AMUSEMENT PARKS

Although St. Louis Park did not any amusement parks within its borders, Parkites have had access to several such parks through the years. Here are a few of them:

Antlers Park

was a 40 acre park located on Lake Marion in Lakeville, Minnesota.  Colonel Marion Savage built Antlers Park to attract passengers to the Dan Patch Line.

From the Lakewood Area Historical Society:

Antlers Amusement Park became one of the most famous amusement parks in the upper Midwest. It contained a lavish dance pavilion with a gleaming oak dance floor; a large bathing beach that featured a dock, diving tower and high sliding chute; a boat dock that offered sailboats, rowboats and canoes; a children's playground with a miniature operating train for children; tennis courts, an athletic field and baseball diamond with a grandstand for spectators; and an aerial swing. A nine-hole golf course was located nearby. The Dan Patch Railroad Line [provided transportation to the park.]  Luxury excursion cars with real leather seats, stained glass upper windows and richly carved and inlaid wood brought thousands of visitors to the park each summer. On weekends in the summer of 1912, these trains reportedly made 19 scheduled runs each day. The area was already popular with wealthy families from southern states who came to escape summer heat and humidity. These families and other visitors stayed in cabins located around the lake or at Weichselbaum's Resort, which was famous for its fried chicken, apple pie and homemade ice cream. The The amusement park declined in popularity in the 1920s and 1930s [streetcar co. sold it in 1916] due to a combination of factors - the advent of the automobile, the Great Depression and several dry years that saw Lake Marion drop to its lowest level ever.

One reader tells us that "in the 1960s and early 1970s it regularly hosted picnics for many thousands of people on weekend days during the summer, typically sponsored by major corporations and unions in the Twin Cities metropolitan area, e.g., Northwest Airlines, IBEW, UAW, Honeywell, and Hitchcock Industries. When the last owners retired, they sold the park to the city of Lakeville."
 

Big Island Park
 

lasted from 1906 to 1911. This 65-acre park was situated on the heavily wooded Big Island on Lake Minnetonka.   It was purchased in 1905 and operated by the Minneapolis and Suburban Railroad Co., a subsidiary of the Twin Cities Rapid Transit Co. (TCRT). Park-goers would take the new electric streetcar, which ran just south of St. Louis Park on 44th Street, to the Excelsior Dock, where passengers could take one of 9 streetcar boats (named Minneapolis, St. Paul, Minnetonka, Como, Minnehaha, White Bear, Hopkins, Harriet and Stillwater) to the park. The official opening was on August 5, 1906 [1907]. The boats operated until 1926.

Patrons were met with such amusements as the “Happy Hooligan Slide,” a “Figure-8 Toboggan,” and a miniature train. The park featured a large music casino, a large roller coaster, the Old Mill, the Scenic Ride to Yellowstone, and a carousel. The buildings has a Spanish mission theme. A 200 ft. tower dominated the park. 

The price was only 25 cents, including the streetcar ride, and it became clear that it was not a profitable operation, especially after the TCRT also bought the Tonka Bay Hotel. Both the park and the hotel closed at the end of the 1911 season. After sitting abandoned for a few years, the park was disassembled in 1918, its iron going to scrap iron for the (WWI) war effort. Some remaining buildings, including a mess hall, became part of a Veteran's Camp starting in the early 20's. The streetcar boats were discontinued in July of 1926. In 1924, Excelsior Amusement Park was built at the site of the waiting station for the streetcar boats. Streetcar boats were revived in 1996. For pictures from the Minnesota Historical Society, click here,

Excelsior Amusement Park
 

This, the site of many a school picnic and provider of Free Rides for Good Grades, opened on May 30, 1925, the brainchild of Fred W. Pearce, Sr., of Detroit. The streetcar that ran down 44th Street in Edina just south of St. Louis Park took passengers from Minneapolis to the park until 1932, when it was replaced by a bus from Hopkins.

In 1933, you could see Capt. Jack Payne leap backward from a 100-foot ladder into a tank of blazing fire – THRILLING – DARING – DEATH DEFYING! You could also see Smith’s diving ponies leap from a tower 55 feet into a shallow tank of water. Other attractions were Fred Reckless on a swaying pole in 1932, and Prince Nelson, who walked the tightrope 80 feet above the ground without a net in 1931.


July 6, 1933, Hennepin County Review
 

          
                  Excelsior Park Roller Coaster and Fun House, 1930s

One of the biggest attractions was the wooden rollercoaster, first called the "Mountain Ride," then the "Cyclone."  It was designed by John A. Miller and completed in April 1925.  At a height of 65 feet it was called the highest roller coaster in the Northwest - back when it was the only roller coaster in the Northwest. When the park closed it was torn down in the winter of 1974. 

The other favorite attraction was the merry-go-round, made of handcarved wood by Italian craftsmen.  Fortunately, the carousel was saved and sold to Valleyfair, which opened on May 25, 1976.  The horses were restored by Ray Bahmer of Hopkins during the winter of 1974-75.

Across the street from Excelsior Park was the Danceland Ballroom.  One source says it had been the former casino of the Tonka Bay Hotel, another Tonka Bay's Roller Rink. In January 1920 it was disassembled and moved across the frozen lake to a location between Excelsior Bay and the streetcar tracks.  Pearce bought it in 1928.  It closed in 1968 and burned to the ground on July 8, 1973.

Still in the Pearce family, the park closed the weekend after Labor Day, 1973.

For pictures from the Minnesota Historical Society, click here.  There has been much written about this park, including A Picture Book of the Excelsior Amusement Park.. from Rise to Demise by the Excelsior-Lake Minnetonka Historical Society, 1991.  Also see Lake Minnetonka.com for an excellent history.   
 

Queen Anne Kiddieland

This cute little park was on Highway 100 in Bloomington, south of Edina and St. Louis Park.  Here's an article about the park from the Edina Historical Society's newsletter in May 2011:

During the 1950s and '60s, many Edina children celebrated their birthdays with a party at Queen Anne Kiddieland, a wonderland of ponies, amusement rides and the Rock Island Rocket, a miniature 1/6 scale replica of a real train.

 

The train was then called the Casey Jones Flyer, in honor of the popular kids'TV host Casey Jones, whose show entertained kids at lunchtime in the Twin Cities.  Casey, a railroad engineer character played by actor Roger Awsumb, drove the train around the track every Sunday to the delight of his young fans.

Photo courtesy of the Edina Historical Society

"We were packed most every Sunday," said Boyd Thomas, who as a high school kid helped his father Frank run the pony rides at the busy amusement park, which offered party rooms and ticket specials for birthday celebrations.

 

Judy and Jeanne Andersen, @ 1960

The park provided summer entertainment before modern amusement parks like Valleyfair opened.  Kiddieland's rides were smaller, but even teens hung out there to flirt and find dates from other towns.

 

Visitors recall that Queen Anne Kiddieland seemed to be in the middle of nowhere at the southeast corner of what is now the intersection of Interstates 494 and 100.  But then, the land was in "the country."  In fact, the ponies came from Thomas's 80-acre farm located a few miles away, at 78th Street and France Avenue in Bloomington, where he raised dairy cattle and hay.

 

By the end of the 1960s, however, the 494 strip transformed, thanks to crowds at the new Metropolitan Stadium, freeway construction and the population boom.  An office tower now stands at the Queen Anne Kiddieland site, but those who want to recall their past can still ride on the Rock Island Rocket which is now housed at the Jackson Street Roundhouse in St. Paul.

The park was owned by Tom E. Casey and his wife Anne, whom he referred to as "Queen Anne."  After the land was taken for the highway, the park moved way out to Blaine, truly the middle of nowhere at the time.  The Caseys were true entrepreneurs; they built the Queen Anne Courts manufactured home community that is still in operation in Lakeville.  Casey was also an avid ham radio operator, and once got in trouble with the city for erecting a radio tower at his home on Kipling Ave.  Anne Casey retired to Arizona and died in 2011.   

     


Wildwood Park

was on the south shore of White Bear Lake in what is now the City of Mahtomedi, Minnesota. It was there from roughly 1898 to 1938 and was quite a popular place. It was much like Excelsior Amusement Park on Lake Minnetonka. The park was owned by the Twin City Rapid Transit Corp.  For pictures from the Minnesota Historical Society, click here.

 

Wonderland Amusement Park
 

was built by H.A. Donnelly on 10 acres at East Lake Street between 31st and 33rd Avenues, in today's Longfellow neighborhood of Minneapolis. The park, which lasted from 1905 until 1911, featured a 120-foot-high electric tower which drew in visitors, roller coaster, miniature train, a floating theater, and the "House of Nonsense." The most popular attraction was an exhibition of premature babies in incubators, a common curiosity of the times. More than 70,000 visitors attended the park on opening day.  For pictures from the Minnesota Historical Society, click here.

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This information comes from a variety of sources: newspapers, books, yearbooks, phone directories, interviews, etc. Given the varied sources, we cannot guarantee that all of this information is correct, and welcome any additions and corrections. Please contact us with your contributions and comments.