheels, carousels, roller coasters, boats rides, ball fields and restaurants were eventually added, leading to the development of large amusement parks.

Waldameer began with a dance hall, carousel, three roller coasters, and a beer garden with singing waiters. The Trolley company begun building up the park by adding a $1000 dance hall and carousel. Three roller coasters were built, the first being Dip the Dips in 1907, and the last was the Scenic Railway in 1915 at a cost of $30,000. Prohibition in 1919 caused Waldameer to close one of its most popular attractions, the Hofbrau German Beer Garden, complete with singing waiters. The 1920s was the golden age of the amusement park industry. The largest roller coaster the Ravine Flyer was opened in 1922, then came the Old Mill. Many other attractions were added in the 1920s under the general management of Alex Moeller. The Depression of the 1930s brought on the most challenging decade of the Park’s existence. Talking movies and the repeal of prohibition helped attendance, but tough times continued, including a tragedy on the evening of August 8, 1938, when the Ravine Flyer did not clear the hill following the bridge. A woman panicked and her brother stood up to calm her. The ride came to a sudden stop and he fell to his death on Peninsula Drive. The ride was closed for 70 years following the accident.

With an improving economy more rides were added and new dance hall was built — replacing the one that burned down in 1937. A local contest was held for a name and Rainbow Gardens was selected. Even though World War II limited the park’s expansion Waldameer continued to thrive while other amusement parks went out of business because of material shortages and travel restrictions. In 1945, Alex Moeller became owner of the Park and an 11-year-old Paul Nelson (a family friend) began working. With the opening of Disneyland in 1955 attention soon shifted to large corporate theme parks, smaller parks were struggling to stay in business; Waldameer though, in the 50’s, was expanding and continuing to attract visitors with the addition of new rides and attractions. 1951 saw the addition of the Comet roller coaster and in the mid 50s, Monkey Island was closed to make room for even more attractions — reportedly the government bought all the monkeys for the space program.

The early 60s were a quiet period. In 1965 Alex Moeller died, and Paul Nelson, General Manager at the time, took over management of the business. He immediately began the upgrading and modernization of the Park’s aging infrastructure. 1970 saw the addition of the Whacky Shack and kicked off a long period of expansion. Attractions that were built then included the Pirate's Cove, L. Ruth Express Train (named after Alex Moeller’s widow), Paratrooper & Spider. The Sky Ride was added in 1978 when Paul Nelson assumed full ownership of the park. In 1988 Waldameer sold its classic carousel at auction for more than $1 million, using the proceeds to replace the carousel and purchase new equipment. A new carousel with sixty operating horses was obtained from Chance Manufacturing. The owner intended to construct a new restaurant called The Carousel next to the Rainbow Gardens banquet hall. A 10-foot giraffe and a jumping horse from the classic carousel were reserved from the auction to be used in the new restaurant. Part of the auction proceeds was used to erect four additional water slides — a speed slide, free fall slide, one-man and two-man raft sides — all built by Molded Fiberglass Company of Union City.

Many other family owned amusement parks have closed throughout the years in the face of rising property values, aging facilities, and the decline of the middle class that has provided much of their picnic business. But Nelson, after working his whole life to own and control Waldameer Park, has refused to join the others whom have liquidated their parks into a cash asset; Instead, starting in 1985, Nelson has spent over 30 million dollars on transformations. Waldameer today is a regional attraction that has outlasted several of its corporate-owned competitors.