Kings Island - Part 2: Coney Island Resurrected.

February 02, 2019 by Dave Gottwald

Just beyond the Disney-esque International Street area lies a major component of Kings Island (and the reason for half its name—I told you I would get to this), and a special one at that. One might argue that the Coney Island area is the sentimental heart of the park, and it represents a great example of meta-theming—here the classic amusement park of old becomes a theme in and of itself within another park.

Vintage postcard, Cincinnati’s Coney Island, 1926.

The Coney Island of the West

Cincinnati’s "Ohio Grove, The Coney Island of the West" opened in 1886 on the banks of the Ohio river, and was named to capitalize upon New York’s already famous seaside resort and amusement boardwalk; for the second season the park made this even more explicit and shortened its moniker to simply “Coney Island.” The park was popular and seasonal attendance was high. Citizens of Cincinnati and the surrounding area came to view their Coney Island as a much-beloved local institution.

Vintage postcard, Cincinnati’s Coney Island.

The above postcard perfectly illustrates the park’s strong aesthetic and kinetic link to the New York original, as well as all such early twentieth century amusement parks and boardwalk areas from California and Colorado to the mid-Atlantic Seaboard and Massachusetts. Popcorn and peanuts, wooden roller coasters and balloons, carousels and carnival midway games and cotton candy. You can almost smell it.

Cincinnati’s Coney Island underwater, 1968.

The problem with Cincinnati’s Coney Island, despite its overwhelming popularity, was its location. The Ohio River was prone to seasonal flooding, and the park was frequently damaged as a result. By the storms of 1968 pictured above, talks were underway to reestablish the park at a new location, still close to the Cincinnati metro area, but far from the unpredictable riverbanks.

Vintage postcard, Cincinnati’s Coney Island, mid-to-late sixties.

The park was wildly popular with the public, attracting over one million guests in 1970. Obviously Taft Broadcasting, Coney Island’s new owner and the developer of the soon to open Kings Island, couldn’t just shutter the old park and expect people to embrace a new one, sight unseen.

So the idea was to honor the park’s 85-year-old legacy and disassemble and move many of Coney Island’s attractions to the new Kings Island—classic flat rides dating back to the 1920s and 30s such as Dodgem, Monster, Scrambler, The Whip, and The Wild Mouse—as well as more recent additions like a Von Roll Sky Ride (1965) and even an Arrow log flume called Race for Your Life (1968) which was the most expensive in the park, constructed for some $500,000, a fortune at the time.

The park closed in its original form forever on September 6, 1971. However just two years later, Cincinnati’s Coney Island reopened in a somewhat reduced incarnation, and today it remains a popular water park destination featuring the famous Sunlite Pool, the largest recirculating swimming pool in the world.

Coney Island area on Kings Island 1989 souvenir park map poster.

When Kings Island finally opened in 1972 after years of development, this area was simply called Coney Island in tribute to the original park. For the 1980 season—and I couldn’t discover why; perhaps a desire for more pointed literalism—the area was renamed Old Coney. In 1986 the name changed again to Coney Mall and has remained that way ever since.

The Racer Which Started a Renaissance

The great wooden roller coasters of Cincinnati’s Coney Island did not make the move to the new park and were demolished. However, it was decided to build one from scratch. The flagship attraction of Coney Mall today—and indeed all of Kings Island when it opened—is The Racer, and its place in the history of American roller coasters is legendary. For The Racer is credited by historians as single-handedly sparking the American “Coaster Renaissance” of the 1970s and 80s.

In the years between the Depression and the end of the 1960s, countless old amusement parks across the United States and their beloved classic wooden roller coasters, or “woodies,” had been burned, were quietly closed, and/or demolished for redevelopment. Many of these rides were designed by the legendary John C. Allen of Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters (PTC), and in 1964 his Blue Streak opened at Cedar Point and was the first coaster to be built there since before World War II.

Seeking to capitalize on the popularity of the Shooting Star (1947) woodie at Cincinnati’s Coney Island, Kings Island literally brought Allen out of retirement to design The Racer, a dual track coaster with a first drop of 88 feet and a top speed of 53 miles per hour (in 1972, this was record-setting). Racing coasters, in which two separate trains run alongside each other, were extremely popular during the 1920s, but none had been built since. The traditional “out and back” layout of The Racer is ridiculously long (some 3,415 feet), so here’s a panorama taken from the observation deck of the park’s Eiffel Tower replica (264 feet in the air).

Peering down from that same vantage you can admire the amount of landscaping that the park dedicated to the Coney Island / Old Coney / Coney Mall area. In fact, that was one of the most impressive aspects of the park as a whole—all the trees and bushes were well-kept, and there was shade in abundance almost everywhere. The effect was rather charming (though certainly not on par with Disney).

Coney Mall recreates the original midway feeling of Cincinnati’s Coney Island park with a single, wide thoroughfare chocked full of arcades, game booths, and traditional food and beverage concessions. If it wasn’t for people staring intently (and distractedly) at their smartphone screens while paying for softball throws with a credit card swipe, this could be the early twentieth century at any state fair or travelling carnival in the United States.

And why did The Racer generate such national interest, leading parks old and new all over the United States to begin building their own coasters at a fantastic rate? Many claim it was actually The Brady Bunch.

In August of 1973 the popular television sitcom shot an episode at Kings Island, “The Cincinnati Kids,” which aired the following November and featured a family ride on The Racer in a prominent sequence. It would seem nearly everyone in the country saw it, because the park experienced record attendance for the 1974 season as a result.

In the above clip you can watch The Bradys ride The Racer in “The Cincinnati Kids.”

Rollercoaster! quarterly, 1985. — *Rollercoaster!* quarterly, 1985.

American Coaster Enthusiasts (ACE) was founded in 1978 in the wake of the American amusement park’s second golden age which was begun with the success of The Racer. Even over a decade later, the ride was popular enough to be featured on the cover of the organization’s quarterly publication Rollercoaster! (likely in tribute to the ride’s enormous influence, as there wasn’t even an article about it in that issue).

This meta-theming—a nostalgic amusement park within another theme park—was first pioneered at Kings Island, but the trick has since been pulled elsewhere.

Lost Kennywood

In 1995, Kennywood near Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania added a Lost Kennywood section to their park. Kennywood has a rich heritage dating back to the 1890s, and was even granted landmark status in 1987 (one of only two amusement parks listed in the National Register of Historic Places). Lost Kennywood, which the park calls “a themed area you’d only find in Kennywood, presenting rides and architecture of days gone by,” faithfully recreates (as much as possible) the look and feel of the original park in the early decades of the twentieth century, complete with majestic fountains and a Shoot-the-Chutes ride called, nostalgically, the Pittsburg Plunge (from 1890–1911 Pittsburgh was spelled without the 'h').

Paradise Pier

Disney even got into the act when their California Adventure park opened on Disneyland’s former parking lot in February of 2001. An entire land dedicated to the early twentieth century seaside amusement park—some of which like the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk and Belmont Park in San Diego, still operate in California today—the Paradise Pier area featured an oversize Ferris wheel-type ride and a coaster called California Screamin’ which was constructed to appear like a classic woodie but was actually made of steel.

The supreme (some say disgraceful) irony here is that in developing Disneyland, Walt Disney was reacting against exactly these kinds of parks, which he considered seedy places run by “tough-looking people.” His park would be the anti-Coney Island. Paradise Pier has since been rethemed into Pixar Pier, and California Screamin’ is now home to the characters from The Incredibles (2004), having been redubbed the Incredicoaster in 2018 to coincide with the opening of the film’s sequel.

Parks Within Parks

As I observed while visiting Cedar Point, both classic amusement parks and their roller coasters are a distinct form of American visual culture. Wood coasters in particular have an unmistakable form to them (so much so that Disney was inspired to design a modern steel coaster aping a wood structure, down to the smallest details on each and every support).

This is the power of the meta-theme, and what makes possible (read: credible) that one type of familiar amusement park—frozen in setting as a particular time and place—can exist as a land within a larger park.

Just as with the Old West, no one needs to have any first-hand memories of Cincinnati’s original Coney Island, or any other such amusement park from the early twentieth century, to understand Coney Mall at Kings Island. Basically, Disneyland’s Frontierland and Cedar Point’s Frontier Town work even if you’ve never even seen a Western movie or visited a Western state; it’s just in the American cultural bloodstream. It’s the same reason I can know what Breaking Bad is (and even understand a bit of its premise) without having ever seen a single episode.

Remnants of The Bat

There is one last bit of design I’d like comment on within Kings Island’s Coney Mall area, and it’s what I call a thematic remnant. The station for Vortex (1987), an Arrow steel looper featuring six inversions, has a Victorian station that’s decidedly gothic in appearance. The building could almost be a haunted house attraction; all that’s missing is a belfry, some fog, and some creepy organ music.

For a Reagan-era vintage coaster, Vortex is ridiculously photogenic. The park is well aware of this; there is even a path alongside much of the ride’s footprint clearly intended for picture taking.

But the beauty of the ride’s structure, layout, and landscaping isn’t connected to the theme of its station at all. The name Vortex certainly doesn’t help us either.

The Bat on Kings Island 1982 souvenir park map poster.

But you see, Vortex wasn’t always there. Sitting on this same exact footprint for a very short time (1981–1983 and running intermittently, at that) was a suspended coaster prototype, also developed by Arrow, called The Bat.

Original Bat marquee, circa 1982.

The ride’s logo was simply delicious, almost belonging on an early eighties Ozzy Osbourne album cover. And considering the appropriately Medieval blackletter typography, suddenly the gothic castle vibe of Vortex’s station makes total sense.

The coaster station is a thematic remanent, left over from the previous tenant, The Bat. The disastrous, spectacular failure of this suspended prototype, which Arrow would fix a year later with the debut of The Big Bad Wolf at Busch Gardens Williamsburg, has been well-documented (I recommend this extensive post at the Kings Island official blog if you’re curious about the details). So why was the station left? Quite frankly, the failure of The Bat had cost Arrow and their relationship with Kings Island dearly. They needed to make good on replacing the ride with Vortex, and they had to do so without breaking the bank. The station was neither replaced, nor redesigned, nor rethemed; it was a cost-saving measure.

Some of concrete footers which held the steel support columns for The Bat still remain in and around the layout of Vortex to this day like grave markers.

Arrow eventually returned to Kings Island with its tenth (and final) perfected suspended coaster model during the years when Paramount owned the park. The ride thus opened as Top Gun (1993) but retained its naval aircraft theme sans-Tom Cruise as Flight Deck (2006) after Cedar Fair bought the property.

Given the incredible nostalgia that Cincinnati locals have for their long-vanquished winged mammal, Kings Island made good and rechristened the coaster The Bat for the 2014 season. The ride also received a new paint job reminiscent of its predecessor. Although riders swear it pales in comparison to the original, I really appreciate it when parks honor their history like this. I loved riding The Bat v2.0, but one thing’s for sure—the new logo can’t even hold a candle to the old one. It looks like a sports franchise!

The above camcorder footage, a full-circuit POV on The Bat during its April, 1981 grand opening, also includes a vintage television advertisement for the ride, demonstrating its gothic horror theme. Knowing, as I did, a bit of the coaster’s tragic history when I visited Kings Island made discovering the station for Vortex—this thematic remanent, virtually untouched—a delightful surprise.

It’s details like this at thematic environments the world over that enhance (for me, at least) the delicate, layered history of these places. I think this rather unremarkable coaster station was perhaps my favorite discovery of all at Kings Island.

Continued in Part 3.

Kings Island - Part 1: It's Good to Be the King.

January 26, 2019 by Dave Gottwald

The 1970s were a boom time for theme park development. Everywhere, in every corner of the United States, everyone wanted their own Disneyland. Some parks, as I’ve noted with Cedar Point, would leverage their long history, pivot their marketing strategy, and retrofit Disney-esque elements to their offerings to become “The Disneyland of” whatever region they were in.

Still more parks were designed from scratch, and for some reason they came as siblings in pairs. There were two by the Marriott Corporation, both named Great America—one in Northern California and one between Chicago and Milwaukee. The California park is owned today by Cedar Fair and the Midwestern one has been owned by Six Flags since 1984.

The Anheuser-Busch Company had begun a rather humble effort during the early twentieth century to entertain patrons near their brewery sites with flora and fauna, the first of which was in Pasadena, California (1905–1937). A second followed in nearby Van Nuys after World War II (1964–1979 with a South Pacific theme) and then one in Texas (1971–1973 with an Asian theme). Only two remain today: sister parks in Tampa, Florida (opened in 1959 with an African theme) and Williamsburg, Virginia (opened in 1975 with a European theme). Both are now owned by SeaWorld.

Kings Island satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

We Two Kings

And then there are the “Two Kings” which were opened by the Cincinnati-based Taft Broadcasting Company (now defunct). In much the same way that Marriott’s Great America parks were conceived, Kings Island (Ohio) and Kings Dominion (Virginia) were designed as twin sisters with the same basic layout. Kings Island opened on April 29, 1972 and Kings Dominion followed three years later on May 3. Construction began on the second park barely after the first summer season at Kings Island had finished.

Kings Island (left) as compared with Kings Dominion (right). Map data: Ⓒ Google.

Just like the Great America parks, the Kings have evolved on their own independent paths since the 1970s, adding (and subtracting) their own unique themed lands and attractions. Today the only remaining similar characteristics appear to be in and around the central entry corridor called International Street.

How did these parks get their names? Kings Island is a combination of Kings Mill, the name of the region in Ohio where the park was built, and Cincinnati’s Coney Island (more on this later). This was the winning name in a public contest which received over 100,000 entries in 1970. As for its sister park, the Taft Company kept Kings (always hold onto a solid brand once it’s established) and combined it with the traditional nickname for its new home state of Virginia, "Old Dominion.”

A third park with many similar design elements, Canada’s Wonderland, was opened by Taft in 1981 just north of Toronto.

Both of these Kings (along with Canada’s Wonderland) are now owned by Cedar Fair after having spent some years owned by Paramount Parks, which Cedar Fair absorbed in 2006 as a result of parent company Viacom being split apart. Which means, among other things, more hyperbolic park guide maps.

Kings Island 1972 souvenir park map poster.

The opening season’s park map poster is quite artful by comparison, and was lovingly rendered in the sort of painterly, slightly cartoonish illustration style which was very popular for theme parks during this era. Unfortunately in these contemporary, corporate times, this kind of creative flourish is increasingly rare. Disney and Universal still manage it. But many theme parks now communicate like so many other large businesses; there is less fantasy, less magic.

Kings Island’s original wordmark.

And back in the early seventies—what magic! I particularly like the thick, medieval, blackletter typography of the park’s original logo, which is still trotted out from time to time on commemorative merchandise.

Disneyland’s current wordmark, refined over the years.

Although Kings Island would contain no fantasy elements, it’s quite obviously derivative of Disneyland’s wordmark, as well it should be.

It’s important to note that (unlike Cedar Point) Kings Island was designed and developed as a theme park from the very beginning. An article in the July 1972 issue of Cincinnati Magazine on King Island’s opening season quotes General Manager Gary Wachs: “We take elements of fantasy, excitement, warmth, nostalgia, and legend and put them all together.” Mr. Wachs might have also added “with Disney’s playbook” but he doesn’t have to.

Cincinnati architect Darrell W. Daniel was the park’s primary designer, along with Dick Harsley of Cincinnati’s Coney Island (again, more on this later). Former Disney artist Bruce Bushman (who had moved on to Hanna-Barbera) and Charles Thompson also worked on the park’s design (Thompson had worked on Six Flags Over Texas after leaving Disney) and sources at Kings Island also claim even Roy Disney lent some advice to the project’s managers on feasibility.

In the same article, Gary Wachs notes that they were very thorough. “We knew the elements we wanted to incorporate into the new park, but we went through 150 different concepts for the park’s physical layout before we found one we all agreed on.” And what they did agree on was something which felt a lot like Disneyland.

Vintage postcard, International Street. — Vintage postcard, *International Street*.

International (Europe) Street

Both Kings Island and Kings Dominion feature a central entry corridor called International Street, which is clearly a variation of Disney’s Main Street U.S.A. concept. This is no accident—the area’s primary designer was Bruce Bushman who had worked on Disneyland (particularly the Fantasyland dark rides). There’s a terrific nine-part documentary produced in 2009 by CET (Cincinnati's PBS station) called Riding History to the Limits which chronicles the design, development, construction, opening, and early years of Kings Island. I’ve gotten my information on Bushman’s role (along with many other smaller details) from those videos, and I highly recommend them if you’re interested in the history of Kings Island. Sadly Bushman passed away the February before Kings Island opened.

From this entry corridor, guests had a choice of four additional lands on opening day: Oktoberfest (Bavarian), Coney Island (wait for it…more on this later!), Rivertown (frontier backwoods) and lastly some exclusive IP with The Happy Land of Hanna-Barbera (the cartoons of… you guessed it).

THe original four-leaf clover layout of Kings Island. Underlay map data: Ⓒ Google.

Those four lands, plus International Street and the Eiffel Tower replica at the heart of it all, formed a kind of four-leaf clover in the original design. One could argue that this was an improvement on Disneyland’s hub-and-spoke model, in which each of the lands branching off from the central plaza lead to dead ends. In the park’s early years, you always had to return to the hub to choose a new land. At Kings Island, all the lands were interconnected from the start on opening day.

In essence, Kings Island had most of the ingredients of a Disney Magic Kingdom-style park: nostalgia (here channeled into both the “Old Country” European variety of International Street and amusement parks of days past in Coney Island), fantasy and animation (in the Oktoberfest and Hanna-Barbera areas), and the American frontier past of Rivertown. When the park partnered with Lion Country Safari in their third season, they gained a monorail (exciting technology of the future, like Tomorrowland) and wild animals in a jungle setting (just like Adventureland, but not animatronic). All the pieces.

International Street featured three dozen shops and eateries representing the European countries of France, Germany, Italy, Spain, and Switzerland on opening day.

International Street area on Kings Island 1972 souvenir park map poster.

This was, of course, a classic format borrowed from the World’s Fair model—packaged cultural tourism as consumption of food, beverages, and goods. Although called International, here we are only dealing with Europe, and a (quite friendly, quite white) Western Europe at that. This Eurocentric “villages” model would be repeated in the design of Busch Gardens “The Old Country” which would open only three years later in the woods of Virginia not far from Colonial Williamsburg.

The “permanent World’s Fair” approach to thematic design would reach an even fuller expression (adding all sorts of countries) at the World Showcase half of Disney’s EPCOT Center which would open in 1982 at Walt Disney World outside Orlando, Florida.

During the parks early years, Kings Island featured a Von Roll Sky Ride which can be seen in the above postcard, just like other such rides at Disneyland and Cedar Point. The gondola was originally built in 1965 for Cincinnati's Coney Island (yes… I will get to this) and was relocated to Kings Island for the park’s opening. The route spanned perpendicular across International Street and the width of the park, as opposed to at Coney Island, where the gondolas travelled the length of the midway. After a shutdown due to extreme winds on April 24, 1977 stranded some 45 park guests 96 feet in the air, as well as low ridership and increasingly rare spare parts, the Sky Ride was removed for the 1980 season.

Key to International Street’s Disneyesque appeal is its employment of the Weenie design concept. Using Disneyland as a reference, Kings Island’s entrance resembles Main Street U.S.A. in that the Royal Fountain with pedestrian walks on either side leads directly to a scale replica of the famed Eiffel Tower—in the same position as Sleeping Beauty’s Castle.

Walt Disney called these attractive visual magnets “weenies” in that they drew guests forward. As the story goes (and although many Disney sources over the years have recounted this origin tale, one does wonder if it’s simply apocryphal), Walt used to beckon the family dog with a small hot dog morsel, perhaps asking for a trick in exchange for a treat. In the same way, all throughout Disneyland’s design “weenies” were placed—the originals were (north, going forward) the castle at the end of Main Street, (west, to the left) the smokestacks of the Mark Twain Riverboat, and (east, to the right) the TWA Moonliner of the Rocket to the Moon attraction. Here the Eiffel Tower at Kings Island serves the same purpose.

In these postcards I’ve collected, you can really see the level of detail that went into the structures on International Street, especially the color schemes.

We can certainly tell that it’s the early seventies; lots of mustard yellows, oranges, drab olive greens, browns and tans. Also taking a cue from Disneyland, popcorn lights adorn the rooflines and provide for a delightful display at nighttime.

La (Faux) Tour Eiffel

The central icon—the castle, the “weenie”—of Kings Island (and later, Kings Dominion) is a one-third scale replica of the Eiffel Tower. The tower is 315 feet tall (some sources say 330 feet) with an observation deck at the top, some 264 feet up in the air. There is also a lower observation platform only 50 feet up for those who are weary of heights. Although the park describes the tower as an accurate replica, I’m not so sure.

The Kings Island version compared with the Paris original. Wikimedia Commons. — The Kings Island version compared with the Paris original. *Wikimedia Commons*.

Their tower appears squatter than the Paris original, and the observation deck definitely looks out of proportion; a great deal larger than it should be. At first I thought the designers (noted Swiss amusement manufacturers Intamin, who built the tower in Graz, Austria) used the reduced scale of one particular dimension to claim a “one-third” reduction overall. But then something occurred to me once I really got under the thing and looked up. The tower isn’t meant to be considered head-on from a distance. That’s why it looks wrong in a 1:1 comparison.

The designers at Intamin cleverly used another one of Disney’s classic techniques—forced perspective—to ensure that the tower looks taller than it actually is when you’re right below it. Just like Sleeping Beauty’s Castle, or the Matterhorn at Disneyland.

Royal Fountain

Just like at Cedar Point, I’m grateful to have had a high vantage from which to photograph various aspects of the park for study. For most parks, I' have to rely on satellite views to really take a close look at how the design of structures are connected and interrelated. But if there’s a tower or gondola ride—eureka!

The Royal Fountain’s relationship to the Eiffel Tower is quite considered. This pool—which recalls the grand tradition of European palaces and pleasure gardens—is 300 feet long, so it mirrors the height of the tower closely. In this way the visual magnet is a one-two punch; the Royal Fountain is a lateral “weenie” and the Eiffel Tower is a vertical one. The park’s designers clearly thought the pool was important, as installation cost half a million (1971!) dollars, double what the water feature was budgeted for. Yet this inclusion is rather precinct, as it predates the awesome draw of the magnificent fountains of Las Vegas Strip at The Mirage and Bellagio resorts over a decade later. Even the Paris resort with its own replica Eiffel Tower (which, to be fair, is far more accurate than the one at Kings Island).

“Italy”

As I was able to observe both on the ground and from up on high at the top of the Eiffel Tower replica, there was originally some care that went into the architectural design details of the various “nations.”

The connections to the Disney construction model are most evident from the air. Individual façades retain unique properties, personality and ‘voice’—especially with regards to the rooflines— but in fact each block is a single structure. This was one of the many innovations pioneered in the thematic design of Disneyland; although Main Street U.S.A. feels very much like a series of independent proprietorships, in actuality it’s simply a very cleverly disguised suburban mall.

Disney has done very well in keeping up the original design intentions at their theme parks, even through decades of remodelling, refurbishment, and repainting. However, Kings Island has not fared as well.

“Spain”

The best example of this erosion of design integrity is in how the buildings are presently painted. Compared to the vintage postcards above, does this look and feel like Spain? These green shades seem to come straight out of a late nineties Southern California gated community surrounding a golf course. Say what you want about the overwhelming Brown and Beige Seventies—there was at least a Mediterranean Old World authenticity to those dusty hues.

Take these bright baby blue trim lines and how they clash with the traditional Mission/ barrel tile roofs. Or the salmon and teal wall treatments. Everything feels almost like a child’s dollhouse.

“France” (Southwest Side)

The design intent is clearly Parisian here, but again, the paint schemes completely ruin the effect. This is an upscale retail district ‘bold and bright’ version of a French urbanscape. All charm is lost.

Again from the air, thematic design tricks are exposed. The upper floors and mansard roofs are false fronts.

One bit of attention to detail that Bushman and the other designers did carefully consider is that there are French-styled structures at both the east and west ‘endcaps’ of International Street so that the Eiffel Tower replica is appropriately flanked with regional relevance. It’s just a shame that these late nineties paint schemes make everything more ‘mall-ish.’

“Switzerland”

In my later research into Kings Island’s design history, I learned that this portion of International Street is supposed to be a Swiss chalet. But when I was visiting the park, I had assumed this was an English cottage. Perhaps the original paint scheme was stronger, but I think this misses the chalet mark.

Again, here is a good aerial view of how each block is a single building with multiple façades.

Ye Olde Starbucks is the most recent tenant in “Switzerland,” just like the company has hung a shingle at Disney parks worldwide as well as other Cedar Fair parks across the United States.

Ironically, in this instance dialing up the color identity would strengthen the motif to suggest more Swiss than English. In other areas on International Street, the schemes are too garish; here they are too mute.

“Germany”

German regional architecture is, I think, more difficult to telegraph to a broad American audience. Because of our inundation with the ‘Disney Version’ of classic European fairy tales throughout the twentieth century, these kinds of castle-like stones and related iconography translates as a sort of Pan-Euro village setting.

“Germany” and “France” (Southeast Side)

I really appreciated the level of variety in the individual façades on this block—different forms, heights, and color schemes. This was (to my eye) the most convincing and immersive thematic design on all of International Street.

From the air, of course, it’s just a disguised strip mall.

Despite renovations which have damaged the original design’s thematic integrity over the years—garish nineties color schemes, the national food and beverage chains, and heaps of generic merchandise being sold in shops which have lost all their unique cultural charm—I liked International Street. It’s certainly the most original thematic design remaining at Kings Island; an adaptation of Main Street U.S.A. whose art director worked on Disneyland himself.

Now it’s time to leave Europe and visit Coney Island…Ohio.

Continued in Part 2.

Cedar Point - Part 4: A Few Additional Point(s).

December 30, 2018 by Dave Gottwald

Apart from the Main Midway (which features restored historic examples of Coney Island-esque entertainment architecture as well as “pocket theming”) and the Frontier Town & Frontier Trail sections (which are comprised of Disney-style Western and some not-so-Western structures and environments, along with historic / relocated / restored structures) the rest of Cedar Point is sort of a grab bag jumble of thematic design. So this final post is for everything at the park that doesn’t really fit anywhere else.

The Kiddy Kingdom playground area pictured above is the only instance I found at the park of the popular “Medieval Fantasy” thematic trope, and this makes sense; there just isn’t a proper setting for a Disneyland-style castle along the shores of Lake Erie. The interpretation here is like a fast food version of Ye Olde Medieval Faire… maybe they were thinking White Castle? The chain’s headquarters, after all, is in Columbus, Ohio.

Miscellaneous Midway

Is this a Boston Market outlet? It sure looks like it. But no, it’s the Midway Market. Ironically the design resembles the “Festival Marketplace” concept which was the brainchild of developer James Rouse, who was an avid disciple of Walt Disney. Rouse built such marketplaces all over the Eastern Seaboard, including the Faneuil Hall Marketplace in Boston, Massachusetts.

Not quite “Theme Park Gingerbread” but this Lost Persons & Message Center sort of functions like Main Street U.S.A.’s Town Hall at Disneyland. The belfry and roofing also resembles that same park’s primary train station.

Just like serving guests as livestock in the farm-like snack bars of Frontier Town, here ice cream is served in a Midwestern dairy barn, complete with white fencing. Given the bright blue highlights, you could almost call the design “Seaside Wisconsin.”

Cedar Point also has some thematic recreations of popular landmarks from elsewhere. Pink’s Hot Dogs has been a Hollywood institution since 1939, and in the late 2000s began licensing its brand further afield as a themed restaurant experience. There are currently Pink’s at places like Universal CItywalk, and there was once one on the Las Vegas Strip. Here the design has been tweaked to appear as more of a beachside eatery, given the location along the shores of Lake Erie. In other words, the seagulls fit just as they would in Venice Beach, California.

Chickie's & Pete's is a sports bar / restaurant chain based in Philadelphia which is famous for their seasoned crab fries. The place is serious about it, too—they trademarked “crab fries” in 2007 and are zealously litigious towards any other restaurant who tries to sell the dish. Yet I’m confused by the design here. The restaurant is famous for crab, but (perhaps due to the name Chickie’s?) this house looks more like a Southern fried chicken establishment, albeit a bit on the “Theme Park Gingerbread” side of things.

Jurassic Lark

At some point, popular media depictions completely colonize the public mind’s perception of a subject—just another example of what Greg Turner-Rahman and I call cinematic subsumption. JAWS (along with its signature John Williams dum-DUM dum-DUM score) owns sharks; if you see a shark in the media, JAWS is invariably referenced. The same goes for dinosaurs—and Steven Spielberg is once again the culprit. Since his 1993 adaptation of Michael Crichton’s best-selling novel Jurassic Park, to see a dinosaur (any dino) is to see it encased—trapped like a mosquito in amber—in that creative context.

So Cedar Point’s Dinosaurs Alive! on Adventure Island is the exact clone (pun intended) you’d expect. The colors and dinos-with-tropical-treescape silhouettes are torn right off the movie’s logo (which itself was based on Chip Kidd’s original book cover design), even down to the expected clumsy substitution of Lithos for the movie’s use of Neuland. I don’t know why second-rate designers always, always swap Neuland for Lithos, but they do. And let’s not get started on the problematic racist implications of using either to depict the jungles of the African continent.

Adventure Island, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

The location for this low-rent animatronic experience is appropriate, however. This “Adventure Island” and the waterways around it was in years past home to such Disney-esque attractions as the Western Cruise (1962–64) then Paddlewheel Excursions (1964–2011). Many of the sights found along the Rivers of America at Disneyland were featured, such as animatronic Native American figures, an old army fort, and a burning settlers cabin.

Cedar Point park map showing waterways and islands, late sixties.

Originally there were three primary islands in this part of the park, surrounded by canals. For the 1965 season, Jungle Larry's Safari Island opened on the topmost (eastmost) one, and this live animal attraction was so popular it was expanded two years later. In 1976 the canals around this island were filled in as the midway was expanded to accommodate new roller coasters such as Corkscrew.

The safari attraction lasted until 1994. The dinos moved to the central island in 2012 and (a year after my visit) went, um, extinct at the end of the 2018 summer season. An immersive, interactive, gamified experience is coming to the island in 2019.

The design of the structures in the Dinosaurs Alive! area do not relate to what people have seen in the Jurassic Park miniland areas of the Universal Studios theme parks. Instead, the Cedar Point designers opted for a more generic “safari” look, one that you can find all over Disney’s Animal Kingdom park, or at the San Diego Zoo, for example. This shorthand for “tropical” is apparently corrugated metal roofing, preferably painted red or orange.

Another way to say “tropical” in thematic design is to utilize barn lighting. As the Barn Light Electric Company defines it,

The term “Barn Light” is a broad classification with a few basic guidelines. As indicated by their name, barn lights originated in agricultural settings, like silos, barns, and farmhouses. These lights performed utilitarian tasks in rugged settings, and their designs reflected this functional mentality.

The four lights across this DINOSTORE sign are of the “Frontier Angle Shade” variety of the Gooseneck fixture model, and are indeed common to industrial settings in tropical climes. And let’s not forget—in Disney fashion—that groan-worthy puns abound. A Dinostore that’s just T-Rific! No Bones About It!

And Lastly, Some Coasters…

Roller coasters, aesthetically, are a kind of theme all to themselves. Especially wooden ones, which connote the turn-of-the-century pleasure beach amusement pier (which Cedar Point actually once was). But sometimes a coaster’s name, the design of a ride’s logo, or its station (the building inside which guests board) and surrounding landscape has its own bits of thematic design.

Although roller coasters with true themed elements have become more popular in recent years beyond the Disney parks (such as Wicker Man at Alton Towers or Mystic Timbers at Kings Island), there aren’t any at Cedar Point anymore—not after the closing of Disaster Transport in 2012. Originally a bobsled roller coaster called Avalanche Run which opened in 1985, the ride was enclosed and given an outer space theme in 1990, making it much like DIsney’s Space Mountain. When it was leveled to make room for GateKeeper, Cedar Point lost its one true themed coaster.

Being a typography aficionado, I really enjoy what a ride’s logo can tell us about the history of an attraction. Gemini is an Arrow dual track steel coaster built on a wooden structure, technically making it a hybrid. First of all, the name is clever for a racing coaster (Gemini, remember, is the dual sign of the twins) and the moniker also recalls NASA’s space program of the 1960s (the Gemini program was the two-person craft which followed the single-seat Project Mercury).

The Gemini logo is quite dated now, being set in Data 70 (designed by Bob Newman), which is derivative of the near-ubiquitous Westminster (designed by Leo Maggs) and also has the same MICR vibes as Amelia (designed by Stanley Davis—think the Beatles and their Yellow Submarine). Set here in an orange and red color scheme, I think of a video arcade in the late 70s and early 80s (MICR and OCR typefaces were widely used in science fiction media to indicate the “future-ness” of computer technology); exactly the trend the park’s designers were hoping to ride. Gemini opened in 1978 and feels precisely of its era.

As I approached Arrow’s Magnum XL-200 I kind of chuckled at the look of the coaster’s station. The ride opened in 1989, but unlike Gemini doesn’t feel of its era at all. What sort of corporate sci-fi brutalist futurism was this? It felt like the 1967 redesign of Disneyland’s Tomorrowland, which Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom opened with in 1971 but which only exists today at Tokyo Disneyland—white concrete, sterile features. Even the bland landscaping in front smacks of a Southern California business park from the Carter years.

Magnum XL-200’s logo could have come right off the poster for Blade Runner, although this silver version installed for the coaster’s 20th anniversary in 2009 is pretty NASCAR looking too.

When I first saw a train depart the station, I got it; it all came together. NASA! The coaster trains are modeled like spaceship rockets of some generic type (again taking a nod from Disney’s Space Mountain), somewhere between Kubrick’s 2001 and the Space Shuttle. Also the reddish-orange steel track reminds of the Apollo gantry tower.

This Space Race theme makes total sense, as Magnum XL-200 opened as the world's tallest, fastest and steepest complete-circuit roller coaster—and the first with a height over 200 feet, ushering in the era of the hypercoaster. The ride’s opening also began something of a coaster arms race, of which Cedar Point was always at the forefront.

Finally, we have Arrow’s Corkscrew. After their prototype at Knott’s Berry Farm (which now resides at Silverwood Theme Park in Athol, Idaho) opened in 1975 and was the first modern roller coaster to feature inversions, Arrow built ten exact copies at parks across the United States during the next four years. For Cedar Point’s more custom layout, Arrow added a vertical loop—yet the ride barely missed grabbing the title of the first modern coaster to invert riders vertically, as Anton Schwarzkopf’s Revolution had opened at Magic Mountain just the prior week.

As for the station, I don’t know what this kind of architecture is called. But I’m going with “1970s Japanese Steakhouse Modern.” From the contours of the roof, to the stair railings, to the globe light poles; there’s just a styling here I can taste. And the flavor is definitely teppanyaki, post-Watergate.

The neatest touch I thought was this abstract logomark. Again it’s very of the era—the middle of the 1970s were probably the apex of the corporate identity movement which began in advertising in the mid-sixties. The concept for the Corkscrew and its inversions is given a simple line form; uncomplicated, terrific.

I didn’t find any ride logos or station designs of interest besides these three. The trend in more recent years has been to simply come up with a cool name for a coaster which will look nifty on a sweatshirt (and a logo that usually involves an animal and looks like a major sports team mascot), and the look of the station, trains, and even the terrain and landscape around a ride is not given much thought. This is not true across the board, of course, but I think bland coaster design is certainly the norm.

My final stop on the last night of my visit was the Melt restaurant off the Main Midway. Although Melt is an Ohio chain, the interior design of this location is a museum-quality tribute to Cedar Point’s long history. There are vintage maps, advertising, photographs, and other ephemera all over the place. But I was most taken with this very cool reception area, which is sort of a little chapel for the park’s ride logos, both current and retired.

Well that’s it for my design notes on Cedar Point. Next stop, the park’s relatively close neighbor—Kings Island.

Cedar Point - Part 3: Happy Trails.

December 23, 2018 by Dave Gottwald

Frontier Town was a huge success when it opened at the remote north end of the Cedar Point property for the 1967 season. So popular, in fact, that the Frontier Lift Von Roll gondola was added to increase access to the area the following year, and in 1969 the land was enlarged and the Cedar Creek Mine Ride and Antique Cars attractions were added.

Frontier Trail area, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google. — *Frontier Trail* area, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

The next logical step was carving out a path which guests could walk (at a leisurely pace) to the rear of the park—and this was Frontier Trail, which opened for the 1971 season.

Cedar Point park map showing Fronter Trail, 1974. — Cedar Point park map showing *Fronter Trail*, 1974.

Unlike today’s park guide maps for Cedar Point, this kind of artful rendering pictured above—somewhat abstracted in a cartoonish way—was very popular at the time (every park from Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom to Six Flags Over Texas had maps drawn with this same particular look). I suspect the style was influenced by the design and illustration of Push Pin Studios in New York City, co-founded by the famed Milton Glaser. That shop’s approach to drawing and lettering reached an apex as the 1960s turned to the 70s, and was found everywhere from advertising to animation on Sesame Street.

The highlights of Frontier Trail weren’t flashy midway rides or the roller coasters which Cedar Fair is (still) famous for. Actually, taking a cue from places like Silver Dollar City (Branson, Missouri; opened 1960) and Goldrush Junction (Pigeon Forge, Tennessee; originally opened in 1961 as Rebel Railroad, now Dollywood) the focus was on something with an even a stronger pull than the Old West—Simpler Times, Pioneer Living, and the Arts & Crafts of America’s forefathers.

What’s so strong about this approach is that it spans multiple regions of the country; basically, anywhere Americans once lived in log cabins. From the forests of Upstate New York to the woods of the Midwest all the way down into Appalachia and the Southeast, the setting is not so much geography as it is simply past times; a former way of life.

Frontier Trail brochure, 1971. — *Frontier Trail* brochure, 1971.

The headline “Authentic Log Cabins become Theatres of Pioneer Crafts” from this opening season brochure is incredibly, impossibly precinct. Become theatre. Joseph Pine and James H. Gilmore’s The Experience Economy (1999, updated in 2011) is a groundbreaking text in which the authors describe the evolution of late capitalism from extracting resources, to manufacturing goods, to offering services, and finally to—in this, our present state—staging experiences. In their own words, “Theatre is not a metaphor. Theatre is real.” Here on the Frontier Trail, the various experiences staged—making candles, blowing glass, weaving, whatever—are signifiers of pre-industrial society, but they also represent the staging of the production of the goods to be consumed. It’s very much like the current trend in open kitchens at restaurants.

Here’s something I did not expect to see—steampunk theming. The typography again appears to be from the Letterhead Font Foundry. As usual with such geek subcultures, by the time they’ve made their way beyond the Comic-Cons and WonderCons to mainstream recreation venues like a Cedar Fair or Six Flags park, they’re well past their street-cred expiration date.

The same goes for Voyage to the Iron Reef at Knott’s Berry Farm (2014) or the new mini-land around Twisted Colossus at Six Flags Magic Mountain (2015) . But at least those designs are appropriately set off in their own areas. Here on the Frontier Trail—amid actual historic, relocated pioneer cabins that wildly predate the Victorian Era—it’s totally out of place.

“Authentic Log Cabins” is a bit misleading, because just like at Greenfield Village at the Henry Ford, there is a mixture of the historic / relocated / restored, newly built to look old, and everything in between. Not to mention the props, artifacts, and graphics and signage. Here on the Frontier Trail we have the REAL fake, the FAKE real, the REAL REAL, and the FAKE FAKE.

What on earth do I mean by that? Well, REAL REAL means the design is not trying to fool anyone; it is what it is. And FAKE FAKE means the very same—no one is being fooled, it’s fake and it looks and feels fake too. Things get more slippery with the REAL fake and the FAKE real. Which is this building, The Candle Shop, pictured above? It doesn’t appear to be fake / newly built; it does look to be actually old. In fact, it’s the only structure on the Frontier Trail with a historic marker:

The Hessenauer Cabin
Originally Near Galion, Ohio
Built about 1835 by Early Settler Adam Remsch

So here we have the REAL REAL (though the cabin has been retrofitted inside, there is electric power, there is an ADA access ramp to one side of the front porch, etc).

Another REAL REAL log cabin was originally the Trading Post when the Trail opened, but is now the Candy Shoppe. But there is a catch. If you look carefully at the front porch, it was built around the rather large tree in front of the cabin, and the tree goes through a hole in both the flooring and the roof. So was the roof original to the cabin, and altered in situ to accommodate the tree, or was it built new (to look old) meaning REAL fake? I don’t know, and that’s the conundrum with this stuff.

Across from the Candy Shoppe is the Addington Mill. This is REAL REAL, a water-powered grist mill which was relocated from Macon County in North Carolina. Adding some fakery though is the “Established 1835” when the mill was actually built in 1861. Just like other places I’ve visited like Deadwood, South Dakota, there is a layer cake effect going on—real and fake intermingle to the point where it’s impossible to peel back the onion skin layers to tell which is which.

The Log Cabin Settlement is a grouping of four historic structures, all unique in scale and design. No specific historical markers on any of the four are present (unlike the Hessenauer Cabin) but there is a general notice about the group of cabins as a whole:

Early Ohio settlers often built their log cabins close together for protection, company and cooperative clearing and farming. The first such settlement in Sandusky began in 1790 with the Western migration of “burned out” Connecticut families occupying the new “Western Reserve” and “Firelands” later surveyed by Moses Cleaveland in 1796 and named the Ohio Territory. The cabins here are original dating back to about 1850 and were moved to this site from nearby townships.

Here in this panorama, from left to right, are Paul's Woodcarver Shop, the Fort Sandusky Mining Company, the Frontier Merchant, and Erie County Custom Jewelers.

This shop in particular reminded me of Ghost Town at Knott’s Berry Farm, and in fact Ghost Town is pretty much the same kind of thematic environment—a mixture of historic / restored / relocated and new, built-to-look-old structures with a mix of graphics and signage. Indeed I would be very surprised if the designers of Cedar Point’s Frontier Trail did not do research at Knott’s.

This sign is an example of the FAKE real. I can look at it and tell that this is not a vintage, historial piece. But, unlike the REAL fake, it’s not making any pretense of being authentic, either.

It’s a shame that Cedar Point only hocks mostly generic “Old West” souvenirs in these shops. When Frontier Trail opened, a major selling point of the area was the authentic craft demonstrations and unique wares offered. But in this current era of corporatization, uniformity is more cost-effective. The same thing has happened to DIsney’s parks over the years (and even to Knott’s Berry Farm).

Fort Sandusky is not a historic structure, rather it’s the REAL fake, a recreation of a British fort built in 1761 using period-appropriate materials. The original fort burned down some two years after its construction during the “Pontiac Conspiracy” (we love calling Native American uprisings “massacres” or “conspiracies”—how dare the original inhabitants of this land plot against their invaders!) so this ‘recreation’ can’t possibly be accurate in any real sense; at best it’s probably ‘representative’ of British forts of the era. In an appropriate twist, this fort is comprised of numerous souvenir shops.

The sign is clearly FAKE real, because although it’s designed and painted to look authentic, this recreation represents 1761, and the painted wood type lettering style is from the 1800s. Slab serif typefaces hadn’t been invented yet, but because they telegraph “Old West” to the public at large so effectively, they are employed here.

I actually took this photo from the opposite direction, facing north (back towards the way I was walking from) because I was curious how Fort Sandusky would present from that vantage; it’s a bit more stately.

This is the E.J. Hammer Blacksmith Shop, another historic building (REAL REAL). Unlike some of the other structures on the Trail which no longer feature live craft demonstrations, an actual blacksmith is often here working the bellows and hammering out metal objects (which are of course available in the adjoining shop). The PONY RIDES sign is a silly addition (FAKE FAKE), particularly with the cartoon horse head, but the painted and route-cut wood type behind it on the building is pretty nifty (REAL fake).

Just across the way, this historic log barn is really a wine and beer tasting venue called the Trail Tavern (I guess Ohio actually is a wine producing region, I had no idea). This building used to stage woodworking demonstrations back when the Trail opened, and later as the Toy Barn offered wooden toys and other trinkets for sale. In 2014 the barn was refurbished and reopened as this tavern.

Ok. Coke machines. They’ve got to go somewhere, I suppose. Although on the whole it’s a rather tacky standout given the historical recreation vibe of the rest of the Frontier Trail area, I still think the design choices here are considered (if I’m being generous). The Coca-Cola Company hails from Atlanta, and there’s an appropriate Southern plantation vibe to this small farm-esque shack.

The Frontier Town / Frontier Trail areas are essentially bookended at both the north and south ends with a entertainment venue. Here at the south end, the more higher class Red Garter Saloon has more of a Great Plains / Midwestern style than the strictly Far West / Southwest feeling of Frontier Town’s version; a sort of “Steamboat Baroque.” By that I mean, it rings more of Branson, Missouri than Tombstone, Arizona.

Small hand-painted signage details still abound though, refreshingly free of corporate logos.

On the left of the Red Garter Saloon in this step panoramic is The China Shop, which was originally a print shop years ago. To the right is one of those “Old Timey” photography studios where Western costumes and props are provided for guests to stage historical daguerreotypes in classic sepia tones. When Frontier Trail opened, this was listed as an apothecary shop on maps.

Since I only walked the trail from north to south, beginning with the Cedar Point & Lake Erie Railroad station in Frontier Town and ending here at the Red Garter, I encountered all the designs in these environments from primarily single vistas; I only saw the Town and Trail unravel in one way.

In retrospect, I wish I had taken the extra time to explore in both directions. However, in taking the railroad to Frontier Town rather than walking, I was recreating the original way guests experienced the area (1967) before the trail was added (1971), so I suppose there is some value in that.

Upon exiting Frontier Trail back out to the Millennium Midway, the last structure to the right (west) was truly jarring—a pioneer-style barn / ranch house which is home to a Panda Express Chinese fast food outlet (the building has been home to a variety of fried chicken and BBQ outfits over the years; Panda set up shop in 2007). It’s the kind of poor design thinking you see at Cedar Fair and Six Flags parks, like the Subway sandwiches outlet on the Main Midway in my first post on Cedar Point. I suppose it’s just more bizarre to see Chinese food and the Old West in the blender (sandwiches in a Victorian-inspired Midwestern setting seems like a smaller reach).

But that’s the thing with parks like Cedar Point—you take the design contractions with a grain of salt, knowing, after all, this isn’t Disney and they’re not truly in the theming business to begin with.

Continued in Part 4.

Cedar Point - Part 2: The Final Frontier.

December 18, 2018 by Dave Gottwald

Apart from the numerous Midway areas, the only other cohesively themed “lands” at Cedar Point are the Old West sections, sensibly named Frontier Town and Frontier Trail. Even then, various disparate elements are scattered throughout, and they all seem to be chunks of Disneyland which were beamed here by Scotty on Star Trek.

The Beginnings of Disneyfication

It was only a year or two after Disneyland opened in 1955 when Cedar Point began its great renaissance and started morphing into the “Amazement Park” that it is today. This era from the late 1950s to the mid 1970s was the product of two businessmen, George Roose and Emile Legros. Both were land developers, and once they acquired majority control of Cedar Point their plan was to raze the park and most of its historic structures, clearing the way to built luxury ranch homes with waterfront views of Lake Erie. Predictably there was widespread public outcry, so in June of 1956 Ohio’s governor stated for the record that if the men and their backers tried to close Cedar Point, the State would purchase the land to preserve its operation as a recreational facility. Roose and Emile now needed a new plan.

After purchasing the entire 364-acre, seven mile long peninsula for $350,000, during the 1957 and 1958 seasons these crafty two announced their intentions to transform Cedar Point into—their words—the “Disneyland of the Midwest.” As I detailed in my earlier post, initial changes came in 1959 and 1960 when the Main Midway was realigned with the park entrance, enlarged, and paved. A small scale Monorail ride, the kind common at state fairs, opened in 1959 (it lasted until 1966), and the Von Roll Sky Ride followed in 1961, a year in which over a million dollars had been spent on new attractions and expansions.

The Riverboat Cruises pictured above were clearly a Disneyland derivative, but in some cases Cedar Point also looked to other, newer parks for inspiration. In 1963, the park added the Mill Race (removed in 1993), only the second log flume ride built by Arrow. And where was the first built? At Six Flags Over Texas earlier that very same year, where El Aserradero “The Sawmill” is still operating. Six Flags and Cedar Point were ahead of the log flume trend here—the more elaborately themed famous Calico Log Ride at Knott’s Berry Farm didn’t open until 1969, and Disney didn’t get into the act with their even more elaborate Splash Mountain in 1989.

Not all the new additions were of the themed variety. The Blue Streak (named in honor of a local sports team) was added in 1964, and was the first roller coaster built at the park since the removal of Cyclone (1929–1951). The following season the Space Spiral, a Von Roll gyro tower (a revolving observation tower with a vertical moving platform), was added. Like their gondola rides, these towers were installed at parks all over the country in the 1960s and 70s and a few survive today, from the Sky Cabin at Knott’s Berry Farm to SeaWorld San Diego’s Sky Tower. Some of these towers were built by Von Roll, some by fellow Swiss manufacturer Intamin.

Ridin’ the Rails

When the Frontier Town area opened at the back north edge of the park for the 1967 season, the Cedar Point & Lake Erie Railroad was the only way to get there. It was a personal dream of George Roose to bring an authentic narrow gauge steam railroad to the park (again, aping a key experiential aspect of Disneyland), but his board of directors wouldn’t approve it. To his credit, Roose went rogue, gathered a separate group of investors, and opened his railroad as an independent concession for the 1963 season.

Unlike the Disney parks which feature both custom shop-made locomotives and rolling stock alongside rebuilt equipment, the trains at Cedar Point are all fully restored antiques. By the year Frontier Town opened, the railroad was carrying a million and a half passengers per season operating six coal-burning steam locomotives ; today they run four: the #44 Judy K., #22 Myron H., #4 George R., and #1 G.A. Boeckling.

One clear advantage Disney has is the innovative use of a earthen berm to surround their parks and insulate them from the outside world. A ride on the Disneyland Railroad is an appropriately immersive one because of this berm, and also because of the dense foliage along the route. Here at Cedar Point, it was super weird—nothing but a few bushes and a security fence separating park guests from a service access road and the western shores of Lake Erie.

The other reason the trains at most Disney Magic Kingdom-style parks make for a more immersive ride is that their routes completely encircle their respective properties. All except for the Western River Railroad at Tokyo Disneyland. As I observed years back, their train does not go all the way around the park because with only one stop, a train is considered a “ride” under Japanese law, so it doesn’t have to be regulated like their rail system. Also, the Japanese consider steam trains very “Western” as opposed to American, so it makes perfect sense to only circle the exotic “wilderness” areas of Tokyo Disneyland. The Cedar Point & Lake Erie Railroad functions exactly the same way; it cordons the “Western” themed area off from the rest of the park, and given that this is Ohio, the Old West is indeed an exotic environment.

Just like other examples I’ve seen around the country, the Old West theme is one of the few which can be successfully communicated to large audiences with typography. This CRYSTAL ROCK BOTTLING CO. sign is atop the queue building for the now defunct Shoot the Rapids log flume ride (2010–2015).

The train’s route is well integrated with the various lagoon waters in and around Frontier Town. In the background is the park’s runaway mine train ride, a standard Arrow model.

This is Boneville, a small diorama of settler shacks. Animatronic skeletons were added to this area in the 1990s as part of the park’s October HalloWeekends.

The Frontier Town Railroad Station takes its cues from Disneyland, and from any small town railway depot you’ve ever seen in an old movie. This design is common enough to be sort of the Western version of “Theme Park Gingerbread” Victorian stylings.

The locomotive I arrived on was the #22 Myron H. Narrow gauge trains are interesting; when you’re riding in one of the cars, it seems like a normal size railroad. But then when you see the locomotive and the engineer inside it, the whole thing feels like a toy.

I haven’t seen much evidence of forced perspective here at Cedar Point, but this railing is a good example—it appears to be about two-thirds scale.

Frontier Town area, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google. — *Frontier Town* area, satellite view. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

Frontier(land) Town

George Roose and Emile Legros were clearly not dummies. They wanted to capture the same kinds of middle class families that were Disney’s bread and butter. The questions for Roose must have been, what popular elements would best translate to Cedar Point that were a.) appropriate to the natural setting of the peninsula, b.) appropriate to the long history of the resort, and c.) affordable?

Cedar Point park map showing Frontier Town and Frontier Trail, 1972. — Cedar Point park map showing *Frontier Town* and *Frontier Trail*, 1972.

The Fantasyland elements were clearly out. Castles and elaborately designed dark rides are expensive, and Cedar Point had no intellectual property like animated films to draw upon for subject matter anyway. The Sci-Fi trimmings of Tomorrowland likewise probably sounded both costly and inappropriate for the location. Main Street U.S.A. would be appropriated in bits and pieces for the Main Midway and other areas; that left the Old West of Frontierland and the exotic jungles of Adventureland. Both those latter categories would be employed; for years there were safari attractions with live animals and even a pirate-themed dark ride at Cedar Point. Yet only the Old West theme remains today.

Roose had wanted his narrow gauge railroad so badly he resorted to outside financing to open it in 1963, so it seems like a Frontier Town themed area was the natural way to go. He probably looked at Disneyland and at the other popular theme park destination in Southern California, Knott’s Berry Farm. Six Flags Over Texas had opened in 1961. Which means my impressions of Cedar Point’s Frontier Town felt exactly right—a mix of Disney’s Frontierland, the Calico Ghost Town at Knott’s, and the design of the Western areas of the Six Flags parks I have been to.

The signage varies in quality and authenticity throughout this section of the park. In some instances, such as this at the Emporium shop, the lettering is actually routed wood, which is not something even Disney does all the time. The typefaces are your classic grab bag of custom lettering and commercially available fonts. They’re usually the most obvious choices, like Adobe’s Juniper here.

Just like Hidden Mickeys and other such easter egg references at the Disney parks, the recurring “1870” (the year Cedar Point first opened) I saw on the Main Midway shows up again here in Frontier Town.

Lusty Lil’s Palace Theater is a direct lift of Disneyland’s Golden Horseshoe Saloon and perhaps the even older Calico Saloon at Knott’s Berry Farm. It’s not like Disney or Knott innovated here; they were appropriating a popular 19th century entertainment venue which had already been wrested from any historical roots as an amusement anchor for the kind of tourist Old West town like Dodge City, Kansas or Deadwood, South Dakota which I’d recently been through on my way to Ohio.

Again we see the concept of Baudrillard’s simulacra. Just like Disneyland’s Main Street U.S.A. is not a “simulation” of Marceline, Missouri where Walt Disney spent part of his childhood, Lusty Lil’s Palace Theater is not simulating a historic example of a theater revue house in any given town. Both are simulacra but there is a difference. While Main Street U.S.A. is a Hollywood art director’s half-remembered / half-imagined vision of “small town main street-ness,” the designs here at Cedar Point (coming as they were in 1967) are directly referencing the theme park representations that proceed them. We are at the levels of copies of copies, in which case any sense of original source material becomes completely obscure; the original doesn’t exist anymore.

Baudrillard found all this “problematic” which is just an academic theorist’s way of saying “this stuff is probably driving us insane” but at least in a theme park setting, it’s more charming and puzzling than anything else.

Adjacent to the theater and saloon was a restaurant serving burritos in a cafeteria line setting. The stereotypical wagon wheel chandeliers are to be expected, of course, but I found some surprises inside as well.

It would appear that Cedar Point has an appreciation for its own long history, especially it’s graphic history. Imagine my delight as a designer and typography aficionado—the entire space, floor to ceiling, was covered with vintage signage spanning over a hundred years, easy.

These are not the kind of faux antiques you find at Cost Plus World Market or Restoration Hardware. These are real artifacts. All were once used at Cedar Point to sell popcorn, or ice cream, or indicate where the changing rooms at the bathhouses were.

Here’s an interesting thought: I like theme parks that are clean and well-maintained. But at what point does this attention clash with the perceived historicity of the structures? I’m not sure there’s an answer. The generic nature of the design probably doesn’t help, though. This could be a boot store at an outlet mall outside of Las Vegas, or a fried chicken restaurant just about anywhere.

Conversely, this building is well-maintained, but has natural-looking weathering. I call this “distressed with care” and Disney are masters of it. The bits of rust, the ratty edge of the roof, the irregular contours in the wall planking, the slight water damage to the wood. All of these add to the integrity of the story. The problem with a place like Cedar Point (or any Cedar Fair or Six Flags park) is that you’re not sure if this look is intentional or a result of neglect.

As a turned the corner and continued to walk into the rest of the Frontier Town area, things started to get creepy. My initial thought was, as I said, Scotty had just beamed this stuff in. But the closer I looked, the more it reminded me of The Twilight Zone instead.

These buildings, along with their trimmings and signage, are starting to depart from the Old West and become a much more generic Small Town Americana. Very Main Street U.S.A.

I mean, look at this arcade entrance. Straight out of Disney central casting, so to speak. Complete with Independence Day bunting (though I was visiting in the middle of July). The signage is definitely newer, as it employs the very same Letterhead Font Foundry type which Disney started using about ten years ago.

This Coke sign really irks me. I’m fine with advertisements and product placement within themed environments if they are done subtly, with class, and are appropriate to the setting (time and place) of the design. The Coca-Cola script is a moderate pass here (I could see a building that old having Coke signage on it at the turn of the century), but the “freestyle” tagline in contemporary sans serif ruins it for me.

Adjacent is a General Store / Trading Post building which—given its length and orientation—really seems like it used to be shooting gallery attraction (again, something Knott’s Berry Farm and Disneyland had featured prior). This pioneer fort design of roughly hewn logs feels more like Knott’s to me.

Here’s a trope which you’ll find everywhere from fast food chains to theme parks to the state and county fair—when feeding people in the Old West, do it in a setting in which you’d feed livestock. Here the queue for ordering is fenced to resemble the kind of perimeter enclosure commonly attached to a barn.

Numerous quick eatery stands around this area share the same design, and the same cute names, like “The Roundup.”

The Cedar Creek Mine Ride was the third such Arrow coaster ever built, after the model debuted at Six Flags Over Texas and Over Georgia. Several of these are still in operation around the country. Based on the innovative work the company executed for Disneyland’s Matterhorn Bobsleds in 1959 (the first roller coaster to feature tubular steel track), this Arrow model was wildly popular by the late 1960s and eventually reached a thematic ‘peak’ with the Big Thunder Mountain Railroad at Disneyland and subsequently at other Disney parks.

Cedar Point’s coaster is somewhat more unique than other similar Arrow models as it has a steel tubular track atop a wooden frame structure. To my eye this adds to the design and feels more “authentically Old West” despite the fact that there is no other theming, no rockwork, no elaborate water features, etc. The rickety old wood skeleton reminds of a railway trestle bridge and looks like it might collapse at any moment. Here very little actually goes a long way.

The Cedar Fair company is efficient at recycling material; having retrofitted, remodeled, or otherwise repurposed countless buildings on the peninsula since the 19th century. Here the original queue building for the White Water Landing log flume ride (1982–2005) has been refashioned into a queue / ride photo / retail space for the Maverick roller coaster which opened in 2007.

It’s a subtle touch, but one I really appreciated; if you look carefully on the corrugated metal roof you can see the stylish (and very 1982-esque Western) original hand-painted logo for White Water Landing. They could have removed it, but they didn’t, and this is the kind of ‘extinct attraction tribute’ I usually only see at Disney parks.

Another device commonly used extensively—but not exclusively—in Old West settings are fictional businesses. There is a mythology of The Proprietor which means that many buildings with functional amusement purposes (queue buildings for rides, for example) take on the persona of a wood products company.

Snake River Falls is a shoot-the-chutes of the classic variety, but they’ve really taken care with the theming. Along with the signage on the queue building suggesting that lumber is being processed, the industrial features are carried through the ride experience and environs. It looks, sounds, smells, and feels right.

Town Square(d)

My descent into The Twilight Zone reached its most extreme at Village Square, which is not a separate land or themed area, but considered part of Frontier Town. Except that it’s totally not, design-speaking. Wait, is that the courthouse from Back to the Future? Nope, no clock. But the Town Hall Museum features the very same Colonial Georgian / Federal-style architecture which has no place on the Western Frontier.

Frontier Town during the 2018 season. Underlay map data: Ⓒ Google. — *Frontier Town* during the 2018 season. Underlay map data: Ⓒ Google.

Village Square was at the heart of a 1969 expansion of Frontier Town which included the Cedar Creek Mine Ride as well as other attractions. While I was visiting the park, the Mean Streak wooden roller coaster was being transformed into a steel/wood hybrid of the I-Box variety, and reopened as Steel Vengeance for the 2018 season.

I do want to commend Cedar Point for this museum. It was an absolute treasure trove for a park guest like myself doing research. There are several coaster models commissioned from famed coaster miniature craftsman John A. Hunt. This is his model of the Blue Streak (1964).

And here is Hunt’s model of the original Mean Streak (1991–2016). This museum was a real treat overall, from these models to vintage park maps, antique photographs, and tons of ephemera from the park’s long history.

Here the park again demonstrates a talent for reusing structures. This sort of half-Georgian Federal / half-Old West restrooms building was actually the Frontier Town station for the Frontier Lift Von Roll gondola (1968–1985). You can clearly see the access ramps on either side, and the symmetry of the windows suggest the openings where the gondolas would come and go. I’m not sure about the clock, though. Maybe they wanted to make up for the one missing on their Back to the Future courthouse-esue Town Hall Museum?

Again, half-Georgian Federal / half-Old West architecture, with a bit of plantation style thrown in.

The Antique Cars of the Village Square Auto Livery were also added in 1969 and offer the same driving experience as the Cadillac Cars off the Main Midway. Here the design is full-on Georgian. For a moment, I thought I was back at Greenfield Village.

It’s the same old setup as the original Autopia at Disneyland, complete with the guide rail to make sure younger drivers don’t stray from the road. I do think it’s rather charming that Cedar Point is so literal with their attraction names, though. Cadillac Cars. Antique Cars. Any questions?

This is odd. Antique advertisements of a somewhat appropriate vintage for the automobiles, but with the wood type from the Emporium reproduced (unbelievably). And that Next to Train Station wavy type is something else indeed. But these touches do add to the experience of driving in the 1910s.

This grouping reminds of the thematic pockets I saw out on the Main Midway. The park guest in me goes “neat” but the designer in me goes “meh.”

However, I did stop to admire this beautiful, router-cut wood type on a hand-painted sign shingle. Again, as with Disney, Letterhead Fonts are used, so this graphic treatment is very recent.

The Engine Company No. 3 brick firehouse building is a beautiful piece of design on its own, but in the company of the rest of the mismash in this part of Frontier Town, not so much. I don’t know what the opposite of Gestalt Theory would be, but this is kind of what I mean—the whole is less than the sum of the parts, and each individual element actually detracts.

I think trying to incorporate “town square” and “main street” aspects of the Disneyland experience (not to mention the Colonial Georgian / Federal-style architecture) was a mistake at Cedar Point’s Frontier Town. Fortunately the Frontier Trail area proved to be far more cohesive.

Continued in Part 3.