Lagoon - Part 1: Lagoony Tunes.

February 15, 2020 by Dave Gottwald

The Continuation - Summer 2019

In June of 2019 I embarked on a second research roadtrip, this time through the American Southwest. I had not visited Las Vegas to document thematic design in some ten years, and I was also eager to see several of the wonderous National Parks scattered throughout the state Utah. Along the way I found some unexpected surprises—bits of theming here and there that has prompted some new thinking for me about the mythical American Old West.

Route from Idaho to Phoenix, Arizona. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

As before during the summer of 2017, my intrepid travel companion was the ever creative and hilarious David Janssen, Jr.—an artist, designer, and educator who currently teaches in the Fine Arts Department at Washington State University as an instructor in 2D Foundations. Our ultimate goal was to reach Phoenix, Arizona and tour Frank Lloyd Wright’s Taliesin West studio retreat.

Lagoon, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

The Fun Spot of Utah

Our first stop, however, was Utah’s premiere amusement park / quasi-theme park, Lagoon. Located just north of Salt Lake City in Farmington, Utah, Lagoon has a long history dating back to the 1880s. As such the park has the same sort of layered charm as Cedar Point which dates from roughly the same period. Era upon era has been built upon and over, augmented, and expanded.

Lagoon opened to the public on July 12, 1896 and was billed as a destination resort featuring “Bowling, [an] Elegant Dancing Pavilion, Fine Music, A Shady Bowery, and Good Restaurants.” Just like the trolley parks which sprouted up all across the United States in the first couple decades of the twentieth century, Lagoon was the brainchild of a railroad magnate—Simon Bamberger, the fourth Governor of Utah—who wanted to increase passenger traffic on his lines.

Vintage postcard, Shoot the Chutes. — Vintage postcard, **Shoot the Chutes**.

The park’s first thrill ride attraction, a typical “Shoot the Chutes” water voyage, opened for the last season of the 19th century. The following summer, swimming and boating were permitted for the first time in the small lake which is Lagoon’s namesake.

This early map shows the small scale of the Lagoon park in its first few decades. The park’s very first roller coaster, the Scenic Railway, is indicated here as the “Double Eight” in reference to its double figure-eight track layout with a height of 40 feet.

Vintage photograph, Scenic Railway, 1907. — Vintage photograph, **Scenic Railway**, 1907.

The attraction was built for the 1907 season adjacent to the Shoot the Chutes. By the early 1920s it had been demolished. There’s a nice short documentary online about the ride.

By mid-century, Lagoon had expanded considerably and added numerous Midway-type rides, games, and concessions. This once quiet bathing and boating retreat had morphed into a full-blown amusement park.

A Lushly Landscaped Midway

The central spine of the Lagoon park is a typical Midway. However, unlike the wide concrete jungles found at Cedar Point or Kings Island, the Midway area here is narrow, resplendent, and full of mature trees. They provide a cool canopy in spite of the summer sun, and also add scale to the various structures.

Lagoon’s Midway has all the classics you’d expect, like a this carousel which was built in 1893. It was installed in the park for the 1906 season, and as such is Lagoon’s oldest standing attraction. A blaze on the Midway in 1953 threatened to destroy it, but it was saved by firefighters dousing it continuously with water. In 2003 the Lagoon carousel was lovingly restored for its 110th birthday.

It’s not a traditional American Midway without some carnival-style games. These are spaced along both sides of the span, and are styled in the expected Theme Park Gingerbread motif.

Just like at Cedar Point and many other parks featuring midways, a sky gondola ride hangs overhead. Lagoon’s Sky Ride was added in 1974 and is the much smaller, open air feet-dangle of the ski lift variety nearly identical to the Sky Glider at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk, rather than the more substantial, closed-cabin Von Roll model.

Travelling over the Midway at about two and a half miles per hour some 60 feet in the air made for a calm seven minute journey from one end to the other. It was so nifty we rode it roundtrip (though you do have to exit and queue up again to reboard). And just like the trees, the Sky Ride provides an intimate sense of scale for this portion of the park.

The Wild Kingdom Train opened for the 1967 season as the “Animaland Train” and follows a route of about a third of a mile around Lagoon’s namesake lake and fountains, and through a tunnel to the Wild Kingdom Zoo area, which is actually the state's second largest.

The train depot is a mixture of Theme Park Gingerbread and a Frontier Old West look, decked out in patriotic red, white, and blue with mustard yellow accents—just like the locomotive and cars of the Wild Kingdom Train itself.

I have to wonder if this 24" narrow gauge steam railroad, the Sky Ride, and other additions which came to Lagoon in the late 1960s and early 70s were an attempt to import the popular trappings of Disneyland. Just like what happened at Cedar Point during the same period, parks with long histories began to adapt in response to Disney slowly and successfully rewriting the script of audience expectations for amusement parks nationwide.

Lagoon’s namesake lake, in which swimming is no longer permitted.

“Lagoon-A-Beach”

Which is fine, because there’s a complete water park area right in the middle of Lagoon called Lagoon-A-Beach. Prior to the late 1980s, this part of the park was the location of a massive swimming pool. The waterpark initially opened with a additional, separate gate admission, but has since been folded into a single price for all.

In the grand Disney tradition, the name of the waterpark area is a cheesy wordplay on Laguna Beach, California (which is quite near to where I grew up, actually).

Lagoon lacks separation and transition between its various themed areas, so you can see the ten slides of Lagoon-A-Beach towering overhead from many different settings. Just like at Cedar Fair parks which have internal water park areas—such as Valleyfair—this is a visual intrusion which disrupts scale and staging throughout Lagoon’s landscaping as a whole.

The Creative Director for Lagoon-A-Beach appears to be Captain Obvious. Here we have the infamous “Easter Island Heads” from the monolithic human figures scattered about Rapa Nui National Park known as Moai. If the designers had only waited a couple of decades, they would have known that the heads have hidden bodies buried in the ground beneath. Moai are a common trope at water parks.

Also common are volcanos, as they make excellent water features. Castaways-style suspension bridges fashioned from shipwrecked wood and rope are also expected in such settings. Nothing surprising here, all decently executed, but of course nothing on the scale of a Disney or Universal water park.

Just a Simple “Roller Coaster”

Lagoon has a real vintage treasure creeping and crawling out into its main parking lot area—the fourth oldest wooden coaster in the United States (sixth in the world)—plainly called Roller Coaster.

Vintage postcard, Roller Coaster. — Vintage postcard, **Roller Coaster**.

Sometimes advertised in decades past as the “Giant Roller Coaster,” and known affectionately by locals as the “White Roller Coaster,” the ride is actually only 62 feet tall at the first drop. It was designed by the legendary John Miller and opened at Lagoon for the 1921 season. Damaged by the same 1953 fire which threatened the park’s carousel, it was rebuilt and has been restored more than once since.

Much like the rest of the park itself, Lagoon’s Roller Coaster has a layered aesthetic that shows the passage of time. The ride is from the 1920s, yet the queue and station suggest the popular Art Deco stylings of the 30s and 40s, as I saw at Lakeside Park in Denver two years before.

It’s all part of the historical personality of a park as old as Lagoon, though the grounds are not immune to some of the more tacky tropes of the amusement park industry as seen at Cedar Fair and Six Flags, as well as the more detailed and immersive thematic cues of leaders such as Disney and Universal.

Continued in Part 2.

One Enchanted Afternoon.

November 25, 2019 by Dave Gottwald

During the summer of 2018, I took a break from site documentation for the most part. But on a drive down to California and back, I managed to fit in a small and humble attraction that I’d wanted to see for years—Enchanted Forest in Turner, Oregon (just south of Salem).

Enchanted Forest, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

When they call it a forest, they’re really not kidding. The entire property is extremely (and charmingly) wooded. From this satellite view you can’t see a single structure save for the parking lot. In a sense, the forest is what makes the experience “enchanted” on some level. Unlike most theme parks, you don’t need an earthen berm to block out the rest of the world—the woods and elevation shift uphill take care of it.

Which was interesting to me, because Enchanted Forest is literally right off Interstate 5 as it winds up into Salem, Oregon. Like, yards from the freeway.

Enchanted Forest 2018 souvenir park map poster.

Enchanted Forest is the brainchild of one Roger Tofte, a typical American ‘backyard dreamer’ who was inspired by the roadside attractions he saw driving around the country on family vacations in the early 1960s and thought, why not in Oregon? His family was more skeptical. As his wife Mavis later admitted in her book Enchanted Forest and Its Family, “At first, none of us took Roger very seriously. After all, he had started so many other projects that didn’t get off the ground.”

It certainly took long enough, but Roger kept at it and eventually his dream came true. The hillside plot of land along Interstate 5 near Turner was first secured in 1964, and the park finally opened in 1971 after some seven years of intermittent construction.

The core theme of Enchanted Forest—fairy tales—is far from unique. In fact, the park is part of a larger subgenre of such amusement parks that were built all across the United States in the twentieth century, from the famous Children’s Fairyland in Oakland, California (1950) to Storybook Land in Egg Harbor Township, New Jersey (1955). With the notable exception of Fairyland (which Walt supposedly visited during his research), most of these parks were established in the aftermath of Disneyland’s runaway success and leveraged fantasy stories that were comfortably in the public domain.

As such, coming after Disneyland, much of the design vernacular of these parks could be construed as somewhat derivative. These hand routed signs of Gothic script are straight out of Fantasyland.

Similarly, the architectural cues are along the lines of the ‘Ye Olde Gingerbread Village’ look, albeit less detailed than at a Disney park.

Storybook Lane

The entire park is constructed on a hillside, and there is somewhat of an assumed (but not strictly prescribed) one-way route—almost like a variation on the Duell Loop. There are a handful of themed areas, the first of which is Storybook Lane.

Immediately through the entry gates and up to the right is the “Coffee Cottage.” This seems like a smart move, as I saw a line of parents eager to fortify themselves for the twisting journey ahead. The building is clearly newer than most of the other structures nearby, but is still rendered with a similar ‘rustic charm.’

What would a fantasy landscape be like without a grand medieval castle?

Although much, much smaller than the Disney version, the technique of forced perspective is still employed. And granted, this is a park for very, very young children; to a toddler, this must look huge.

Although there’s nothing preventing you from wandering through Enchanted Forest in any manner you choose, signs encourage guests to proceed through Storybook Lane first.

One of the most popular tropes at these fairy tale themed parks is Humpty Dumpty. The original large figure was completed in 1968, three years before Enchanted Forest opened, but was damaged and replaced by a new figure in the summer of 2014.

“Mary Had a Little Lamb” makes an appearance further up the path.

And next we have the famous Alice of Lewis Carroll (again thankfully in the public domain).

What surprised me is that the character designs on display don’t resemble the famed John Tenniel illustrations from the first edition of Alice's Adventures in Wonderland (1865). Note the look of Alice and the Mad Hatter here.

Alice in Wonderland attraction at Disneyland, 2008. — **Alice in Wonderland** attraction at Disneyland, 2008.

Rather they look pretty much like the depictions from the 1951 Disney film Alice in Wonderland.

Here’s the Cheshire Cat at Enchanted Forest.

And the Disney film version. I’m curious as to how the Tufte family hasn’t gotten into legal trouble with Disney over this; maybe it’s because they’re a relatively small-time operation.

Following Alice is another story which Disney has adapted, Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs (1937). The lighting was too low inside the cottage for a good photo, but the characters do not as closely resemble the Disney film. This sign, however, looks just like what you’d find in Fantasyland at a Disney park.

Here at Enchanted Forest, though, you can walk into the Witch’s Head and then ride down a slide.

Just when parents are getting a bit tired, signs point everyone further up the hill.

Tofteville Western Town

Tofteville was constructed for the park’s second season in 1972. This area is basically the Frontierland section of Enchanted Forest, but more a more rustic and dirty version of the Old West motif as seen in the Ghost Town at Knott’s Berry Farm.

The buildings all have an intention wonkiness to them, and the floorboards creek charmingly as you walk along the planked sidewalks.

Because this park was essentially assembled by Roger Tofte’s family and friends, it often feels like the set of a children’s television show on local cable access. Everything is painted simply; doors are windows are from the local hardware store.

But there’s also an attempt on some of the structures to weather and olden them. Here none of the beams are sanded or finished, and the rooflines are covered in thick moss.

The mixture is odd. Again, it’s one part children’s television set, one part roadside attraction, and one part Knott’s Ghost Town.

The earlier pictures make the area seem larger than it is. In this shot you can clearly see how narrow the street is and how short each block runs.

Here’s a trope I’ve seen before—grave markers with humorous rhymes.

Aren’t they cute?

Cute gravestones at Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion. QuietKid/Flickr. — Cute gravestones at Disneyland’s Haunted Mansion. *QuietKid/Flickr.*

At first I thought Enchanted Forest was riffing on the famous gravestones at the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland and other Disney parks.

Grave marker with humorous rhyme at Knott’s Berry Farm, 2007.

But then I remembered that this is a tradition you can find at many other parks. I do not know if the graveyard of puns at Knott's Berry Farm predates the original Haunted Mansion (1969), but the Ghost Town at that park certainly does—it’s been evolving since the 1940s.

The Wagon Wheel Opera House appeared to be the most finished structure in Tofteville. Inside was a combination of dining and retail space.

Great examples of hand painted type throughout, like this Clarendon.

Or this Tuscan.

Here is a mixture of slab serif types.

Just like at many other Old West “ghost towns” that I’ve visited, there are some actual antique artifacts on display throughout.

The one end of Tofteville terminates at a red barn.

Walking through, there’s a sign urging you on…

…around the corner to a house which appears to be falling apart. The Haunted House opened during the 1975 season, and, unlike the Disney park Haunted Mansions which opened in 1969 and 1971, ‘looks the part.’

When presented with the original concept art for a haunted house attraction at Disneyland back in the 1950s, Walt famously remarked that he didn’t want the exterior to look scary and run down—he wanted it pristine, like the rest of the park. Marty Sklar quotes him as saying "Don't worry about it. We'll take care of the outside; the ghosts will take care of the inside."

Here at Enchanted Forest, the look is more traditionally decrepit. Curiously, when it came time to design Phantom Manor for Disneyland Paris, the designers chose to also go more spookily obvious, so that the idea of the house being haunted would better telegraph across multiple languages and cultures.

The park’s Haunted House was charming, and also, at times, genuinely scary. As I exited, I noticed some masonry and black wrought ironwork which reminded me of the Haunted Mansion at Disneyland with its New Orleans Square trappings. Coincidence?

Having a log flume ride is a requisite trope for an American theme park, large or small, and Enchanted Forest finally added one in 1997 after many years of in-house development. I found the Big Timber Log Ride to be themed appropriately, and actually quite fun.

Most surprising was the roller coaster element leading to the ride’s finale. After traveling along the hillside in the flume, the logs latch onto a regular chain lift and go into a dive before climbing back to reengage with the flume for one last big drop.

I thought the park’s wordmark as embossed on the front of each log was a nice touch (just like you see at Knott’s Berry Farm).

At the opposite end of Tofteville from the Haunted House is Fort Fearless, which contains attractions like a small shooting gallery.

All the lettering is lovingly hand painted.

From here Enchanted Forest transforms into a series of tightly plotted narrow streets and tunnel overpasses. The effect of spatial compression is comforting, and also drives guests onward, discouraging them from turning back to re-navigate Tofteville back down through Storybook Lane to the park entrance.

There are no signs indicating the streets are one-way only, but the spatial cues are strong. This is how the same area looks facing the opposite direction, towards Tofteville.

Oregon’s Matterhorn

As at many parks I’ve visited, the tunnel moments allow for spatial and visual transitions between different themed areas, much like the zooming iris of a camera in an old movie. Up ahead appears to be a kind of European fantasy landscape; even the hardscape has changed to a cobbled brick-like treatment.

This medieval script clearly indicates I’ve left the Old West behind.

The Ice Mountain Bobsleds opened in 1982, again, after a long gestation period in-house. One luxury of a small, family-owned and operated park is that project can be designed in an iterative fashion for years.

The queue building / ride station is trimmed in light Germanic-Swiss chateau theming.

The unique trains of the Ice Mountain Bobsleds. Roller Coaster Philosophy/Flickr. — The unique trains of the **Ice Mountain Bobsleds**. *Roller Coaster Philosophy/Flickr*.

As for the ride vehicles, I’ve never been in anything quite like this—trains of three pods in which you are completely enclosed in a plexiglass bubble (but with holes for breathing). I felt a bit claustrophobic as we climbed the lift hill, but once the ride got up to speed it was so fun I didn’t think about it again.

Matterhorn Bobsleds at Disneyland, 2008. — **Matterhorn Bobsleds** at Disneyland, 2008.

Quite obviously, Enchanted Forest is trafficking in the popularity of Disneyland’s classic Matterhorn Bobsleds attraction which has been thrilling and delighting guests since 1959.

I don’t usually post POV ride footage unless the attraction in question is extinct, but the experience of the Ice Mountain Bobsleds is so unique that you really have to “ride” it to understand it.

The logo graphic for the Ice Mountain Bobsleds is unique as well. Stylistically, it strikes me as both dated and timeless all at once. Which shouldn’t be possible, really. Someone obviously had a lot of fun with Corel Draw. I liked it so much I bought the t-shirt in the gift shop.

Old World Village

Continuing along the path after the bobsleds ride, more details of the Old World Village area start to emerge. The bobsleds opened first, and then this themed area followed, opening in two stages during the 1980s. Initially called the “English Village” with a decidedly Shakespearean flavor, the project was broadened to a more pan-European approach (to allow for even more folklore and fairy tales).

Challenge of Mondor was added in 2006, and is the park’s latest attraction. The entrance is tucked off the main path and features a scaled-down “building within a building.” I had to cringe at the attraction title sign, though, which uses the readymade go-to of faux medievalists and renaissance fair designers everywhere—Delphin, designed by Georg Trump in 1951 for the Weber foundry (frequently found online as an early 90s knock-off called “Dauphin”).

Inside the Challenge of Mondor. Roller Coaster Philosophy/Flickr. — Inside the **Challenge of Mondor**. *Roller Coaster Philosophy/Flickr.*

The attraction is part of an ever-growing ilk of interactive dark rides; sort of a combination of a shooting gallery experience and a traditional conveyance, like Buzz Lightyear's Space Ranger Spin or Toy Story Midway Mania! at multiple Disney parks.

One review for the Portland Mercury called it a “Dungeons & Dragons Nerdgasm” which seems just about right. The story isn’t based on any existing IP; the park created their own—to help rescue “Ooglies” from “Draco” and his army of dragons. The ride was fun, surprisingly elaborate and detailed for such a (relatively) small budget, and checked all the right fantasy lore boxes.

It Takes a Village

As I walked on, the settings around me became even more village-like. And things felt very familiar…where had I seen all this before?

Still from Pinocchio (1940). Ⓒ Disney. — Still from *Pinocchio* (1940). Ⓒ Disney.

Well, this portion of the Old World Village area at Enchanted Forest is a near-perfect lift of the small Italian township where Mastro Geppetto has his workshop in Disney’s Pinocchio (1940).

Pinocchio area in Fantasyland at Disneyland, 2008. — Pinocchio area in *Fantasyland* at Disneyland, 2008.

Disney presents the environments of Pinocchio at several of their Magic Kingdom-style parks around the world, and of course because the company’s artists designed the film, the imagineers working on the theme parks have access to a wealth of source material from concept paintings to storyboards.

The original Fantasyland area wasn’t built with this level of cinematic detail in 1955—mostly because Walt simply ran out of money. A medieval fair concept tied to Sleeping Beauty’s Castle was substituted, with banners, flags and bunting—essentially decorated sheds which housed each of the land’s dark rides.

Pinocchio’s Daring Journey at Tokyo Disneyland, 2008. — **Pinocchio’s Daring Journey** at Tokyo Disneyland, 2008.

A “New Fantasyland” opened at Disneyland on May 25, 1983 which was more deeply tied to the various animated films represented. Thus the area around Pinocchio’s Daring Journey—a brand new attraction—felt authentic to the movie. This dark ride was developed concurrently for Anaheim’s “New Fantasyland” as well as for Tokyo Disneyland, which opened a month earlier.

Pleasure Island Candies at Tokyo Disneyland, 2008.

Unique to the Tokyo park is a candy store named for Pleasure Island in Pinocchio, which is also rendered in the Italian “Old World Village” style.

Pinocchio Village Haus at the Magic Kingdom, 2007.

The “New Fantasyland” also included a Pinocchio-themed restaurant called Village Haus (which is now the Beauty and the Beast-themed Red Rose Taverne), which was based on the Pinocchio Village Haus at Walt Disney’s World Magic Kingdom (and is still there today).

Pinocchio area in Fantasyland at Disneyland Paris, 2008. — Pinocchio area in *Fantasyland* at Disneyland Paris, 2008.

The most evocative interpretation of the village designs in Pinocchio is at Disneyland Paris. Unlike Disneyland, the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World, and Tokyo Disneyland, the Fantasyland at this park was designed from the start to be deeply stylized in the manner of the represented animated classics.

One of the reasons for this is with audiences drawn primarily from a dozen or more cultures throughout Europe, it was thought that each nationality deserved a distinct ‘slice’ of Fantasyland—England is represented by Peter Pan (1953) and Alice in Wonderland, France proudly claims Sleeping Beauty (1959) and Beauty and the Beast (1991), Italy gets Pinocchio, and so on.

Yet where Enchanted Forest takes the prize for theming is in the immersive nature of their village design. Sure, the detail lavished upon the areas at the Disney parks as seen above far exceeds the fit and finish here at this small mom-and-pop outfit, but I’d argue that the experience—at least spatially—is better than any of those other Pinocchio representations, because you walk through the village in the exact same manner as shown in the film. As a guest, you follow the point of view of the camera.

Here is the guest’s point of view at the Old World Village.

And here is the camera’s POV in the film.

Even architectural details like this second-story bridge passage are in the film…

…right here. The result is an intimacy that none of the other “villages” from Pinocchio at the Disney parks have been able to replicate.

Although the signage all over Enchanted Forest is well executed, the bits and pieces in and around Old World Village are probably the best.

The typefaces are appropriate, and the wood routing work is terrific.

It’s wonderful to see, as the (well designed) signage at the Disney and Universal parks is increasingly rendered in fiberglass.

Sign after sign, and they’re all lovely.

The inclusion of Arthurian icon Merlin indicates we might be leaving Italy.

Walking downward, the Italian vibe of Old World Village (which was Phase II of the project) gives way to a more Shakespearean English flavor (which was Phase I). This view is looking back, up the hill.

Along this final span, the elements are purely Fantasyland castle in styling.

It was disappointing to see this printed sign (with terribly awkward drop shadow) after all those fantastic wood samples. But a “Free Water Show”… what could this be?

Interior of the Fantasy Fountains water show. Roller Coaster Philosophy/Flickr. — Interior of the **Fantasy Fountains** water show. *Roller Coaster Philosophy/Flickr.*

As I soon learned, the Fantasy Fountains is perhaps the park’s most famous attraction, and the one remembered the most fondly by adults who saw it as children. This charming water fountain and light show set to music is housed within the Jolly Roger theater which is themed as an English pub. No beer here though, but there are snacks and beverages.

This second phase of the Old World Village opened in 1988, and is generically medieval / English / fantasy / storybook in appearance.

If you’ve been following the park’s loop in a one-way direction clockwise from the start of Storybook Lane, all of this as you return to the entrance is a nice bookending.

Again, there’s nothing to prevent you from walking the park in the opposite direction (counter-clockwise), in which case you’d enter this castle archway and come to the Fantasy Fountains first. But I think the park was designed—with strong spatial cues—to be run in the other direction. I suppose locals mix it up, but as a first-time visitor, I’m glad I followed the “Start at the Castle” sign at the entry to Storybook Lane.

In conclusion, Enchanted Forest is a charming and simple park; inexpensive, quiet, and geared for very young children. The Tofte family has done their absolute best over the years in managing the place and adding well-considered additions as time and money have allowed. It’s amazing to me that with a fraction of the resources, Enchanted Forest offers a more immersive way to relive one of Disney’s most iconic animated films than even the imagineers have been able to do with everything at their disposal.

It might just be true, what’s often said: art thrives on restrictions.

Harper / Collins.

October 14, 2019 by Dave Gottwald

After leaving Denver, I headed north for my final thematic destination on this 2017 summer road trip. Earlier I had stopped by Marceline, Missouri to investigate the roots of Disneyland’s Main Street USA. But as it turns out, right along my route was yet another town with perhaps even more legitimate design connections—Fort Collins.

Old Town District, Fort Collins, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

Fort Collins is the fourth largest city in Colorado, about fifty miles north of Denver. Although it’s grown into a sprawling college town, home of Colorado State University, Fort Collins was founded as a U.S. Army outpost during the Civil War, and later became a bustling freight hub for the Union Pacific and Burlington Northern Santa Fe railroads by the 1870s. My interest, however, is that Fort Collins is where Disney artist Harper Goff was born in 1911. Thus this post’s title is a pun on Harper Goff and Fort Collins as a tribute to one of my favorite publishers.

Goff went to school at the Chouinard Art Institute in Los Angeles and went on to be a commercial illustrator in New York for a time but returned to Southern California to work as a set designer and art director at Warner Bros. After a chance encounter in a London shop in 1951, Walt Disney and Harper Goff bonded over their mutual love of model railroading, and not long after Walt hired him after he had left Warners for a time. Today Goff is still best remembered for designing Captain Nemo’s Nautilus submarine and its interiors for Disney’s 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea (1954)—the famed look and feel of which is a foundational element of today’s steampunk aesthetic.

Harper Goff’s honorary window in Adventureland, Disneyland, 2008. — Harper Goff’s honorary window in *Adventureland*, Disneyland, 2008.

The Second Imagineer

Goff was one of the very first studio personnel whom Walt Disney handpicked to work on the Disneyland project. In 1951 Goff, along with others, developed concept art for Walt’s initial idea, a sixteen-acre park adjacent to the company property in Burbank. Before the final site in Anaheim had even been selected for what became Disneyland, Walt had him travelling around the country doing field research at amusement parks and fairs. Jeff Kurti in Walt Disney's Imagineering Legends and the Genesis of the Disney Theme Park (2008) called him “The Second Imagineer” after Walt Disney himself.

At Disneyland, Goff designed the interiors for the Golden Horseshoe saloon in Frontierland (which he cribbed directly from his work on 1953’s Calamity Jane for Warner Bros) and was the art director for the entire Adventureland area, including the detailed planning required for the Jungle Cruise attraction.

Unlike other Disney Legends who have tributes painted on the windows of Main Street USA, Goff’s window is above the Adventureland Bazaar. It advertises him offering banjo lessons as he played the instrument in the Firehouse Five Plus Two, a Dixieland jazz group which also featured fellow animator (and train enthusiast) Ward Kimball.

Vintage photograph, Larimer County Courthouse.

Collins Connection: Disneyland’s City Hall

Harper Goff’s other notable contribution to Disneyland’s design was his work on Main Street USA, in which he drew upon his childhood memories of Fort Collins. As Goff elaborated in an interview for the Winter 1992–1993 issue of The "E" Ticket magazine:

I was born in that little town…Fort Collins, Colorado. My dad owned a newspaper there, the Fort Collins Express Courier, and I grew up there. It was a very prosperous town. We had banks that looked like banks, you know, and there was a Victorian city hall. I was born in 1911 and these buildings were around when I was a kid. When I started working on Main Street, I had photographs of Fort Collins taken. I showed them to Walt and he liked them very much. Disneyland's City Hall was copied from Fort Collins…so was the Bank building and some of the others.

The structure in question which was the basis for Disneyland City Hall is, by all accounts, the Larimer County Courthouse. The large brick building was actually the third courthouse built (Fort Collins is currently on their fifth, dedicated in 2000). It opened in 1888 and was demolished in 1957 upon the inauguration of its replacement. There are several great photographs of the courthouse which you can view at the Fort Collins History Connection, an online collaboration between the Fort Collins Museum of Discovery and the Poudre River Public Library District.

I took the above photograph from a very low vantage to emphasize what Disneyland City Hall looks like to a small child; this is likely how Harper Goff remembered the Larimer County Courthouse in Fort Collins from his youth, towering over him.

Vintage postcard, Larimer County Courthouse.

Goff’s choice of words in the interview, “copied from Fort Collins,” is somewhat misleading, although I’m sure he probably meant it. Clearly there is some inspiration, but it’s pretty loose. For one thing, the courthouse is several order of magnitudes larger. And the materials are vastly different—the courthouse is nearly all red brick with a gray roof.

Belvedere and cupola, Larimer County Courthouse.

If Harper remembered anything from his childhood that he wished to bring to Disneyland, it was clearly the towering belvedere and cupola combination above the front entrance.

Though all of the design details on the Disneyland City Hall version are wildly different, that thing sure made an impression on young Harper. The width of the tower seems about right in proportion to the rest of the building, though the height and stature of the cupola has been reduced. The plot thickens, however. Disney historian Jim Korkis asserts that the designers actually referenced a photograph of the Bay County Courthouse in Bay City Michigan, but I have the book he mentions and I couldn’t find the relevant image inside. Have a look at that courthouse (built 1868) yourself and compare.

Collins Connection: Disneyland’s Firehouse

The Larimer County Courthouse is long since gone, but I used my afternoon in Fort Collins to explore what other design connections there might be.

The aforementioned Fort Collins History Connection maintains a page on “Old Town and Disneyland's Main Street USA” and they note how historian Richard V. Francaviglia visited the Fort Collins archives when he was conducting research for his book Main Street Revisited: Time, Space, and Image Building in Small-Town America (1996) which I have referenced before and consider a cherished source.

Goff was vague in his recollection of what other designs he borrowed from his Colorado upbringing—”the Bank building and some of the others”—so I decided to poke around the Old Town District and see for myself. As it turns out, there is another bell tower structure similar to the one Harper remembered from the Larimer County Courthouse still in Fort Collins today, at the town’s former firehouse.

Overlay of vintage photograph of Fort Collins firehouse on current structure.

Curiously, the footprint of the building is sort of a mirror image of what it used to be. This early 1900s photograph shows that there once a building to the left, and nothing to the right, of the original firehouse. Today this is reverse; the building has been added on at the right, and the lot to the left is vacant.

I went inside the building, which now is fittingly home to a wonderful independent bookstore, and inquired about any design connections to Disneyland. One of the older staff members mentioned that “this firehouse was inspiration for the one at Disneyland.” A customer in the store suggested that even the look of Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at that park was linked the firehouse. Finally one other staff member said, no, but the firehouse’s tower design contributed to the City Hall at Disneyland (as noted above, inspired by the Larimer County Courthouse instead).

This is a common thing with local folklore, and gets repeated in the press from time to time. Even the Fort Collins Historical Society offered conflicting accounts when I stopped by and asked about Harper Goff and any Fort Collins connections to Disneyland. Because besides interviews with Goff himself, we don’t have much.

Here’s the Disneyland version, which doesn’t look anything like the firehouse in Fort Collins. Perhaps Harper Goff was simply interested in the rectangular orientation of the facades.

Looking closer, there is indeed a small tower on the left side of the building. Over the decades it’s been almost completely obscured by trees.

Vintage postcard, Town Square of Main Street USA, Disneyland. Ⓒ Disney Enterprises, Inc. — Vintage postcard, Town Square of *Main Street USA*, Disneyland. Ⓒ Disney Enterprises, Inc.

During the park’s early years, none of those trees existed. In this postcard view, you can clearly see the tower of the firehouse building.

Hong Kong Disneyland Fire Department, 2008.

All the features are much more accessible at Hong Kong Disneyland. Most of the Main Street USA area there is a near 1:1 copy of the original Disneyland park. In Hong Kong the trees have not fully grown in yet and the Jungle Cruise at that park does not sit directly behind the firehouse, so there is no dense foliage around the back of the building either.

The second Main Street USA firehouse at Walt Disney World’s Magic Kingdom seems to have even greater Fort Collins lineage—both from the Larimer County Courthouse and the town’s former firehouse. The company is named Engine Co. 71 after the opening year of the Florida resort, 1971.

Just look at that tower! I was browsing through the Fort Collins History Connection database, and lo and behold, the roof feature at the top is practically identical to that of one Hottel House on 215 South College, which was built in the 1890s and demolished in 1962.

But by the time the Magic Kingdom was in full creative development, Harper Goff had moved on. During that time he returned to live action Hollywood, providing production design work for such films as Fantastic Voyage (1966), in which he managed to fuse the concept of a submarine with a Detroit automobile, and Willy Wonka and the Chocolate Factory (1971), where his steampunk visions of cast iron pipes and brass were turned fanciful. It was to be his final film credit. Goff later returned to work for Disney in the late 1970s as a conceptual consultant on the EPCOT project’s World Showcase and continued to do work for the company off and on until his death in 1993.

Magic Kingdom City Hall, Walt Disney World. Roller Coaster Philosophy/Flickr. — Magic Kingdom **City Hall**, Walt Disney World. *Roller Coaster Philosophy/Flickr.*

Disney artists such as Collin Campbell, Paul Hartley, and Dorothea Redmond are credited with the concept art for the Magic Kingdom’s Main Street USA. The approach to that park is larger, more elaborately Victorian, and more urban. It’s more Kansas City than Marceline or Fort Collins. The Magic Kingdom’s City Hall is easily twice the size or more of the Disneyland original, and adds a clock to its belvedere tower and cupola. It’s unclear how much these designers consulted with the original Disneyland concept renderings by Harper Goff and others, but I suspect with at least the Engine Co. 71 they did.

Collins Connection: Disneyland’s Bank Building

Goff specifically mentions “the bank” in his 1992 interview. And indeed, there appear to be many building blocks in the Old Town District of Fort Collins which look similar to the bank building on the east side of Main Street USA as you enter Town Square at Disneyland.

Vintage Bank of America brochure for Disneyland. Ⓒ Disney Enterprises, Inc.

According to Bank of America, who hosted the location from 1955 until mid-1993, “located on Main Street stood a fully functioning Bank of America branch. Bank associates dressed in turn-of-the-century clothing and even offered money orders printed only for the Disneyland branch.” The bank was one of the very few in the United States during those years to be open on Sundays and holidays because the branch basically kept Disneyland’s hours. With the tellers departing in 1993 and the spread of ATMs, by 2001 the location was used for Annual Passport processing. Since 2009, it’s been the location of The Disney Gallery and its attached retail space.

In the park’s early years the building appears to have been more monochromatic and realistic; basically, more like the structures I found in Fort Collins.

Bank of Main Street at Disneyland, 2008. — **Bank of Main Street** at Disneyland, 2008.

All of the building facades along Disneyland’s Main Street USA have been extensively altered and retrofitted over the decades. Typically, paint color schemes have gotten more saturated, and decor more lavish. Main Street USA looks far more “theme park” than it did in the early years. But looking at older photos, I could definitely see the Fort Collins connection.

Yet that’s the thing. America’s actual historic districts and main streets and old towns look far more “theme park” today too. This was an essential point that Francaviglia was making in his investigation Main Street Revisited: Time, Space, and Image Building in Small-Town America—that the historic preservation and downtown revitalization movements that began in the 1970s and continue to today take their design cues from the public’s expectations for nostalgia. Which comes from theme parks, beginning with Disneyland.

Fort Collins even has a new Downtown Plan for their Old Town Historic District which the city adopted in the spring of 2017, amending and updating their original revitalization efforts which began in 1989. The District itself dates back to the late seventies.

Collins in Context

Harper Goff was certainly not the only one who was channeling childhood nostalgia while working on the Disneyland project. As Disney Imagineer David Mumford wrote in a 1992 letter to Jack and Leon Janzen, publishers of The “E” Ticket magazine, many designers worked on Main Street USA:

It seems little has been documented on the design development of Main Street at Disneyland…it is difficult to attribute Main Street’s design to just one person…Main Street is actually a typical representation of a Walt Disney Imagineering project, since it represents a collaborative effort by many creative people.

Mumford mentions Dick Irvine, Marvin Davis, Wade Rubottom, Harry McAfee, Harvey Gillette, and Sam McKim as having worked on designs with the participation Walt Disney. Also of note:

These men were assisted by Harry Webster, who seemed to have a natural ability for drawing American Gothic and Victorian details. Harry went on to work with Randall Duell on Six Flag Theme Parks, but was “borrowed back” by WED to design the France pavilion for World Showcase at EPCOT Center.

Mumford also confirms Goff’s story about Fort Collins, and repeats the matter of City Hall:

An effort has been made to find some of the reference material used to inspire each of the Main Street buildings. For example, Main Street’s City Hall is based on a building in Harper Goff’s home town of Fort Collins, Colorado.

But he also notes that many other disparate childhood memories of Americana were likely at play:

Imagineering legend Sam McKim recalls how the designs relied on a vintage book of photographs of turn-of-the-century Sonoma, California. But in tracking down this book from the studio library, I have found no direct references to Disneyland’s Main Street buildings. Perhaps like Walt, all the gentlemen working on the project had some Main Street roots from their home town that they brought to the design.

So although I did find elements here and there around Fort Collins that influenced Harper Goff’s concept renderings for Main Street USA besides the City Hall, FIre Department, and Bank of Main Street building, I have to consider all the other memories of the other designers (and any photo reference they may have used) as part of the mix. Main Street is a melange; saying it’s based only on Walt’s childhood in Marceline and Goff’s days in Fort Collins makes for nice promotional copy, but it’s a shortcut to the truth.

Yet given that, I found several general turn-of-the-century Victorian architectural threads here in Fort Collins which connect to Main Street USA. And that’s probably because while Walt was channeling the “small town-ness” of his boyhood in Missouri, the more interesting designs to ape off are in larger, more prosperous, much more locally influential towns like Fort Collins.

The kind folks at the Fort Collins Historical Society really urged me to check out the former Linden Hotel which began as the Poudre Valley Bank in 1882. This is one of the few buildings in Old Town which commanded the ‘corner presence’ often found at the Main Streets of the Disney parks. The upper floors were private offices when I visited but are to be converted into four luxury apartments as part of the city’s new Downtown Plan.

The stonework and brownstoning in the Old Town District were quite impressive, and also far more Western in orientation than the Mid Western structures of Marceline. Fort Collins felt like Denver, like Flagstaff, like Salt Lake City, like Billings.

As part of the efforts begun in 1989, a single block of Linden Street between Walnut Street and East Mountain Avenue was at some point closed to automobile traffic and converted into a pedestrian promenade.

The trim here in the upper right feels like what Disney’s people were going for when designing Main Street USA. And again, these features are not so much specific to Fort Collins and Harper Goff’s memories of it, but rather typical of towns more prosperous and populous than Marceline at the turn of the century.

The Miller Block dates back to 1888 (as proudly proclaimed by the sign, which may or may not be original), and I got some pretty strong Disneyland vibes off of it, especially the details along the roofline.

Like so many other buildings in the Old Town District, the Miller Block carries colorful trims which are less period accurate and more Disney-esque authentic.

The labeling and dating of the various blocks can be problematic. Some are actually over 100 years old, while others have been added as part of “restoration” efforts.

Perhaps the lettering here is authentic and has simply been repainted over the years; it’s just impossible to tell from the street. On Disney’s Main Street USA there is no such labeling, but one thing that thematic design leverages often to establish feelings of place and community are faux proprietorships. I’ve seen this at plenty other theme parks as well.

Main Street USA, Disneyland, 2008. — *Main Street USA*, Disneyland, 2008.

Neither Marceline Nor Fort Collins

After visiting both towns, I’ve come to realize that neither can really be dusted for fingerprints with regards to the design of Disneyland’s Main Street USA. There are echoes and ghosts and approximations, for sure. But no true one-to-one comparisons to be made (unless we count the roof feature from the Hottel House which somehow ended up on Engine Co. 71 at the Magic Kingdom). The Larimer County Courthouse / Disneyland City Hall is the most frequently cited, but even that is something of a stretch.

For one, the Disney model includes many more architectural aspects of domesticity. At both Marceline and Fort Collins, all the blocks are part of a twentieth century “urban core” consisting of banks, hotels, various businesses, and perhaps a couple restaurants or a saloon or two. At the Disney parks, bits of “houses” crop up in between and around the other facades, reinforcing a communal sense of “town-ness.”

Main Street USA, Disneyland, 2007. — *Main Street USA*, Disneyland, 2007.

All of Main Street’s architectural residents are much leaner as well. In Marceline the blocks were subdivided into maybe four or five side by side structures; in Fort Collins many of the blocks were a single building long. On Disney’s Main Street USA, so many are like the building above—wide enough only for a single proprietor and storefront entrance.

And the roof treatments! These appear to be flights of fancy; none to be found in either Walt or Harper’s Missouri and Colorado memories. As I mentioned earlier when looking at the Miller Block, a notable exception is the wrought iron railings on that building and others currently standing in Fort Collins which clearly served as inspiration for all the similar iron work on Main Street USA. There are no such features in Marceline, Missouri.

As for the use of awnings on nearly every window, it’s possible this was more common in both towns at the turn of the century, given the lack of electric fans or air conditioning. But awnings on the upper floors in Marceline and Fort Collins today are largely a thing of the past.

Much is made of the corner-facing structures at the end of each block on Main Street USA. The primary walk between the train station and the castle hub, which runs south to north, is bisected at the midpoint by the narrower Center Street. Thus there is an East and West Center street, and all the corners of each are given a commanding presence. Conversely, there are only a couple moments of “corner-ness” in Marceline and Fort Collins (notably the former Linden Hotel at the latter).

I have no idea where the design of the Disneyland Opera House came from; some sources say Sam McKim, others Marvin Davis, still others Dale Hennesy. But there’s certainly nothing like it in Marceline or Fort Collins. It should be noted that Harper Goff’s earliest concept drawings for the Town Square end of Main Street USA were more frontier and Old West rustic, as opposed to Victorian Gingerbread.

Documenting both the Marceline of Walt Disney’s youth and the Fort Collins of Harper Goff’s gave me more insight into how Disneyland’s Main Street USA model wasn’t designed rather than how it was. It’s part of company lore at this point, and both towns like to play up the connection to drive tourism (although I’d argue that Fort Collins could do even more on the ground, so to speak). But it’s mostly mythology.

At Fort Collins, the most direct link is of course that oft-mentioned Larimer County Courthouse, which has long since been demolished. And there are hints at the firehouse for sure that wound up in the DNA of both the Main Street USA areas at Disneyland and the Magic Kingdom at Walt Disney World. But as someone cataloging visual evidence would say, it’s all anecdotal in the details, and largely apocryphal in the bigger picture.

Finally Finished

This concludes the documentation of my five weeks of travel during the summer months of 2017. Between processing my photographs, designing custom graphics and maps, and (of course) the writing, it certainly took way longer than I expected. But I’m glad I got it all down in proper order.

Going forward I have a few notes from 2018 and then I’ll begin posts on this blog detailing site documentation from my three weeks of travel during the summer of 2019.

Onward.

In the Gardens of Elitch.

October 06, 2019 by Dave Gottwald

After an afternoon photographing Lakeside Amusement Park, I made a short drive across Denver to Elitch Gardens. “Elitch's,” as the locals call it, has a long and varied history going back to its opening in 1890 as the first metropolitan zoo west of Chicago. From there the floral gardens and animal displays evolved with the addition of a Kiddieland area in the 1950s and exciting roller coasters and other attractions in the 1960s and 70s.

Vintage postcard, original entrance to Elitch’s Gardens.

The Original Gardens

As the name suggests, the property was not conceived of as an amusement park. Mary Elizabeth Hauck Elitch Long (whew!) had a great love for both flora and fauna. So when her first husband John took some of the money earned at his successful Elitch Palace restaurant (which had the longest bar in Denver at the time) and purchased sixteen acres of farmland, the focus was all plants and animals.

Vintage postcard, Miniature Railroad. — Vintage postcard, **Miniature Railroad**.

“Elitch’s Zoological Gardens” opened for its inaugural season on May 1, 1890, and was quite profitable from the start. By the following spring, however, Mary’s husband was dead of pneumonia. She considered the Gardens their greatest joint project, and was determined to press forward without him. Record attendance was set three seasons later, and by the turn of the twentieth century Mary Elitch had expanded the property by a dozen acres and added several attractions.

Vintage postcard, Battle of the Monitor and Merrimac. — Vintage postcard, **Battle of the Monitor and Merrimac**.

These included a penny arcade, narrow gauge railroad, and even a Civil War naval battle reenactment—in addition to upgrading the landscaping of the grounds and providing the electric lighting which was becoming more commonplace at this time.

Map of the Elitch’s Gardens property, 1904.

In 1904 the park gained its first wooden roller coaster, and two years later a Philadelphia Toboggan Company carousel (their sixth) was built for the park. The carousel remained in service at the park until 1928, and during the depression it was sold. Today it resides in the town of Burlington, Colorado—and if only I had known! I had just driven through there the day prior, and I could have seen it.

Vintage postcard, second entrance to Elitch’s Gardens.

It was actually competition from Denver’s nearby “White City” of Lakeside during the following decade that spurred Mary’s park on to even more lavish theming and attractions. The original wooden arched entrance (seen in the first postcard above) was replaced with a Greek styled one, likely conceived to evoke the same grandeur of the Beaux-Arts structures at Lakeside.

Vintage postcard, Elitch exotic flower beds.

In 1916, Mary Elitch sold out—but with the stipulation that her park’s name never be changed, and that she be permitted to reside on the property for the rest of her life, rent-free. The new owner, John Mulvihill, rather quickly transformed the once bucolic property into something more flashy.

Vintage postcard, Trocadero Ballroom. — Vintage postcard, **Trocadero Ballroom**.

He added a Trocadero Ballroom and soon Elitch’s was the site of much drinking and dancing during the Roaring Twenties—something Mary didn’t care for at all (she was a teetotaler and had allowed no alcohol at her Gardens).

Vintage postcard, the Wildcat. — Vintage postcard, the **Wildcat**.

By the mid-thirties, both Mary Elitch and John Mulvihill were gone; so was the zoo and part of the original botanical gardens. Mulvihill’s son-in law, Arthur Gurtler, had taken ownership and was intent on adding more and more rides and attractions. The Sky Rocket wooden coaster, built in 1926, was revamped in 1935 as the Wildcat.

Map of the Elitch’s Gardens property, 1950.

Gurtler’s two sons took over in 1945 and by mid-century Elitch Gardens—like so many other small parks across the United States—had become swept up in the phenomenal success of Disneyland. But “Elitch’s” was actually a bit ahead of the national curve.

Vintage postcard, Kiddieland. — Vintage postcard, *Kiddieland*.

While Disneyland was just breaking ground in 1954, a Kiddieland section of the Gardens opened featuring rides just for smaller visitors and it was a huge hit, proving that amusement parks weren’t just for couples on dates or beer swilling workmen. The open ceremonies were presided over by TV celebrity Hopalong Cassidy and his horse, Topper—again presaging Disney and the media synergy his park would be known for.

Aerial view of the original Elitch’s Gardens location, circa mid-eighties.

A much-beloved wooden coaster, Mr. Twister, was designed by the famed John C. Allen and made its debut in 1964. For years, riders on Mr. Twister were directly within the sightline of nearby Lakeside’s Cyclone and could gaze across at riders on that coaster from the top of the first lift hill.

More attractions were added throughout the 1970s and 80s. But it was not to last.

Riverside Resurrection

By the late eighties, the neighborhood around Elitch’s Gardens was changing. The Gurtler family also wanted to expand the park. In this case, expansion meant moving. The result was a sweetheart deal with the City of Denver—the family bought sixty-five acres along the Platte River downtown (a former Superfund site) for about $6 million, and voters in 1989 approved a $14 million bond measure to pay for the preparation of the land and various infrastructure improvements.

The campaign slogan was "Vote for Elitch's — it's Denver!" which recalled the decades old park slogan “Not to see Elitch’s is not to see Denver.”

The current Elitch Gardens location, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

Elitch Gardens reopened at its current home on May 27, 1995. Fifteen of the twenty major attractions at the former Gardens were transplanted, although the long history and charm of the original grounds was gone. The entire ride relocation and new construction projects cost some $90 million.

Today, the park features six roller coasters, a water park and dozens of other rides and attractions, and holds the title of the only the only amusement park in the United States in the downtown core of a major city. The fourth-generation Gurtlers sold their interests after two (financially disappointing) seasons at the new location, and Elitch Gardens was passed back and forth between a number of corporate owners. The park was formerly part of the Six Flags chain until it sold the property in 2006. Today “Elitch’s” is actually owned by a sports and entertainment holding company, but managed by Premier Parks, a company started by a former Six Flags executive which manages a dozen amusement and water parks across the United States.

Although Six Flags split in 2006, the design of the Elitch park map is still very much in their graphic vein. Which is to say, less hyperbolic than the maps of Cedar Fair parks, but still somewhat stylized.

Entering the parking lot, I got very much a sports stadium vibe, mixed with traditional amusement park trappings. The flags, however, are metal. Lots of red, blue, and yellow.

Victorian gingerbread and wrought iron filigree adorns the ticket booths; this is something which has become a defacto design language standard at parks all over the world due to the influence of Disneyland.

This main entrance really struck me as odd; no familiar spatial organization for theme parks or amusement parks is visible from the parking lot. Without the Observation Tower in the background, there wouldn’t even be a visual cue that something exists beyond. In fact, with its arcing walls and striped awnings, the Elitch’s entrance looks much like a ballpark.

Once moving through the turnstiles, guests walk into a mid-sized indoor area with a few retail outlets and souvenir stands (presumably for last-minute purchases on the way out at park closing). There are a few design nods to the Victorian era and specifically London’s Crystal Palace from the Great Exhibition of 1851; similar cast-iron and plate-glass is employed here.

World Bazaar at Tokyo Disneyland, 2008. — *World Bazaar* at Tokyo Disneyland, 2008.

It reminded me a bit of the World Bazaar area at the entrance at Tokyo Disneyland, which references the same language. The entrance to Elitch Gardens was just as loud, too, with concrete floors and sound bouncing off all the glass and metal. But here it’s small, and again, organized in a shape that feels like a sports stadium. I’m wondering—given the unique urban downtown location of the park—if this was a deliberate attempt at familiarity.

Immediately across the way after remmerging in the sunlight is the park’s Carousel which is a restored antique model that is over 80 years old, and is one of the many classic attractions which was relocated from the old Elitch Gardens. This is the very carousel (#51) which replaced the park’s first Philadelphia Toboggan model (#6) in 1928.

The park’s Observation Tower was closed for maintenance on the day I visited, so I was not able to get any cool photography to tinker with like I did at Cedar Point, Kings Island, and Six Flags Great America. The views of downtown Denver must be spectacular too; the observation deck is 250 feet up.

Main Street, Denver

Beyond the Carousel and Observation Tower to the right is the waterpark area at Elitch’s. The rest of the grounds lie to the left. And the entry corridor to all the other attractions is a very, very, decidedly Disney-esque Main Street USA model. Seriously, I’ve never seen one this directly cribbed from the mouse.

Elitch “Main Street” area, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

The corridor is rather narrow, with a row of trees directly down the middle. This gives the walk something of a Midway feeling, but with added compression. The architecture is a Victorian hyperbolic mixture of the original Disneyland Main Street and its newer, larger cousins around the world.

All the trees really add something to the ambience. It wasn’t overly warm on the August day that I visited, but I can imagine it being an asphalt jungle at times without the lush landscaping.

There doesn’t appear to be forced perspective employed on the upper floors of the buildings here, which makes everything feel unnaturally large and imposing. Here’s another (unintentional) connection to World Bazaar at Tokyo Disneyland—the secondary floors there are all full scale as well, and many of the retail spaces and restaurants continue upstairs.

I walked this “Main Street” back a forth a few times, and with the trees, a narrow street, and the lack of forced perspective, it was indeed cramped. I don’t know if they were going for “cozy” but I definitely had compression on my mind.

Plenty of vintage-style graphic design, often in routed wood. The typefaces appear to be from the Letterhead Fonts Foundry, which I’ve seen at Disney as well as Cedar Fair parks.

The majority of the signage I saw was well done and on the more subtle side (read: not garish). Everything fits every well with late 1990s to mid-2010s Disney park design.

This makes sense, as the first season at the new Elitch’s was summer 1995. So whoever did the design work for this “Main Street” area was drawing on Disneyland (1955), the Magic Kingdom (1971), Tokyo Disneyland (1983), and even Disneyland Paris (1992).

Elitch’s is fascinating not just because of its long local history, but because in relocating in the mid-nineties, the park represents what designers in the industry thought represented “theme park-ness” at the time. It’s a snapshot of what tropes were well established enough by that time to work for the public.

For someone well-versed with Disney park design, this “Main Street” came off at once as a cute homage but also a knock off. Yet the execution was so on point that it didn’t feel cheap, as knock offs often do.

A curious feature of this area of Elitch Gardens are LED string lights which span the entire street, and then ended up looking pretty cool at night.

What would Mary Elitch think! The Trocadero has been resurrected right along with new Elitch Gardens—an addition by John Mulvihill which Mary always loathed for the drinking and dancing it brought.

At the end of this “Main Street” is the Big Wheel, a Ferris-type model some 100 feet tall. The compression of the walk leads to a classic sense of release as the view opens up; in this way the wheel functions as a classic Disney weenie, just like Sleeping Beauty’s Castle at the end of Main Street USA at Disneyland.

Looking back, the Observation Tower provides a weenie at the other end as well.

After passing through the courtyard area which holds the Big Wheel, things start to get more disparate. Elitch Gardens doesn’t really have “lands” per say, on its park map or otherwise. There are pockets, areas that seem to have the trappings of themes, and then stuff just kind of scattered in between. J.M. Mulvihills Bar & Grill doesn’t seem to be attached to anything (although the nearby swings ride is called Turn of the Century).

I loved this. A taco truck with a false front hacienda behind it to set the mood! This is the kind of thing I’m used to seeing at a Universal Studios park in the backlot area, or what I caught in the Southwest Territory area of Six Flags Great America. It’s the kind of FAKE / FAKE that’s almost charming.

Food Comes a Courtin’

Everywhere I’ve travelled, The Old West seems to be an inescapable theme. And not just in the United States, but in Europe and Asia too. Here at Elitch Gardens, its inclusion creates weird contradictions. So far, from the entrance through the park’s “Main Street” area, the emphasis has been on both traditional American amusement park iconography, and Victorian stylings suggesting the turn of the twentieth century. Although the park’s designers clearly leaned on Disney tropes (meeting mid-nineties expectations for “theme park-ness”), there’s at least a tangential connection to the legacy of the original Gardens.

But this “Frontiertown” approach has no connection to Elich’s or to the Denver area. As such, the theme is primarily relegated to a massive food court building.

Just as with “urban renewal” and “shopping mall,” the term “food court” is attributed to developer James Rouse. Wanting shoppers to extend their day at his indoor malls, he first added such a space to his Plymouth Meeting Mall (1966) outside Philadelphia in 1971, but it was too small and didn’t have much variety on the menu. Success finally struck three years later at the food court at his Paramus Park Mall (1974) in New Jersey.

Rouse was an unabashed fan of Disney. In 1963 he delivered the keynote address at Harvard’s Seventh Urban Design Conference, in which he asserted that given “its performance in relationship to its purpose” he felt that “the greatest piece of urban design in the United States today is Disneyland.” Rouse went on to correctly predict the massive impact the park’s spatial design principles would have in the coming decades on retail, dining, hospitality, and housing developments—and further this with his own projects; The Rouse Company ended up building Disney-inspired “Festival Marketplaces” all over the country in the 1970s and 1980s.

Mad Props

My overall impression of the Rustler’s Food Court at Elitch Gardens is that they went overboard on the propping. As I observed at Six Flags Great America, excessive propping is the lazy way to do what Disney does more purposefully with their decor.

This is what I call the “Flotsam / Jetsam” approached to a vaulted ceiling. Basically, if you’ve got a high open interior area in a structure, a solid shortcut to theming is to fill the rafters with a bunch of appropriate “stuff.”

And it’s not just excessive here at Rustler’s, it’s also quite random.

You have the expected displays, like livestock skulls and coils of lassos. But the rows of cowboy boots that are simply affixed to the wall? That I don’t get.

There’s no sense of historicity, even an invented one. If we’re supposed to be in the “Old West” then what are these Colorado license plates from 1970 doing here?

All the overdone propping spills out to the exteriors, especially on the roofs.

Just a pile of junk, with hand-painted signs that look like they came from the bric-a-brac aisle at Target.

There’s literally a stack like this on either side of every entrance and exit to the food court.

There are what appear to be a few genuine antiques scattered throughout. If this isn’t an authentic sign from the period, it’s well-reproduced for sure.

The Rustler’s Food Court building connects with a couple other exterior spaces. This “Tack and Saddlery” is home to carnival games (which did not seem to open on the day I visited).

In case you missed it, there are a half-dozen signs that say FOOD COURT on the roofs. The hand painted wood typography is a nice touch however.

There are also a couple retail spaces which are staged as faux proprietorships.

One trick which the Elitch Gardens designers successfully borrowed from Disney is the use of multiple, connected facades which actually lead all into the same building. Even though this appears to be a saloon, it’s just another entrance into Rustler’s Food Court.

At least this is clever—carnival fun as a “Gaming Parlour.”

Waters of the West

The Old West theming extends slightly beyond this one food court, but only in small ways. Disaster Canyon is the parks’ standard river rapids ride, and like so many models around the world, some kind of “Frontier” setting is the default. It was a bit chilly and the sun was due to set soon, so I skipped this one.

Nearby Shipwreck Falls is Elitch’s version of a shoot the chute attraction, and it has what looks like literal flotsam and jetsam strewn all over the place—the stuff you might find floating in the ocean after a ship has gone down.

The queue entrance is a lighthouse, which reminds me of the New England themed Yankee Harbor area I found at Six Flags Great America. But because Elitch Gardens is so small, and there are no clearly marked “lands,” there isn’t really an opportunity for immersion. This “seaport lighthouse” area is nestled in next to some standard, off-the-shelf amusement park rides, roller coasters, etc.

Nicely routed type on the signage, even though the design feels like an uncomfortable mix of US Navy surplus grit and Hyannis Port yacht club class.

Let’s Get Twisted

Again, there’s no lands or themed areas per say at Elitch Gardens. So right around the corner from these water rides, and just down the road from the Old West food court, right at the back edge of the park, is a classic wooden roller coaster which doesn’t seem to have a relationship to its environs at all.

Vintage brochure, The Twister. — Vintage brochure, **The Twister**.

The original Elitch Gardens had installed a number of coaster rides over the decades, including Toboggan Slide (1904–1925) and Sky Rocket (1926–1935). But none was more famous or beloved than Mister Twister which was designed by industry legend John C. Allen. Unfortunately, the some 3,000 feet of thrilling track did not make the move to the new Elitch Gardens in the mid-nineties; it’s likely the park balked at the sheer expense of dismantling and reconstructing it. Given its age, the Twister probably would have required some serious retrofitting and restoration as well.

Vintage poster for Mister Twister on the current Twister II queue building. — Vintage poster for **Mister Twister** on the current **Twister II** queue building.

A few years after the new Elitch Gardens opened, family-owned Knoebels in Elysburg, Pennsylvania seemed to think it was worth the expense, and expressed interest in purchasing and moving Mister Twister, which had been left standing at the former property. This proved impractical, so instead the park bought the blueprints, modified the layout to fit the footprint on the Knoebels property, and mirrored it. The park’s Twister opened in 1999 and has been thrilling guests ever since. So this classic coaster—or at least the experience it provided—isn’t quite gone forever.

Elitch built an entirely fresh ten-story coaster from scratch at their new location instead, and unimaginatively called it Twister II. The park claims it recaptures the famed twists, turns, and thrills of the original (“Built Wilder The Second Time Around”), but most fans who remember the first Mister Twister don’t agree. I myself couldn’t make the comparison, but I rode it twice (once in the front row and once in the back) and I found Twister II lacking. The ride was pretty rough and uneven, actually.

Odds ‘n’ Ends

Apart from the theming I’ve already covered, all that’s left are some disparate bits of amusement park charm scattered here and there, and some of the same sorts of vintage typography that I found at Lakeside earlier that same day. I’m sure this looks great when it’s lit up at night.

This typical Theme Park Gingerbread looks like a food stand, but it’s actually one of two entrances to a rather unremarkable interactive dark ride called Ghost Blasters which is part of a larger franchise. This attractions closed in the fall of 2018. For the 2019 season the location reopened as a “thrill ride for the mind” called the Kaleidoscape which was developed by Meow Wolf, an arts and entertainment group which began in New Mexico as an artist collective in 2008.

Right next door in front of Mind Eraser, a Vekoma suspended coaster, is this cute little shack housing the Colorado Corn Dog Company. I point it out because there are nice little thematic design moments through Elitch Gardens, but because they were not comprehensively planned with an overall narrative, or even more specifically themed lands or areas, the charm falls flat. If this shack was supported by, say, a turn of the twentieth century boardwalk or perhaps a county fair setting, it would really shine.

Goodnight for the Gardens?

It’s rather fitting that it was dark by the time I strolled back through the “Main Street” area to exit Elitch Garden, because a permanent night might end up falling over the park—its future might be in jeopardy.

Rumors began swirling when the city of Denver approved a new zoning plan for the land that the park sits on in December of 2018. The River Mile is a mixed-use urban redevelopment project which includes high density housing in the form of some 8,000 units of various configurations. Office space would be available in some towers, with the street level reserved for retail and dining.

The architects working on the project say it will take several decades for The River Mile to be completed, so for now at least, Elitch Gardens seems to be secure in its current location. But who knows what might happen down the road. Could Elitch Gardens move on to yet a third iteration?

Walking towards the exit of the park, I took my time. The small LED lights strung across the rooftops of the “Main Street” area of Elitch Gardens were synchronized in an elaborate display with colored lighting on each and every building. I watch this go through several cycles; everything was bright and colorful, but the transitions were slow and subtle enough that the lighting wasn’t obnoxious. It was a very pleasant way to end my day in Denver.

Elitch Gardens is interesting to me mostly because of the snapshot of mid-nineties, Disney-esque thematic design on display. From the park’s “Main Street” to Rustler’s Food Court, Elitch Gardens v 2.0 looks like a shopping list of visual tropes that audiences have come to expect from the theme park experience. It would have been nice if the park was designed with a cohesive vision rather than the more fragmentary approach they took with the property, but if you’re in the Denver area during the summer months I think it is well worth a visit.

Things Fall Apart.

September 28, 2019 by Dave Gottwald

I had two destinations in mind when I added Denver, Colorado to my route. Both are historically important examples of early amusement parks. One has been completely relocated, and the other, sadly, appears to be in a state of some decline.

Lakeside Amusement Park, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

Lakeside Amusement Park has been a Denver attraction since 1908. It’s what was known in the United States as a trolley park, or an outdoor amusement area that was the 19th century precursor to the more 20th century amusement park. Located in close proximity to streetcar lines in major cities, such parks were often financed and constructed by the companies which operated the lines themselves, to bolster weekend ridership when residents were not commuting for work; here this line was the Denver Tramway.

A “White City” for Denver

Lakeside is notable for being the only remaining park in the United States which employs proto-theming based on the designs of the 1893 Chicago World’s Fair and its “White City.” There were dozens of White Cities built during the first couple decades of the twentieth century, and the term became synonymous in the public mind with trolley parks and amusement parks, just as Coney Islands sprouted up far from New York as that name served as shorthand for “seaside amusement boardwalk.”

Local brewing magnate Adolph Zang—whose additional success in insurance, investments, and mining made him one of Denver’s richest men (think Mr. Burns on The Simpsons)—opened his “White City” on May 20, 1908. The park was the brainchild of Zang and Denver mayor Robert Speer. Some fifty thousand people attended that first day, and the park glistened at night under the pale glow of one hundred thousand electric light bulbs (the “white” for which it and parks like it were named).

Vintage postcard, The Chutes. — Vintage postcard, **The Chutes**.

Denver’s “White City” not only included several expected amusement park rides popular at the time such as a Shoot the Chute, but also an indoor swimming pool (quite a luxury in the early twentieth century) called the Natatorium, a skating rink, the El Patio Ballroom, a narrow-gauge railroad, even a casino—all bordering along the edge of thirty-seven-acre Lake Sylvan, used for fishing and boat rides. The park advertised 41 attractions at opening.

Zang even managed to get the property and its environs incorporated as the town of Lakeside, making the serving of alcohol legal in his German basement beer hall (presumably serving his own label).

As this postcard and the one below show, the names “Lakeside” and “White City” appear to have been used interchangeably in the park’s early years (though some sources today claim that “White City” was never more than a nickname). Since at least the late 1930s the property has been known exclusively as Lakeside, after the Lakeside Realty and Amusement Company (which was basically just a syndicate of Zang and his brewer friends) as well as the city he lobbied to create in its name.

All of the original buildings at White City / Lakeside were designed in the Beaux Arts style, just like much of the Chicago World’s Fair. This meant lots of white plaster forming neoclassical buildings, Greco-Roman columns and decorations, and every manner of excessive ersatz Rococo flourish. All aglow with thousands and thousands of the aforementioned electric light bulbs.

Another element ported over from the Chicago fair was plenty of pools with fountains. As pictured above, all was illuminated at night. I can only imagine what their monthly electric bill was in those early days.

Towering Jewels

Today only a dozen or so Beaux-Arts structures remain. The grandest of these by far is the Tower of Jewels which serves as the park’s main entrance at the intersection of Sheridan Boulevard and West 46th Avenue. I parked in the dirt lot further down the road and then walked back to admire it.

The building at the tower’s base originally housed Lakeside’s casino and theatre; today the park’s administrative offices are inside, including a manual telephone switchboard which reportedly still works.

At 150 feet, the Tower of Jewels was the tallest structure in all of Denver in 1908. Although it’s not in the best shape today, the details on the tower, especially its intricate light bulb patterns, are impressive. There are an estimated 10,000 of them on the tower.

This lovely hand-painted sign looks more 1950s or 60s than early twentieth century.

Lakeside’s major wooden roller coaster, the Cyclone, was added in 1940. This marquee advertisement, complete with dimensional letters, probably dates to a couple decades later.

Back where I parked my truck, I spied this nifty hand-painted sign a few feet away. Based on this rendering of the PEPSI logo—which was in use from 1973 to 1987—this sign hadn’t been used in at least three decades when I came across it.

Former Lakeside Speedway, satellite view. Click for link. Map data: Ⓒ Google.

What exactly was the Lakeside Speedway? I didn’t find out during my visit, but I later discovered that a one-fifth-mile oval stock car race track at Lakeside opened in the late 1930s. Unfortunately, a tragedy in the summer of 1988 in which a driver lost control and killed a spectator (also injuring several others) closed it for good. The speedway has sat pretty much undisturbed in the some thirty years since.

The Phantom Ticket Booths

As I walked from the parking lot towards the secondary gate of Lakeside, I realized that the speedway PEPSI sign was just the beginning. This was going to be a typographic bonanza. Best of all, I pretty much had the park to myself!

Lakeside’s hours vary widely, even during the summer. On the Wednesday in July that I visited, gates were not scheduled to open until 6pm, with rides coming on an hour later. This was only late afternoon. However the staff member at the gate kindly let me in anyway (without paying a dime!) when I explained that I was a design professor and just wanted to take some photos.

This sign caught my eye shortly after I entered Lakeside. The script looked familiar, but I couldn’t place it.

Matterhorn at Cedar Point. — **Matterhorn** at Cedar Point.

Going back through my other trip photos, I found it. Matterhorn appears to be an off-the-shelf amusement ride, and I saw this one first at Cedar Point a few weeks prior. The logo is exactly the same.

The sky was cloudy and it was drizzling on and off. Combined with the park being virtually empty except for some maintenance workers, there was an eerie, abandoned, post-apocalyptic vibe in the air.

The neon sign for the Skoota Boats is clearly not Beaux-Arts; this is some lovely Bauhaus-style type in the fashion of Herbert Bayer. Why?

Well in 1935 Lakeside got a new owner—Ben Krasner, who had started as a concessionaire at the park in 1917, and by the thirties had worked his way up to head of all concessions. Krasner wanted to update the look and feel of Lakeside, so he brought in architect Richard Crowther who introduced many Art Deco and Streamline Moderne structures popular at the time, including some very memorable ticket booths.

I’ve never observed original ticket booths in these styles at an amusement park anywhere. Though paint schemes in recent years seem to have gotten more extreme, these were so cool to see.

Crowther also added neon lighting all over the park. The once “white” twinkling of the original thousands of light bulbs was pretty much relegated to the Tower of Jewels in favor of a garish, multicolor extravaganza. The ticket booth here appears to be of a later vintage, perhaps the 1940s or 50s.

Beaux-Arts touches remain around the grounds, albeit repainted with brighter hues.

There is also a mixture of Spanish Colonial style ceramic tile roofs on some of the carnival games buildings.

The park’s Lakeshore Railway is a narrow-gauge railroad which circles Lake Rhoda (Krasner renamed it after his daughter). The train cars were originally pulled by two steam engines built for the 1904 St. Louis World's Fair, Puffing Billy and Whistling Tom. The ride still runs today, pulled by diesel engines.

Hand-lettered typography around every corner! This probably dates to the 1960s.

What appears newest (and brightest) at Lakeside is the paint jobs, but some of the signage could use some work; witness the missing “a” above. Many of these marquees feature bizarre typeface pairings—”Labyrnithe” is a mid-century script, but “Crystal Palace” is a distinctly early twentieth century display face.

What a find! This script neon is delicious, and you so rarely find actual vintage samples at amusement parks in the wild—they’re usually more recent retro-style additions.

Lovely modern type, probably from the 1940s. I do have to commend the staff of Lakeside; despite many structures in various states of disrepair, maintenance were on the grounds that day specifically fixing up neon signage.

This appears to be a condensed cut of Futura, very popular at mid-century.

Sixties pop in full effect! I can almost hear The Monkees playing in the background.

And seventies Mexicana! This is the omnipresent Davida designed in 1965 by Louis Minott, and it’s been gracing Mexican food packaging ever since (as well as, oddly, products from Café du Monde in New Orleans). The typeface is a classic example of the 1960s Victorian revival in phototype and all its exuberance.

More sixties wackiness. I really like the bouncy-on-the-baseline treatment and playful sans serif faces which were very popular at the time.

So much dimensional script. This might be earlier, 1950s perhaps. I will admit it does bother me that neither the “t” at the end of Tilt nor the “l” at the end of Whirl terminate through the stem.

Thirties or forties moderne type, but with sixties-style baseline bounce!

I don’t even know what to make of this one. The lettering reminds me of the more wild fifties and sixties display scripts by French designer Roger Excoffon, but run through an early 80s New Wave pop blender.

The only shame is that I wasn’t able to stay until Lakeside opened for the evening, so I couldn’t see any of this fantastic stuff lit up in full glory after sundown.

Riding Up a Storm

In 1940, Ben Krasner stepped up to the big leagues and added a wooden roller coaster—the calling card for any twentieth century American amusement park. The coaster station and marquee was constructed in the Streamline Moderne style so popular at the time.

The Cyclone was built by the famed T.M. Harton Company of Pittsburg and designed by Edward A. Vettel Sr. (1885–1952), and is only one of two Vettel coasters left in the United States (he designed dozens during his prime). The other is Blue Streak at Conneaut Lake Park in Pennsylvania.

The lift hill tops out at 85 feet (which was quite high for that era) and then drops guests onto a more than four thousand feet of track in a simple out and back layout. There are only a handful of coasters built before World War II like the Cyclone left; in 2003 American Coaster Enthusiasts (ACE) added it to their list of Landmark Coasters. This is one I really wish I had been able to stay until 7pm to ride. But it was not to be.

Lakeside Today

Lakeside is still owned and operated by one Rhoda Krasner, the daughter for whom Ben renamed the lake. Krasner the elder passed away in 1965, and Rhoda—then just out of college—took over management. She and her own daughter, Brenda Fishman, are reluctant to sell the park to this day, and offers of investing or otherwise modernizing the property to increase revenue fall on deaf ears.

None of the park’s structures (not even the Tower of Jewels) are on the National Register of Historic Places, and Rhoda (who’s quite shy about press and publicity) doesn’t seem interested at all. For one thing, Adolph Zang’s political maneuvering so many years ago which incorporated Lakeside so he could sell beer means that today the park is actually its own municipality, and Denver’s smallest, with only eight residents. Just like a miniature Walt Disney World, Lakeside maintains its own police force and firefighters. So any preservation efforts (especially at the federal level) might thus disrupt the autonomy which the Krasner family no doubt enjoys.

Lakeside still has a special place in the hearts of long-time Denver residents, although for me it was strictly a typographic odyssey through a mostly vacant property. Local author David Forsyth published Denver's Lakeside Amusement Park: From the White City Beautiful to a Century of Fun in 2016, and amassed a wealth of knowledge from old timers, some of which was not substantiated enough to include.

When I visited in August 2017, Lakeside was already having a rough year; in March, a car slammed into a parking structure and it collapsed, in May a hailstorm pummelled the Tower of Jewels and caused some damage. Although it could use more than just a couple coats of new paint, I’m glad Lakeside is still with us, and that it’s still family-owned and fiercely independent in this era of the Disneys, the Universals, and the Cedar Fairs.

Next stop: Elitch Gardens.