July 24, 2008 Issue                                       

©2007 The Chestnut Hill Local

Our Own Version of Coney Island
When Chestnut Hill had its own amusement park
by JIMMY J. PACK JR.

The grand lake, which was part of Chestnut Hill Park, on Bethlehem Pike.

After the opening of the Chicago Columbian Exposition in 1893, often referred to as “The White City,” many Americans were inspired to dream, to create, to make profits. One of those Americans, George C. Tilyou, a native New Yorker whose family owned a restaurant on Coney Island, would take his dream of building his own Ferris wheel and create an empire. In 1897, with only an initial investment of $2.50, Tilyou opened Steeplechase Park on Coney Island, one of the most influential amusement parks ever created.

Not wanting to let Tilyou keep all the fun to himself, other area businessmen developed the land as well; Frederic Thompson and Elmer Dundy would open Luna Park in 1903, and Dreamland would be opened a year later by Tammany Hall-affiliated businessman, William Reynolds. It was Reynolds’ idea to open an amusement park that was of a much higher class than Steeplechase or Luna Park, for the latter two mostly attracted the common working man.

This building, known as The Casino, once stood as part of “The White City,” Chestnut Hill’s only amusement park.

As years passed, Coney Island became known as a devil’s playground, with drinking, carousing and other kinds of behavior that would justify time in the confessional. It was the middle of the industrial age, and with most Americans working six days a week, sometimes more than 12 hours a day, the common man needed a way to relax and have fun with the family.

One of the carousels in Chestnut Hill Park.

At the same time, trolley companies were trying to devise a way to make money on the weekends. The weekday passenger traffic was all profit, but during the weekends the trolley companies saw ridership drop so much that sometimes it wasn’t even worth running the line.

Trolley companies around the country started building amusement parks at the end of their lines to build ridership and increase profits. The Philadelphia area was no exception. In 1895 The People’s Traction Company would take 100 acres of farmland in the Willow Grove area to create Willow Grove Park. In 1897 the Fairmount Park Transportation Company would open Woodside Park, the first amusement park inside the Philadelphia city limits.

By the spring of 1898 a former hotelier by the name of Henry Auchy would open Chestnut Hill Park at the end of the Germantown Avenue Trolley spur down Hillcrest Avenue (and later would be serviced by the Lehigh Valley Transit Company of Allentown). Chestnut Hill’s only amusement park would have a lifespan of 13 years because area residents didn’t like the type of crowd attracted to the Chestnut Hill Park, the same type of people William Reynolds wanted to keep out of his Dreamland on Coney Island.

Welcome to Chestnut Hill’s ‘White City’

Postcards courtesy of the Springfield Township Historical Society.

It was the realization of a dream, the triumph of a Victorian splendor no longer seen in contemporary architecture. When Auchy opened his park, he wanted something grand, not just a few rides and a concession stand. It would be something to behold today — 16 acres of amusement, excitement and relaxation. Upon exiting the trolley on Hillcrest Avenue, visitors would walk into the park through the entrance, for free, and enter into a landscape seemingly unbroken by the industrial age. (While there was no entrance fee, every attraction and ride was pay-as-you-go.)

To your right was a large white building that looked like a mansion built for a Rockefeller, with columns and two stories of porticoes landscaped in front with a walkway and burning bushes and small evergreens abutting a giant, clear blue lake. The Casino, a public gathering place for concerts, games and other amusements, held no gambling halls but dancing parlors, a restaurant and rooms for other public functions.

In the lake, where small swarms of boaters enjoyed water-views of the park, in front of the Casino, sat a verdant island with a white bandstand where brass bands would play popular tunes like “Glow Worm,” “Good Night Dear” and “At the Devil’s Ball.”

If you’d head west and walk past the bandstand along the pathway lined with Victorian lampposts, you’d twist your way slightly uphill to the carousel housed in a white shelter. The merry-go-round was adorned with American flags and instead of just horses had a stampede of animals for riders — zebras, lions, giraffes — as well as a few stationary winged chariots of white with seraphim painted on the sides.

Everywhere you’d look, your mind would be constantly challenged, as with the toboggan ride (think roller-coaster), three different train rides ranging from the level-earth-bound to the mountain-climbing Yellowstone train. There was the Roulette Wheel (a large wooden wheel that lay flat on the floor that would spin. Riders would sit as close to the center as possible so as not to be thrown off the wheel into a pile of laughing bodies on the wheel’s perimeter) a movie theater and a picnic grove.

There were games like Box Ball (the genesis of skee-ball) and pie eating contests. There was the Tunnel of Love ride (called Love’s Voyage) and an area known as Lover’s Lane where courting couples walked hand-in-hand, occasionally stealing a kiss behind the parasol as they walked past the rustic stone bridge.

Chestnut Hill Park, which became known as “The White City” because all of the buildings were covered in fresh white paint every year, also had a model of the Spanish freighter Vizcaya built on the north side of the park in honor of the U.S. Navy destroying the Spanish fleet in Santiago Bay, 1989, during the Spanish-American War, followed by  the largest American flag in the world, displayed on the front of the casino.

As the years passed, The White City continued to be profitable, with new rides added continually. In 1909 Auchy built the “Teddy-in-Africa” display in honor of President Theodore Roosevelt’s trip to Africa.

Children and adults alike would flock to The White City every weekend in the summer, and to entice groups of people, Auchy would organize days specified for certain organizations or target groups (much like The White City of the Columbia Exposition did). In the August 9, 1907, edition of the North American newspaper, a coupon was advertised on the front page for readers to celebrate “North American Day,” on Wednesday, August 14. The paper heralded the park and taunted readers by saying, “You will be a long time dead; don’t fail to grasp this opportunity of getting some fun out of life while you’re here.” Who could resist a free day at the park, provided you could contain yourself to the nine free coupons and not get carried away by the rest of the entertainment for which there was a charge?

TO BE CONTINUED