Amusement parks began with a healing spring in Denmark and coal cars rolling down a Pennsylvania mountain. These stories visit a park born from a failed explosion, a carousel where riders still reach for brass rings, a Ferris wheel that ended in dynamite and a coaster named for the Year of the Dragon. You will meet a hosiery maker who built a roller coaster, a man who floated across the English Channel and an Imagineer who wore high heels in the model shop.
Every tile in a Theme Parks and Roller Coasters game carries one of these. Open one to read it now, or leave them for the board to hand you.
Parks
nine stories
1The oldest amusement park began with a legend
On the tile: Bakken1583Legend
Denmark's Dyrehavsbakken, known as Bakken, dates its start to 1583 and is widely called the world's oldest amusement park. The story goes that a girl named Kirsten Piil, lost in a dark forest north of Copenhagen, was shown the way back to the city by a spring that burst from a hillside. Another folk tale says she sold its healing water in bottles. Either way, the sick came to drink, left their crutches behind and smashed their cups to break the illness. Entertainers and vendors soon followed the crowds.
At the 1901 Pan-American Exposition in Buffalo, showman Frederic Thompson sold 50-cent trips to the moon aboard a make-believe airship called the Luna. Some accounts say the name came from his partner Elmer Dundy's sister. The ride was such a hit that in 1903 Thompson and Dundy made it the centerpiece of a new Coney Island park, Luna Park, lit by some 250,000 bulbs. Pittsburgh's Frederick Ingersoll then helped develop Luna Parks across the United States and overseas, until the name itself came to mean an amusement park.
3The park beach where the forward pass got practice
On the tile: Cedar Point1913
Cedar Point, in Ohio, has a surprising place in football history. In the summer of 1913 two Notre Dame teammates and roommates, Knute Rockne and Gus Dorais, worked there as lifeguards. Off duty, they practiced the forward pass on the beach, drilling timing, release points and catching the ball without breaking stride. That fall Notre Dame played Army for the first time, at West Point, and Dorais completed 14 of 17 passes in a 35-13 win. The pass had been legal since 1906, but that win put Notre Dame football on the national map.
Knott's Berry Farm in California really was a berry farm first. During the Great Depression, Cordelia Knott added a fried chicken dinner to the menu of her little tea room, cooked in her own home kitchen and priced at 65 cents. Diners kept coming, and in 1938 the restaurant served more than 265,000 chicken dinners. To entertain the people waiting for a table, the Knotts added shops and displays, and in 1940 work began on a Ghost Town built with old barns, buggies and tools gathered from around California and the West.
Santa Claus, Indiana, had a problem: children arrived expecting to meet Santa and were disappointed to find he was not there. Louis J. Koch, an Evansville industrialist with nine children of his own, took it on as a retirement project. On August 3, 1946, he opened Santa Claus Land, with a toy shop, a restaurant, themed children's rides and Santa himself. Because everything followed one theme, the park calls itself the nation's first theme park, and it opened nine years before Disneyland. It became Holiday World in 1984.
Efteling, in Kaatsheuvel in the Netherlands, began in the 1930s as a sports park with a soccer field. According to the park's history, in 1951 Betty Perquin, wife of the local mayor, suggested a garden of fairy tales. The mayor brought in his brother-in-law, filmmaker Peter Reijnders, who persuaded the illustrator Anton Pieck to design it. Pieck made around 1,500 sketches and drawings, and Reijnders brought the scenes to life with movement, sound and music. The Fairytale Forest opened on May 31, 1952, with ten fairy tales.
7Disneyland's opening day was nicknamed Black Sunday
On the tile: Disneyland1955
Disneyland's opening on July 17, 1955, was supposed to be an invitation-only day for about 15,000 guests. More than 28,000 got in, many with counterfeit tickets, and one man reportedly charged $5 a head to climb his ladder over the fence. A plumbers' strike had forced Walt Disney to choose between finishing restrooms or drinking fountains, and he chose restrooms. In 100-degree heat, high heels sank into the fresh asphalt on Main Street. Employees who survived the day called it Black Sunday.
Texas developer Angus Wynne Jr. visited the recently opened Disneyland and came home to Arlington determined to build a park with a Texas twist. He first called it Great Southwestland. Instead it became Six Flags Over Texas, for the six nations whose flags had flown over the state: Spain, France, Mexico, the Republic of Texas, the Confederacy and the United States, each with its own section of the park. It opened on August 5, 1961, and drew almost half a million visitors in its short first season.
Europa-Park in Germany grew out of a family business far older than any theme park. In 1780 Paul Mack founded a wagon-building workshop in Waldkirch, and over the generations the Mack family became a major maker of amusement rides. In the 1970s Franz Mack and his son Roland decided they wanted more than customers: they wanted their own park as a stage for their rides. Europa-Park opened on July 12, 1975, in the small village of Rust, and it now draws around six million visitors a year.
1In Russia, roller coasters are American mountains
On the tile: Ice Slides1600s
The roller coaster's ancestors were made of ice. By the 1600s Russians were building winter ice slides as tall as 70 or 80 feet, with drops as steep as 50 degrees. They became popular with the upper class, and Catherine the Great had a few built on her own property near St. Petersburg. In the early 1800s the idea reached Paris, where cars with wheels locked to a track took over. That is why a roller coaster is a montaña rusa, a Russian mountain, in Spanish. In Russia, oddly, the name flipped: it is an American mountain.
In 1827 a gravity railroad opened in Pennsylvania to carry coal nine miles down from the mines at Summit Hill to Mauch Chunk, now called Jim Thorpe. Loaded cars coasted down on their own. Mules hauled the empty cars back up, then rode down themselves in a special car fitted with feed troughs. People clamored to ride like the mules, so passenger cars were added. After other railroads took over the coal, thrill-seekers kept the Switchback running, and in 1873 it carried 30,478 passengers.
When Luna Park Melbourne opened in Australia on December 13, 1912, its Great Scenic Railway opened with it. More than a century later it is still running, and the park calls it the oldest continually operating wooden roller coaster in the world. It is old-fashioned in a way riders notice right away: a brakeman stands aboard each train and controls its speed by hand. The ride climbs a cable lift about 52 feet high and runs along roughly 3,170 feet of track at up to 37 miles per hour.
The Giant Dipper at the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk in California was built in just 47 days in 1924, at a cost of $50,000, and a ride cost 15 cents. Before it arrived, the Boardwalk's big thrill was a tame Thompson Scenic Railway. Its builder, Arthur Looff, came from a family of ride makers: his father, Charles Looff, had delivered a merry-go-round with hand-carved horses to the Boardwalk in 1911. In 1987 the coaster and that carousel were both named National Historic Landmarks.
5Elvis Presley's favorite coaster moved to Green Bay
On the tile: Zippin Pippin1977
The Zippin Pippin, a wooden coaster in Memphis, was Elvis Presley's favorite ride. On August 8, 1977, he rented the whole Libertyland park from 1:15 to 7 a.m. for about ten guests and rode the Pippin again and again for two hours. He lost his belt buckle on the ride, and it was found and returned the next day. It was his last public appearance; he died on August 16. Libertyland closed in 2005, and Green Bay, Wisconsin, rebuilt the ride at its Bay Beach Amusement Park in 2011.
6Disneyland's mountain gave coasters tubular steel
On the tile: Matterhorn1959
Disneyland's Matterhorn Bobsleds, opened in 1959, needed two intertwining coaster tracks to fit inside a 147-foot replica of the Swiss peak. Ordinary angle-iron track could not bend into curves that tight, so engineers Karl Bacon and Ed Morgan of Arrow Development made the rails from tubular steel that could be bent precisely. They picked polyurethane wheels, quieter than steel, and arranged wheels and rails so the cars could not derail on high-speed curves. The result was the world's first tubular steel roller coaster, and it set the standard for the steel coasters that followed.
When The Beast opened at Kings Island in Ohio in 1979, it was advertised as the biggest, baddest, longest, fastest wooden roller coaster in the world. Others have since gone taller and faster, but no wooden coaster has gone longer. Its lead engineers, Al Collins and Jeff Gramke, worked around the hilly site by going underground, creating three pitch-black tunnels. In 2022 retracking work made the record holder two feet longer, stretching it from 7,359 to 7,361 feet. A ride lasts four minutes and 10 seconds.
8A record coaster named for the Year of the Dragon
On the tile: Steel Dragon2000
Steel Dragon 2000 opened on August 1, 2000, at Nagashima Spa Land in Japan, and its name came from the zodiac: 2000 was a Year of the Dragon. It arrived about three months after Cedar Point's Millennium Force and took that ride's records as the tallest and fastest complete-circuit coaster. Japan's earthquake rules meant it used far more steel than a typical coaster. Its height and speed records soon fell, but at 8,133 feet it stayed the world's longest roller coaster for more than 25 years, until Falcons Flight opened in Saudi Arabia at the end of 2025.
Kingda Ka opened at Six Flags Great Adventure in New Jersey in 2005, launching riders to 128 miles per hour and up a 456-foot tower, about 45 stories high. The whole thrill lasted about 28 seconds. Its speed record fell in 2010, but it still held the record as the world's tallest roller coaster when the park closed it for good in November 2024 to make room for new rides. On February 28, 2025, it was imploded, about two hours earlier than planned.
The Flying Horses Carousel in Oak Bluffs, on Martha's Vineyard, was built in 1876 by New York maker Charles Dare and has turned there since 1884. It is the nation's oldest platform carousel, and its 20 hand-carved horses have manes and tails of real horsehair and inset glass eyes. Riders grab rings from dispensing arms as they whirl past, and a lucky brass ring earns a free ride. In 1986 a preservation trust bought the carousel to keep it from being sold off piece by piece to collectors.
Chicago's 1893 World's Columbian Exposition wanted an answer to the Eiffel Tower, and engineer George W. G. Ferris supplied one: a steel wheel about 264 feet tall with 36 cars, each able to hold 60 people. A ride cost 50 cents. After the fair the wheel was rebuilt near Lincoln Park in Chicago, where it lost money, and then moved again for the 1904 world's fair in St. Louis. On May 11, 1906, demolition crews used 200 pounds of dynamite to bring it down.
Vienna's Giant Ferris Wheel, the Riesenrad, was built in 1897 to celebrate the 50th anniversary of Emperor Franz Joseph I's reign, and it started with 30 cabins. It has had an eventful life. In 1914 a circus director rode a horse on top of one of its cabins for a film scene. In 1916 a demolition permit was granted, but there was no money to carry it out. Fire in 1944 destroyed almost everything except the steel frame, and when the wheel reopened in 1947, it had only 15 cabins. It still turns with 15.
The first bumper cars were not meant to bump. Invented by a pair of brothers in Massachusetts and sold under the name Dodgem, they were supposed to be driven around a smooth steel floor while riders dodged one another. The earliest cars were round, with a small seat and a steering wheel on a long column. They had their problems: the steering was counterintuitive, and riders were often knocked out of their seats onto the floor. Power came from an electrified grid in the ceiling. Bumping, inevitably, became part of the fun.
5The Tilt-A-Whirl was nearly called the Tilt-ulator
On the tile: Tilt-A-Whirl1926
Herbert Sellner of Faribault, Minnesota, who had started out making mission furniture, began sketching a new ride in January 1926 and called it the Tilt-ulator. He filed a patent that April, and about a month later, his notes show, he renamed it the Tilt-A-Whirl. The first one, with nine cars that held two riders each, was built in a neighbor's garden. It opened at the Minnesota State Fair that year and carried 4,233 riders in seven days. The ride has been part of the fair ever since.
In 1930 Blackpool Pleasure Beach in England opened a dark ride of the type Americans called a Pretzel, with small cars following a winding track through the dark. Pretzels meant little to British riders, so the ride was named after Arnold Ridley's hit play The Ghost Train, which was also made into a film. The park calls it the original ghost train and the source of the famous name. Ridley conceived his play while waiting on the deserted platform of Mangotsfield station. Decades later he found fame as an actor, playing Private Godfrey in the TV comedy Dad's Army.
Coney Island's Parachute Jump started with the military. In the mid-1930s Navy Commander James H. Strong patented towers to train parachutists, and when one near Hightstown, New Jersey, drew curious civilians, he and his associates turned it into an amusement. The Jump was built for the 1939 New York World's Fair and moved to Coney Island in 1941. During World War II its lights stayed on as a beacon for planes and ships while much of the city was dark. It gave its last rides in the 1960s and, after an earlier designation was revoked, became a city landmark for good in 1989.
Long before log flumes were rides, they were work. From the mid-1800s, sawmills built water-filled troughs to float logs over long distances, and some in California's Sierra Nevada ran more than 60 miles. Workers called flume herders patrolled them for jams, often by riding a log down. In 1963 Six Flags Over Texas turned the idea into fun with El Aserradero, Spanish for the sawmill, built by Arrow Development. It was the first log flume ride as we know it, and it was so popular that the park built a second one.
9Universal's tour began with a quarter and a boxed lunch
On the tile: Studio Tour1915
When Carl Laemmle opened Universal City on March 15, 1915, anyone with 25 cents could come in and watch silent movies being made, and another nickel bought a boxed chicken lunch. Laemmle put bleachers around the sets and encouraged visitors to cheer the heroes and boo the villains. Sound movies ended the fun, because they needed quiet sets, and the tours stopped for more than 30 years. In 1964 Universal opened its doors again, carrying visitors in pink and white Glamortrams, the start of today's Universal Studios Hollywood.
Georg Carstensen, inspired by amusement parks he had seen abroad, won royal permission to open Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen. It opened on August 15, 1843, just outside the city walls, and its lake was originally part of the old city moat. Hans Christian Andersen was among the visitors and found inspiration there for his fairy tale The Nightingale. Carstensen lasted only five years as director. In 1848 he left to fight in the First Schleswig War, and Tivoli's board dismissed him for breach of contract.
Charles Looff came to America in 1870 and began as a furniture carver. In 1876 he built Coney Island's first carousel, installed at Vanderveer's Bathing Pavilion, and he is credited with the flamboyant Coney Island style of carving, full of arched necks and dramatic poses. His company went on to build more than 50 carousels and amusement areas in several states. In 1916, after moving to Southern California, he built the Looff Pleasure Pier, now the Santa Monica Pier, and its carousel building, the Hippodrome, his last work.
LaMarcus Adna Thompson made his fortune building specialized machinery for the hosiery industry, then left the business because of failing health. It is said that a trip to the Mauch Chunk coal railroad in Pennsylvania gave him a new idea. On June 16, 1884, his Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway opened at Coney Island, the first roller coaster in the United States designed and built for amusement rather than converted from a working line. It moved at six miles per hour, cost five cents and cleared $600 a day.
4He floated across the Channel, then opened a park
On the tile: Paul Boyton1895
Paul Boyton became world-famous in an inflatable rubber life-saving suit invented by Clark S. Merriman. In 1875, paddling in the suit, Boyton crossed the English Channel from Boulogne to Dover in about 23 and a half hours, months before Matthew Webb became the first to swim it unaided. He later floated down hundreds of miles of European rivers. In 1895 he opened Sea Lion Park, Coney Island's first enclosed amusement park, with live sea lions and a Shoot-the-Chutes water ride.
George C. Tilyou opened Steeplechase Park on Coney Island in 1897 with a horse racing theme, where riders raced mechanical horses along a steel track. One fee of 25 cents covered 25 attractions. In 1907 a fire burned for eighteen hours and destroyed much of the park. Tilyou's response is still remembered: the next day he put up a sign charging ten cents admission to the burning ruins. He rebuilt, adding the Pavilion of Fun, a glass and steel hall that sheltered visitors in bad weather.
John A. Miller, born in Homewood, Illinois, in 1872 with the surname Mueller, started working with coaster pioneer LaMarcus Thompson at 19 and soon became his chief engineer. He earned more than 100 patents for coaster technology and safety. His 1910 safety chain dog stopped cars from rolling backward down the lift hill if the pull chain broke, and it evolved into the hardware behind the clickety-clack of wooden coasters. His 1919 underfriction wheels locked cars to the track. He died in 1941 while working on a coaster in Houston.
7The economist who picked Disneyland's orange grove
On the tile: Buzz Price1953
In 1953 Walt and Roy Disney turned to Harrison "Buzz" Price of the Stanford Research Institute to find the best place for Disneyland. Price weighed population, access and climate, focused on Orange County and analyzed ten sites there. The winner was 160 acres of orange grove in Anaheim, near the new Santa Ana Freeway. He later helped choose the site for Walt Disney World and did studies for Six Flags and SeaWorld parks. In his autobiography, he noted that the French "preferred line cutting to polite waiting."
8Imagineering's first woman wore heels to the shop
On the tile: Harriet Burns1955
Harriet Burns joined Disney in 1955, painting sets and props for the new Mickey Mouse Club television show. She became the first woman hired by Walt Disney Imagineering in a creative role, helping design and build attractions for Disneyland, Walt Disney World and the 1964-65 New York World's Fair, and she designed all the singing birds of the Enchanted Tiki Room. She worked with saws, lathes and sanders, yet recalled, "I wore color-coordinated dresses, high heels, and gloves to work," with slacks in a little sack in case she had to climb.
In the late 1950s George Millay visited Marineland in California to research a themed bar he wanted to open. Instead, he and three partners started a theme park that mixed marine animal attractions with the style of Disneyland, and SeaWorld opened in San Diego in 1964. Millay later created Wet 'n Wild in Orlando, which opened in March 1977, and the World Water Park Association called him the father of water parks. His worry, he said, was never children but whether middle-aged mothers would accept it.