LOST PHOTOS / FOUND MEMORIES
Amusement Parks
Location and date unknown.
In America, it’s possible to trace the history of both amateur photography and amusement parks to the late 19th century. Snapshots evolved from the introduction of George Eastman’s Kodak #1 camera in 1888. Five years later, visitors to the Columbian Exposition in Chicago were photographing the “White City” of neoclassical buildings and Venetian gondoliers guiding their crafts on a lagoon.
Citrus Royalty at Cypress Gardens, FL, 1979.
Granted, the Columbian Exposition was a world’s fair, not an amusement park. But it served as inspiration and model for numerous amusement and theme parks in the 20th century, from Coney Island’s Luna Park, Dreamland, and Steeplechase Park to the Florida and California megadestinations of Walt Disney’s empire.
The former Gingerbread Castle, Hamburg, NJ, 1938.
As amusement parks grew in popularity, so did vacationers’ shooting of casual photos to capture and memorialize their adventures there. Some locations crop up repeatedly in family snapshots. One of the most common American settings for a family photo is Knott’s Berry Farm, where countless tourists have posed on a bench with Claude Bell’s Handsome Brady and Whiskey Bill.
Tourists pose with Handsome Brady and Whiskey Bill on the porch of the Gold Trails Hotel, Knott’s Berry Farm, Buena Park, CA, July 1957.
At some parks, families could leave the picture-taking to arcade photographers who produced comic novelty portraits of them with studio props and painted backdrops. One familiar mid-century setting was the fake jail, where tourists often posed with liquor bottles to suggest law authorities threw them in the slammer for public inebriation.
Visitors to Atlantic City’s Million Dollar Pier pose inside a jail set in this undated arcade photo.
Here are a few more of the amusement or theme park photos I’ve collected over the last ten years. Unidentified locations may be smaller venues such as carnivals or fairs. For those unknown images, email edwardengel@yahoo.com with any clues to identification.
A couple standing in front of a promotional Atlantic City Steel Pier sign/statue, which appears to read, “A Short Drive to Steel Pier.” Date unknown.
Magic Carpet Fun House, Crystal Beach, Ontario. Date unknown.
Probably Willow Grove Park, Willow Grove, PA, ca 1947. Note the Laff in the Dark and Skee-Ball attractions in the background.
Penny Arcade. Location and date unknown.
Did you enjoy this article? Join the SCA and get full access to all the content on this site. This article originally appeared in the SCA Journal, Spring 2024, Vol. 42, No. 1. The SCA Journal is a semi-annual publication and a member benefit of the Society for Commercial Archeology.
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