What to do with more free time and more money? This was the delightful dilemma of America’s newly industrialized society in the late 1800s.

America’s rail companies came up with a solution. After revolutionizing public transportation with the introduction of electric trolleys and interurban passenger rail systems, the rail companies created public amusement parks at the ends of their major rail lines to boost business on the weekends. Though the rail companies get credit for the widespread development of the amusement parks in the early 1900s, many individual entrepreneurs jumped on board and built their own parks for public entertainment.

The typical amusement park offered novel and exciting mechanical wonders—roller coasters, ferris wheels, and twirling, spinning car rides—offering thrilling experiences of speed and height. In addition to a merry-go-round and penny arcade, each park also offered a dance hall. Admission to the park was free, and pocket change was enough to purchase a fistful of tickets for the rides and arcade games.

These gathering places reflected the trends in society in each era of their existence. At the outset, the amusement parks were mostly segregated, and many of them set aside "Colored Day" once a year for black families to enjoy the park. During the lean years of the Great Depression, the amusement parks provided wholesome and affordable family entertainment that brightened many peoples’ difficult lives. After Prohibition was repealed in 1933, beer flowed on the midways, and taverns sprung up in the surrounding communities. The Swing dance craze of the 1940s kept the dance halls packed with fans of the world-famous traveling Big Bands. The grand opening of the high-technology Disneyland theme park in 1955 forever changed public expectations for amusement park rides and attractions. By the 1960s, Americans could choose from an endless variety of leisure pursuits and recreation offerings that presented overwhelming competition to the aging, old-fashioned rides designed and built generations earlier. Many of America’s early amusement parks closed their gates in the 1960s and 1970s. Those that survived to become today’s theme parks benefited from a location that gave them room to expand, and an owner with the vision and bankroll to make the leap to modern technology.

In Ohio, Cleveland’s Euclid Beach was an example of the standard railway amusement park story. However, there was a twist to this story which made several of Ohio’s other early amusement parks unique. Three of the premier amusement parks of the 1920s, Buckeye Lake, Indian Lake’s Sandy Beach and Lake Milton’s Craig Beach, were built a considerable distance from cities on the shores of large lakes. The lakeside locations provided natural assets for recreation, and bathing beaches were a primary drawing card. Although they were served by mass transit systems, the amusement parks at Indian Lake and Lake Milton were built by individual entrepreneurs rather than rail companies.

The communities of Buckeye Lake, Russels Point and Craig Beach blossomed around and because of the amusement parks. When the Ohio State Parks system was founded in 1949 with the creation of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, Buckeye Lake and Indian Lake were designated as two of the original state parks. The amusement parks and the state parks served different purposes, but they coexisted in harmony, providing a variety of public benefits and community pride. Today the lakeside amusement parks live on only in photographs and memories. The state park lakes themselves remain, however, with the fine recreational facilities and staff that are the hallmarks of our Ohio State Park system, providing all the best for your amusement.

In 1910 the city of Youngstown acquired 3,416 acres along the Mahoning River in Mahoning County’s Milton Township to construct a reservoir to be used as a water supply. The plan was to construct a 2,800-foot dam across the river, impounding 1,640 acres. This ambitious engineering feat took on the additional dimension of a public spectacle as crowds gathered at the ancestral home of Ward Craig on the northwest side of the lake near the dam site. An enthusiastic and gracious host, Craig welcomed the onlookers and provided them with a picnic area as well as entertainment. Even after the dam was completed, folks continued to come to the newly christened Craig’s Landing which by 1916 offered a refreshment stand, swimming area, boat docks, and picnic facilities.

Ward Craig was a talented amateur musician, and the popularity of Craig’s Landing gave him an opportunity to grow a business from his love of music and people. Craig jumped on the ballroom dancing craze, and built a dance hall in 1920 to rival the ballrooms springing up alongside the passenger rail lines around the East and Midwest. He often took up an instrument and joined in with the visiting orchestras. In 1922 the Craig Beach Company was formed to further develop the area with the innovative rides and attractions that were becoming the standard fare of all full-fledged amusement parks. The Craig family home was converted into the amusement park office, and a 3,000-car parking lot was built to accommodate the anticipated crowds. Local and regional bus lines added Lake Milton to their regularly scheduled stops. By the end of the decade, the old family farm had been completely transformed into a lake resort and Craig Beach Amusement Park boasted a merry-go-round, Ferris wheel, "Caterpillar" ride, penny arcade, shooting gallery, pony rides and food and game concessions. As local business people began developing land around the new lake to get a piece of the action, Ward Craig withdrew from the Craig Beach Company and the playground he founded.

The brand-new community of Craig Beach consisted of only about 10 families year-round, but the local population swelled to thousands each summer as tourists filled the area’s 500-plus seasonal rental cottages. The amusement park company owned and operated the rides, but entrepreneurs in the community owned and operated the various food and game concessions. A milestone in promotion of the park came in 1931 when the village of Craig Beach was formally incorporated to allow the dance hall to remain open on Sundays. With the 300-couple dance hall and its open-air promenade filled to capacity, it attracted the touring big-name big bands of the Swing era, as well as more local talent—Steubenville native Dean Martin launched his singing career here when some friends dared him to sing with the orchestra. The Craig Beach Amusement Park was in its heyday, but despite the park’s popularity, the Craig Beach company went bankrupt in 1934. The park was sold at Sheriff’s auction and the new owner oversaw the operations as the park realized its greatest potential and experienced its greatest tragedy.

For one day only, each August, the Black churches of northeast Ohio and western Pennsylvania brought their congregations to Craig Beach for a family fun day. In August of 1941, the happy crowd of nearly 20,000 enjoyed the park until just before closing time when the squeals of laughter gave way to screams of terror as a roller coaster car accidentally derailed and sailed off the track. Two teenagers were killed, and the rest of the passengers in the car were injured. The roller coaster eventually reopened the next season, but the tragedy, coupled with the nation’s involvement in World War II, cast a gloomy shadow over the park. One side effect of the war—gas rationing—discouraged the influx of out-of-towners to the park. Wartime job opportunities created at the nearby Ravenna Arsenal encouraged others to settle permanently alongside Lake Milton and convert seasonal cottages to year-round homes.

In the 1950s, the dance hall remained vibrant and continued to attract popular bands, but the amusement park rides and midway drew dwindling crowds, comprised mostly of local folks, mostly on the weekends. The park changed ownership three times between 1950 and the mid 1960s. Lake Milton’s boating, swimming and fishing facilities still held their appeal for summer vacationers, but the obstacles to reviving the dying park were overwhelming. Squeezed onto an 8-acre plot, there was no room for Craig Beach Amusement Park to expand with modern rides that could deliver new thrills for a generation accustomed to fast automobiles, speed boats and the marvel of TV.

The park closed forever and all of the rides and concessions were moved or demolished in 1966. The dance hall hung on for a few more years until it closed in the 1970s and was finally razed. The lake itself was threatened by structural problems and had to be drained in 1986 for necessary repairs to the dam. After the water levels rebounded, Lake Milton was officially dedicated as Ohio’s 72^nd state park in 1988. Today, Craig Beach Amusement Park is a memory and all traces of the midway are gone. The enduring popularity of Lake Milton lives on, however, and each summer Lake Milton State Park welcomes picnickers, swimmers, boaters and anglers as it has for more than 80 years.

Thanks to historian Carl Byer, Jr., who is in the process of publishing his extensive research on Craig Beach Amusement Park, for his information and insight. Thanks also to Grace Bryant for information and photos.

In its original form, Indian Lake was a conglomeration of shallow natural lakes and marshes covering 640 acres in the northwest corner of Logan County. A bulkhead was built on the Great Miami River in the 1850s to enlarge and deepen the lake area to create a water supply for the new Miami Canal. The work was completed in 1860 and the resulting Lewistown Reservoir covered more than 6,000 acres with 29 miles of shoreline. At the turn of the century, railroads had come into vogue and the canals were abandoned for more efficient transportation. No longer needed for canal commerce, Lewistown Reservoir was designated by the Ohio General Assembly in 1898 as a public recreation area known by its historic name, Indian Lake. Indian Lake quickly became a popular resort area with its numerous islands and untamed shoreline touted as a secluded wilderness paradise offering supreme hunting, shooting and relaxation.

In the early 1900s, Indian Lake became a leading destination to exercise the intellect as well as the body. The traveling Chautauqua Assemblies that swept the East and Midwest came to Indian Lake’s Orchard Island starting in 1910. These variety shows featured lectures and programs by a diverse roster of speakers and entertainers, including some famous and prominent figures such as the great orator William Jennings Bryant. Chautauqua drew such large crowds that a hotel and cottages were built on the island to accommodate out-of-town guests for the two-week gatherings in late July and early August. The village of Lakeview became a regularly scheduled stop in 1911 on the Toledo and Ohio Central Railroad, and the Ohio Electric Line provided service to the burgeoning lakeside community known as Russells Point. The rail lines provided easy access to rural Indian Lake park from Lima, Columbus, Dayton and neighboring communities.

With so much to attract visitors to the area by the early 1920s, local businessman Pappy Wilgus saw an opportunity he couldn’t resist. Pappy and his son, French, built the Sandy Beach Amusement Park at Russells Point to entertain the growing numbers of tourists. Sandy Beach Amusement Park opened on Decoration Day, 1924. The highlight of the park was the fabulous Minnewawa Dance Hall, billed as the best and largest in Ohio, featuring two bandstands and room for hundreds of couples. The Minnewawa drew all the most popular touring performers of the day, including the Rudy Vallee and Paul Whiteman orchestras. The park also offered all of the favorite amusement rides including a roller coaster, merry-go-round, ferris wheel, Blue Beard’s castle, and Custer’s car ride, along with a penny arcade, fun house, boat excursions and food concessions. One of the more unique attractions was the Old Mill Shoot, in which boat-like cars plunged down a roller coaster hill into a tank of water, soaking all aboard. A boardwalk spanned the lake to give swimmers access to nearby Sandy Beach Island, a popular bathing area offering slides and diving towers.

As the "Roaring 20s" gave way to the Great Depression of the 1930s, "Ohio’s Million Dollar Playground" at Indian Lake lost none of its currency. Couples still crowded the amusement park for dance marathons which rewarded the most persistent couples with coveted cash prizes. The winners of the 1931 National Endurance Dance Marathon held at the park reputedly danced for an astounding 1,922 hours! Sandy Beach Amusement Park’s future looked rosy, but a disastrous fire in 1935 completely destroyed the Minnewawa dance hall, along with the wooden structures of the Old Mill Shoot, Custer Cars, Spa bathhouse and part of the roller coaster. A new park operator pumped $100,000 into improvements in 1936, took over management of most of the concessions, and rebuilt the dance hall in an open-air garden style. The most famous Big Bands booked the elegant new Moonlight Terrace Gardens at Sandy Beach Amusement Park in their tours. The bands played on, and twirling couples continued to dance until the early 1950s.

Indian Lake was officially designated as one of the original Ohio State Parks under the jurisdiction of the new Ohio Department of Natural Resources in 1949. The original park office was located in Russells Point, close to the hub of activity at the amusement park. The 1950s were a successful decade for both Sandy Beach Amusement Park and the new state park, as well as local business people who provided services to tourists. The celebration of Ohio’s sesquicentennial in 1953 was a huge event at the lake, drawing crowds estimated at 100,000. These untroubled glory days couldn’t last, however. The societal turmoil of the 1960s came to Indian Lake to pay annual visits starting July 4, 1961. Late that evening, rowdy patrons at the bars across the street from the amusement park sparked a riot that involved nearly 500 youths. The July 4^th riot became an unfortunate tradition that plagued the community for a decade as the riots grew increasingly large and destructive each year. The riots dampened everyone’s business during what should be one of the busiest weeks of the year.

Indian Lake State Park’s family campground was built in the mid-1960s across the lake from Russells Point and the amusement park. The class-A campground was an immediate hit, and it brought a new audience to the area. Meanwhile, the quaint, old-fashioned Sandy Beach Amusement Park was renamed Indian Lake Playland in 1967, and it continued the struggle to compete with northwest Ohio’s immensely popular new theme park, Cedar Point, for nearly a decade. Indian Lake Playland did not reopen on Decoration Day 1976, and a few years later, the rides and concessions were torn down.

Today, Indian Lake State Park attracts nearly 1.5 million visitors each year with its top-notch campground, swimming and boating facilities.

Thanks to historian Bud Grandi for sharing a wealth of information and photos.

To the engineers faced with the monumental task of building a systems of canals to create a continuous navigable waterway bisecting the frontier state of Ohio, the natural watery bog at the "summit" of central Ohio above the Licking River was an obvious place to begin. Drainage from the "Great Buffalo Swamp" was blocked with the construction of a dike in 1826, and by 1830 the new Licking Summit Reservoir was providing a reliable source of water for canal commerce. The canal system thrived for a time, but by the 1890s, canal boat traffic in the area slowed to a crawl and in 1894, the Ohio General Assembly declared Licking Reservoir a public park by the name of Buckeye Lake. At the turn of the century, the canals gave way to railroads, including "light rail" electric trolley systems, and the Columbus, Buckeye Lake and Newark Traction Company’s Interurban Electric Railway was completed in 1904.

Joining the trend of providing an attraction at the end of the line to boost weekend business, the rail company began building amusement rides on a nine-acre plot at the north shore of the Buckeye Lake. By 1911, the Buckeye Lake area boasted two dance pavilions, a swimming beach and bath house, arcade, picnic area and ball park, boat excursions and power boat races. Taverns, restaurants, hotels and rental cottages sprung up all along the lakeshore to accommodate out-of-town guests. In 1912, the traveling Chautauqua Assembly came to the west side of the Buckeye Lake in the area known today as Millersport. Speakers included Emery Hunt, president of Denison University in nearby Granville, Warren G. Harding, who would later become President of the United States, and the great orator William Jennings Bryant. The circuit peaked from 1913 to 1918.

The 1920s were a chapter in Buckeye Lake Amusement Park’s history highlighted by rapid growth as John J. Carlin, a well known amusement park developer, leased the park from the Ohio Electric Railway Company in 1924, and in 1929, bought it from its new owner, the Ohio Power Company. The excellent reputation the park established in these early, carefree days helped it weather the more difficult times ahead. In August 1928, when the Muskingum Valley Colored Elks #82 held its annual family day at the park, the romance of the waterfront Pier dance hall turned to heartbreak. A portion of the crowded dance floor collapsed into the lake late that evening, and seven people drowned. The Great Depression in 1929 forever changed the dynamic of the entire Buckeye Lake region. Many families who enjoyed the modest lake cottages as summer resort homes became year-round residents as they lost their homes in the city. The interurban rail line went out of business, taking with it the easy, cheap transportation that made the amusement park a regular destination for city dwellers.

New management in the 1930s rose to the challenge of keeping the Buckeye Lake Amusement Park vital. The "Dips" roller coaster built in 1930 quickly became a favorite attraction and top money maker. The Skateland roller rink began to hold races in addition to offering open skating. With the repeal of prohibition in 1933, the merry-go-round building was transformed into a night club. Perhaps the crowning achievement of this era was the addition of the fabulous Crystal Ballroom and Pool. The ballroom overlooked the lake as well as the pool, and fountains in the pool added an elegant touch. In addition to welcoming swimmers daily—even offering bathing suits for rental for those who came to the park unprepared to swim—the Crystal Pool hosted water shows by Johnny Weismuller, Hollywood’s original Tarzan, and actor Buster Crabbe. The Crystal Ballroom and its competitor, the Pier ballroom, hosted such big name orchestras and entertainers as Guy Lombardo, Artie Shaw, Count Basie, Glen Miller, Benny Goodman, Lawrence Welk, Louis Armstrong, Cab Calloway, Gene Krupa, Duke Ellington, and the Dorsey Brothers.

To keep the excitement at a fever pitch, free outdoor acts were featured in the 1940s as a promotional tool to attract people to the park and keep them there all evening. The acts were diverse and highly entertaining, including the famous Flying Wallendos family along with other aerialists and acrobats; the Barton horseback acrobats (later known as the Hannefords); parachute jumpers and trained animal acts. The park was in its heyday, entertaining as many as 50,000 visitors a day. The major rides were owned by the Buckeye Lake Amusement Park Company, but the smaller rides and concessions were owned by individuals from the surrounding community. Buckeye Lake was officially designated an Ohio state park in 1949 with the creation of the Ohio Department of Natural Resources. The park office was originally located at the hub of activity within the amusement park, although ownership and operation of the amusement park rides and attractions remained in the hands of private companies and individuals.

By the end of the 1950s, Buckeye Lake Amusement Park was in decline and conditions worsened each year. In 1958, a cable on the Dips roller coaster snapped and three cars slipped backward from the top of the big hill, injuring several riders. The aging Crystal Pool developed sizable cracks and, no longer able to hold water, the beautiful pool became a trash dump. A last gasp effort to revive the park in 1969 with a country and western music amphitheater and a dozen rides met with a lukewarm public response that put a chill on further investments. The Pier dance hall, silent since 1968, burned along with an abandoned dodgem car ride in a fire in the early 1970s.

Today, all that is left of the Buckeye Lake Amusement Park—once known as the Playground of Ohio—is a fountain that once served as the centerpiece of the midway. The fountain has been preserved at Buckeye Lake State Park’s North Shore facility, which offers a boat launch ramp and picnic shelters. On a fine summer day, standing by that fountain near the parking lot filled with boat trailers and anglers dotting the shore, it’s hard to picture the old crowded midway here, the Crystal Pool over there and the roller coaster off in the distance. It’s not hard to imagine, though, that Buckeye Lake, itself, has always been the primary and enduring attraction.

--Jean Backs, Editor

Thanks to Donna Braig, whose self-published book My Buckeye Lake Story documents the entire history of the Buckeye Lake region with delightful personal reminiscences of the amusement park. Thanks also to historian Chance Brockway for his insights and photos.

Visit the Greater Buckeye Lake Museum at 4729 Walnut Road in Buckeye Lake Ohio (on the south side of State Route 79, next to the post office). The museum is generally open on Saturday and Sunday afternoons. Call (740) 929-1998 for information.

Old Time Photo Album of Indian Lake volumes I, II and III offer readers an entertaining look back over more than 100 years of local history.