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We value our employees and by thank you There was a time in America about the turn of the last century and often on or near the lakes of the Midwest, that a particular form of entertainment came into being the amusement park, one of which was Silver Beach Park in Saint Joseph, Michigan.
Early amusement parks in the United States were an evolution of an old concept known as a pleasure garden.
Public land set aside for recreation and entertainment.
These were often picnic grounds with bandstands dance pavilions and food vendors offering a place where families could gather on a summer day To escape either the bustle of the city or the monotony of agrarian life.
But with the opening of the Colombian Exposition in Chicago in 1893, fairgoers were witness to a dazzling array of mechanical, electrical and manufacturing spectacles in a gleaming near utopian environment not to mention the world's first Ferris wheel named for its designer George Ferris, standing 264 feet tall, It was the most popular attraction at the fair.
News of this grand exposition was widely reported, complete with engravings, lithographs and photos of the wonders seen there.
As a result, the expectations for amusement in America went up a few notches.
People were no longer content with the passive, languid atmosphere of the pleasure gardens they wanted, They expected more.
And as the nation looked forward, to a new century, ripe with possibilities of fresh optimism for the future and a general sense of joie de vivre.
Entrepreneurs took advantage of this desire and built temples of delight across the land n the Midwest.
Amusement parks popped up like dandelions in spring in Michigan alone.
A partial list includes Edgewater Park.
Jefferson Beach.
Electric Park.
Eastwood Park.
Tamu Park.
Winona Beach.
In fact, the state of Michigan featured 35 amusement parks at one time.
Across the lake in Illinois.
You had the legendary Riverview Park in Chicago.
As well as White City, modeled after the Colombian exposition attraction.
Amazingly, the state of Illinois has been home to more than 140 amusement parks.
Ohio had Euclid Beach, Chippewa Lake, Isidora Park and Cedar Point.
Still, in existence today.
Sadly, that would not be the fate for most of these parks.
Rather, the demise of many of these family owned amusement parks was similar across the board.
But before we get ahead of ourselves, let's focus our attention on Silver Beach Amusement Park in Saint Joseph, Michigan.
As the history of this park is not unlike that of many of the others, Silver Beach did not start out as an amusement park.
In fact, Silver Beach wasn't even called Silver Beach.
That would come later.
It had its roots in the persona of Mr. Logan Drake, born in Saint Joe, who even at an early age, had a reputation for being a bit, shall we say, rambunctious.
Well, Grandpa he was, I guess, a difficult child to raise.
They said he quit school at ten.
He was a hellion.
He was really into it.
He was off to hear it, hop a train here, hop and train there.
And his dad couldn't keep him in school.
He was just full of it.
Logan and his brother Fred hightailed it to Chicago, where they operated a confectionery for the better part of a year.
With the money they made in Chicago.
They moved back to Saint Joe and began a boat building and rental enterprise on the south side of the river.
Various reports put the year somewhere between 1880 and 1883, which would have made Logan Drake between the ages of 17 and 20 years old.
And he was always into building things and he decided to build canoes.
But then he had so much business he needed a partner.
By 1885 with the volume of orders greater than his capacity to fill them, he teamed up with Louis Wallace son of John Walllace a Scottish marine engineer who also owned a number of freight schooners that plied the shipping routes of Lake Michigan.
This partnership proved to be a good one, resulting in moving down river and expanding the business erecting two boat building houses.
Their first major triumph was the construction of the Tourist, a steam powered stern wheeler that was used for pleasure cruises.
It would, in the not too distant future, be used to bring tourists to Silver Beach.
But first things first.
The partners then enlarge their rental livery with 40 rowboats and 30 sailboats, a substantial investment that provided steady income during the summer Then in 1892, Misters Drake and Wallace bought 20 acres of land on the river, which included a bathhouse.
This allowed customers to go swimming as they could change clothes, take warm baths and make themselves presentable before returning home.
Grandpa had some land he'd buy along the river because the land he bought is right on the Saint Joe River on the south side of it.
And so they bought the boats and put a dock out.
Logan Drake and Lewis Wallace buy a lot.
Down there, I think they paid $6.85 for a lot down on Silver Beach, and they start doing a concession down there where you can buy some bathing stuff and and that sort of thing.
And and it just evolves out of that.
Then it grows and then they were running excursions and they were just busy, busy, busy.
People came and waited and waited to go up on the river and spend the day.
Because in those days there wasn't the transportation there is today.
But it started out as with boats and then cabins and then slide into the water and then it just expanded from there.
They were very smart businessmen and knew what the public wanted.
And what the public wanted was a place for healthy recreation where you could escape the heat of summer, spend time at the beach, go swimming.
But Drake and Wallace also recognized that people wanted more.
They start adding on more and more property and so forth with this bathing beach and then adding attractions to it.
The giant slide into Lake Michigan proved to be very popular and was moveable to adapt to the shifting sands.
And then they built another air contraption that was a swing, and it started in the water.
There were seats all the way around, and it started in the water.
And then it would revolve and it would be lifted out of the water.
They also built cottages near the beach for weekly or monthly rental, allowing extended stays, which meant there was a larger audience for concessions, which they built, including a tintype studio, souvenir stands and other amusements.
Drake and Wallace encouraged entrepreneurship, offering opportunities to independent contractors who would run their own businesses and pay a percentage of their receipts as rent.
Many of these operators were locals who were recent immigrants.
They were the immigrants from Germany, from Russia.
What's now Poland They lived down there.
The workers, you know, they were many people.
They came from other countries, and they didn't speak English very well, but they spoke four and five languages.
Logan Drake kept moving south and building, and the boardwalk expanded and the buildings expanded They added one thing and another and then another.
And then the boat got bigger and bigger and it grew from there.
So it's sort of a confluence of many things that brings people to amusement parks.
And if they're spending money, the parks are going to develop attractions that will bring them in.
Logan Drake was a really creative entrepreneur because he he made a really it was his life conscious effort to make this move and change and be an attraction that changed.
Inasmuch as there were many amusements and activities to partake of.
The entire operation was still without a name other than the Drake and Wallace Company.
Legend has it that the then girlfriend of Logan Drake, Maud Schlanger, 17 years his junior, mentioned to him that the moon, shimmering on the waters of Lake Michigan at night made it look like silver.
And so the name Silver Beach was coined.
Logan went on to marry the young lady in 19 01.
She bore three children, though the first, also named Maude, died only 29 days after being born Milton, her second born, went on to be a prominent banker in Detroit, and her third, a daughter named Beulah, born in 19 09 would later become directly involved in the operation of Silver Beach Amusement Park.
Now, it just so happened that Maude Schlanger had a younger sister, Laura Schlanger, who caught the eye and hand of Lewis Wallace marrying him in 19 07, making business partners Logan and Wallace now brothers in law the now related by marriage partners continued to expand their fledgling park, adding more and more attractions to bring in more and more customers.
They added an airplane ride, of course, a roller coaster, an integral part of any amusement park which was named Chase through the clouds, though most simply referred to it as the figure eight, a bowling alley was added and a pool hall which, like the bowling alley, was a men only venue.
A roller skating rink favored by the teenagers was added with skates that clamped down to your shoes boxing matches were held, drawing thousands of onlookers.
Ultimately, boxing was deemed a bit too brutal for the family atmosphere of Silver Beach.
In 1922, Logan Drake announced that the existing figure eight roller coaster would be replaced by a new coaster costing more than $30,000 with 2000 feet of track and five thrilling dips.
The public's anticipation grew over the year as the new coaster went up by the time the park opened in 1923.
The shining new coaster was ready to ride with the name Velvet It promised a smooth, steady ride.
However, riders soon discovered that was hardly the case.
And that one I rode on one time.
I couldn't ride it.
Something about it.
It just took my breath away.
I couldn't ride.
And one time I did ride a little prayer because I said, if I could get through this, if I get through this of I'll never write again and I never wrote again, I only wrote the one time and my favorite was the front car or the back car.
That's the way.
That's where you should be.
Velvet would remain in operation for many years with maintenance being done regularly and a new coat of paint when needed.
One year, the color scheme was changed to red and then became known as red velvet.
Even though the original name stayed the same the business continued to expand.
And one of the most important attractions to be built was a pavilion with a dance floor and two stages for live bands to accommodate the country's insatiable appetite for dance.
They danced frequently.
That was the fun of that era.
They'd go out and dance and boy, they love their dancing.
Dancing was wonderful.
Dancing was done everywhere, and people could never get enough of it because they weren't TVs and other amusements.
However, couples were reluctant to dance in the pavilion due to each uneven flooring, but as luck would have it, good or bad.
A powerful storm damaged the pavilion.
And during the repairs, the dance floor was replaced by smooth maple flooring and the dancing began in earnest.
And then on weekends, I had every other weekend.
So that weekend was spent dancing, and my husband took me to all the ballrooms in the area, and there were a lot of them at the time.
Over the years, several dance pavilions graced the shore of Paw Paw Lake in Coloma Beachwood Pointe Dance Pavilion, Woodward's Pavilion, and the last and grandest pavilion on Paw Paw the Crystal Palace.
There was the Paradise Ballroom in Benton Harbor, also known as the Palais Ballroom and the Eden Springs Dance Hall, also in Benton Harbor.
But the grandest of all, Logan Drake's dream come true.
The ballroom that attracted thousands of dancers and the best bands was the jewel in the crown of Silver Beach.
Shadow Land.
Shadow Land was the grandest of all the area dance halls with an immaculate floor, theatrical lighting and decorated in art deco grandeur.
That was a big deal when they built that.
It was the most beautiful, beautiful building just gorgeous.
He had hired all kinds of people to come in and study because he didn't want any support beems, he wanted Open, and he heard of a building that had been built without that.
And he went and studied it, hired the guy, and they built it.
And it was just beautiful.
And it was terrific.
It had yards and yards of silk pongee when it was first opened.
It was the glamor spot.
And of course, it was all live music.
The grand opening on Saturday, April 30th, 1927 attracted more than 3000 dancers ready to scuff the proverbial parquet, packing the pavilion with light footed free spirits, eager to take a turn on the magnificent dance floor.
It just had a beautiful dance floor, real shiny, and it was a big floor.
When the orchestra would play.
You had all you could do to get around the floor one time with a song.
It was that big and beautiful floor, you know.
And when you decide to do the dance dance hall, he didn't just put up a dance hall.
He wanted the best.
And he attracted the big bands because of it.
These traveling bands would come through Benny Goodman and Glenn Miller be the best known of them.
But there were a lot of these big band dance halls.
And so with the big bands that came in here to Shadowland and it was the easy thing to do to see some of the best musicians that were in the country.
All that era, the big band era.
My dad could tell you every single name because he was there dancing to those people.
Shadow Land saw many great bands on each stage over the years, with regulars like Wayne King and his orchestra Dan Russo and the Orioles Paul Tremaine Harry Shannon Maurie Sherman, Tommy Dorsey and his band the Glenn Miller Orchestra, and a host of singers and entertainers whose names are, for the most part, long forgotten but were an important part of the dance scene at Shadow Land and an indelible memory for those who danced there.
It was a dancing time with the huge popularity of the Shadowland Ballroom.
In keeping with Logan Drake's penchant for adding new attractions, the old Pavilion Dance Hall was repurposed as the funhouse and we save that for last, so that when we got through with all the rides and eating or something, we go in the funhouse and there was no limit of how long you could be in there.
I love the Sugar Bowl.
That was really neat.
You know, like the Sugar Bowl was made out of polished wood, and you get in and sit in the middle and then they spin it and throw you on the sides of the Sugar Bowl.
It was really great.
Everyone loved that.
They are the barrel that spun and you had to try to walk through it.
You know, you'd had to try to walk through the churning barrel, rotating barrel.
That was all solid wood.
Nothing has the same atmospheres at all.
Time arcade like that.
Another change was the addition of the laugh in the dark attraction, which took the place of the old skating rink, which was being used less and less.
There was this house of mysteries that you would go through, and it was a maze.
And when I was little, it was really I was always kind of worried I wouldn't get out.
There was a mechanical clown in the hall of mirrors.
Is there anybody who thinks clown clowns are fun?
That clown was so scary.
You'd be going through the mirror maze and all of a sudden this thing would start moving and yelling and it's like, oh, bam, right off the mirror.
Yeah.
And our favorite ride was a whip because everyone would get on the whip in the whip to go around, and all the change would go to people's pockets.
In the seats and down in the seats.
And we get on kids, we go, we fill our pockets, and we'd make money The first thing we would go on was the Tilt-a-whirl and the Scrambler.
Those were our rides.
And you'd spend all day here.
You just didn't come for a couple of hours.
You got to spend the whole day here.
It was a great time to be a kid back then.
It was all just crazy, simple, fun.
And the family the Drake family was very good at bringing in new reasons to come.
I mean, every year they invented new rides or new amusements or new attractions.
It was all part of the strategy of keeping things fresh and exciting.
And so there are Ferris wheels and roller coasters and all of these different things that people can spend their time at and and go as a family and enjoy these attractions.
Logan and Wallace continue to improve and add to the attractions and amusements at Silver Beach, including an indoor swimming pool heated by a steam boiler enclosed in a two story building with a skylight and ceiling.
Crazy enough as it may seem, a swimming pool at the beach.
They even rented out swimming suits that was like £14 swimming suits like at the turn of the century.
That only lasted for a while because it was very expensive, it was difficult to maintain, and people liked being outdoors more than they like being inside.
Recognize that their swimming pool or Natatorium they referred to, it was not generating enough traffic and revenue.
They quickly adapted and turned the building into the Penny Arcade.
The Penny Arcade was probably the coolest place ever.
I mean, I've been to lots of penny arcades and lots of different places and this was old timey by my mom and dad, and my aunt owned the Penny Arcade.
That was my first induction there And I was eight years old, seven, and we moved here with the next year.
I started working in the Penny Arcade.
Originally, my aunt owned the Penny Arcade but my aunt that owned the Penny Arcade told my dad, If you come to Michigan, run a penny arcade for a summer.
If you really like it, I'll sell it to you because I'm going to go back to New York and go back into teaching.
The Penny Arcade was full of wonderful machines to delight children of all ages, from pinball machines to mini shooting galleries.
There was something for everyone.
Some were games of skill, some were games of chance, and some were designed to see how tough you were We had I think we had 170 machines in there.
We had a recording machine where you record your own records, have pool tables we had bowling alleys, mutacopes, where you put your penny in and you sit there in your hand, crank it.
We had a punching bag.
We had electric shock machine, but a dime in there, and you'd go grab one handle and you grab the other one and you twist it, see how much resistance you could take.
They had a lot of neat things in the arcade, that kind of scary fortune teller guy, like in the movie Big.
He was like the best.
When I see some of those old machines now preserved in museums and things like that, that's where you're going to see him.
You're not going to see those again, ever.
And for kids, it was just fantastic.
I just always remember it being very busy, you know, real kind of like a fair, like atmosphere.
The Penny Arcade was at the end of the boardwalk, which was now made of concrete rather than the original wooden platform, which was prone to frequent repairs from harsh winters.
From the Penny Arcade, you could stroll the midway taking part in all manner of games along with a collection of rides and concession stands.
My connection was my parents had to concession stands at Silver Beach and my uncle had four concession stands.
My whole childhood from I guess when I was probably very young up until the beach was tore down in 1971.
Every summer, our whole life from Memorial Day weekend to Labor Day weekend revolved around Silver Beach so there were a lot of things that went on in this place.
And I mean, it was good people.
I mean, people that worked here.
It was all like a big family, really.
The essence of a family atmosphere was part of the charm of Silver Beach.
Driven by the desire of Logan Drake and Louis Wallace to have a place where you could take your family without worry.
And it was kind of like a family place to go.
The whole family could be together.
It was a family orientated place.
It was meant for families to come and have fun, you know, and enjoy themselves.
It was a place to take the family and enjoy the day.
You could go as a family and spend however much or however little money you wanted and and just be out there with people, which is really something we've lost in a lot of ways with all of these attractions.
There had to be a dependable way to transport the customers to Silver Beach and get them on the midway in the early years of the park.
The Interstate Highway System had yet to be developed, and the principal form of transportation was by water.
The boats were a great, great part of the development of the people coming to the beach.
But these boats are about 200 foot long side wheel steamers.
They go over to Chicago.
Load up with passengers.
Take them over.
You could travel in style.
It was great.
Fun to take these these boats over.
They came in four or five days a week, and they were big boats.
They carried 200, 300 people.
You know, they were a big boat.
It was a very popular thing for people from Chicago to do.
The boats were always filled.
They were always filled up These pleasure boats were, for the most part, grand steamers.
Many of them christened with names of cities that dotted the lake.
The city of Chicago the city of Benton Harbor.
The city of Saint Joseph.
The city of Holland.
The city of Grand Rapids.
The city of South Haven.
There was also the Theodore Roosevelt, the Christopher Columbus and the ill fated Eastland preparing to disembark Chicago for Silver Beach on July 24th.
1915 when it capsized with a full complement of passengers.
844 people died in the tragedy just 20 feet from the dock.
It was the deadliest maritime disaster in the history of the Great Lakes.
But even a disaster like that did not dampen the desire to take a boat across the lake, often with Benton Harbor as the primary destination Benton Harbor was a beautiful city at that time.
Benton Harbor had everything that Saint Joe didn't have It's a much larger city.
Most of the shopping was over there.
They had opera houses.
So there are entertainment centers like the Bell Opera House, the Israelite House of David is on the edge of town, and that's a big attraction.
Chicago people lots come on the boat.
They come on the boat.
The docks at Benton Harbor and the Whitcomb Hotel was a very big resort.
That's where they would stay.
Logan Drake realized that having all these tourists going straight to Benton Harbor instead of Silver Beach was not exactly the best business model.
So he decided that a docking pier was needed and they decided that they were going to have the people stop in St. Joe So they made a landing there for the boats to come out.
So they could stop and St Joe wouldn't go straight to Benton Harbor, and they drop you off right at the docks at Silver Beach Amusement Park.
There you are.
You're right there.
You don't have to go anywhere.
You're right at Silver Beach.
They dock around 10:00 and offload all the people and they'd be there all day and then they take them home at night.
Silver Beach Amusement Park had its heyday in the second two decades of the 20th century, but the Roaring Twenties came to a screeching halt in the fall of 1929 when Wall Street crashed and the Great Depression set in.
The amusement parks have their heyday in the in the first 30 years of the 20th century.
That's when they're they're all really flourishing.
And then the Great Depression hits in 1930 and people have no money.
It was very hard for people, but I think it brought people together.
People were more humble Although the park did see a substantial decrease in attendance during the thirties, with the steamboat traffic dwindling, one thing kept it going.
The people who lived in Saint Joe and Benton Harbor.
With money scarce, other more expensive entertainment was out of the question.
But you could walk to Silver Beach entered the park for free, and pay for rides or concessions individually because it was still affordable You could go down to Silver Beach for free.
You didn't have to spend a dime.
You could walk up and down that boardwalk.
You could see your friends.
You could see other families that were there.
You could have a wonderful time and spend very little money.
They had kiddies day every Tuesday afternoon.
And you paid $0.10 to ride.
And that was a special privilege because remember, this was depression time.
It was a special privilege to make your choice of what ride you wanted.
Well, one way that the Silver Beach survived during the Depression is that they would get give you specials so that the rides would go there and they would have even a kiddy day where things were free.
During the Depression, an activity known as the dance marathon was occurring at dance halls across the country, taking advantage of the desperation of the times.
Promoters offered cash prizes for the couple who could stay on their feet the longest.
There would be couples given numbers, and they would go out there and they would start dancing.
And there were large prizes large could be calculated in those dollars, not today's dollars.
But even so, if you made $100 or so back then, it was pretty awesome.
It was just really hard to see because the couples were holding each other up because it was 30 hours of standing on your feet and dancing or whatever it ended up being.
Whoever lasted the longest.
I remember with a girlfriend sneaking up to the climbing up on the sand pile, looking in the windows at the marathon dancers.
So here they are, dancing and dancing and dancing and dancing until they dropped in later years.
Shadow Land was the home to many high school proms.
When I was in high school, that's where the Proms were held and I was fortunate not that in 1958, when I was in the 11th grade, I was invited to the prom by the president of the junior class.
And I was fortunate enough to because I was with the president to lead the grand march.
It was so beautiful that in 1958 there was a black couple and there was a white couple and we were leading the grand march in the late thirties.
Logan Drake's partner, Louis Wallace felt he had done all he could for the park and offered to sell his share to Logan which he accepted.
However, just as the Great Depression was coming to an end, the nation was looking at the prospect of getting involved in the Second World War.
Which of course would not be good for business at an amusement park.
Then right at the end of the Great Depression, we have World War Two.
The economy revives with World War Two, but people can't go to the amusement parks.
There's rationing.
Although gas rationing may have cut down on the number of cars going to the park.
There was a solution.
Ride sharing.
When the sailors came home and thought the girls would the available girls the young girls would go in car loads and they would meet and dance.
Despite the gas rationing which curtailed car and boat traffic.
The park managed to stay afloat with reasonable weekend attendance.
By the time the war ended.
Logan Drake had been directly involved in running the business for more than 50 years.
And he was beginning to feel his age and looking to relinquish his role as park patriarch.
Lucky for him, there happened to be a willing candidate for the job in the form of one Mr. Horace J. Terrell, who everyone simply called Chief.
Chief Terrell happened to be at Shadowland one evening with his dancing shoes on and met a young lady named Beulah.
You may recall an earlier reference to a young lady by this moniker who also just happened to have the last name of Drake Buehler, Drake Logan and Maud Drake's daughter, who called herself Bobby Aunt Bobby was not named Aunt Bobby.
She was named Buella And when she got into like her forties, she changed her name.
She hated her name.
She was always called Bobby, and she changed it to Roberta.
It happened.
The chief Terrell was not only good with his hand, but he also had a knack for the creative and had ideas about how to improve Silver Beach Park.
And so Logan Drake hired him on as his assistant manager For those of you who have the ability to see the proverbial writing on the wall, it will come as little or no surprise that not long after Chief and Bobby became engaged and not long after that were married in April of 1945, they were married and they took over the operation of Silver Beach when Logan Drake was ready to step down and he was still around.
I'm sure he was advising and consulting and but they made it their work and the transition was fairly seamless because she had been raised in the park.
Uncle Chief got along with everyone.
He was a persons person.
He was really good with the workers with, you know, he moved around, talk to people, did work that needs doing, saw things done.
He was that kind of person.
When Roberta and Chief Terrell took over the park, they they didn't really make big changes to the philosophy, but they made continual changes, as Logan had made to the park to keep it fresh.
And so under the guidance of Chief and Bobby Terrell, Silver Beach Amusement Park, had a bit of a resurgence.
Chief added rides like the Tilt-a-whirl, the Tarantula, Rocko Plains and the swinging gym old velvet was given a fresh coat of paint and a new name.
The comet being somewhat more indicative of the speed which riders would be hurled through space.
You couldn't wait to get out of that car, and the first thing you'd see was the roller coaster, the comet, and you could see the roller coaster and it was so huge and it was just this big wooden thing.
And it was just amazing because it was one of the biggest things in the country at that time.
The one sound that I will always is, will always be embedded in my head was that roller coaster because it just was a rickety roller coaster.
It was the rickety, rickety aspect of the roller coaster gave you a little more thrill than just the ride itself.
Basically, that roller coaster was the main place, the main attraction.
And you could see it going and you would hear the noise and people screaming and then the kids and the smell of the cotton candy and the popcorn.
Oh, I can smell it now.
It's so good.
So good.
But despite the new rides, the efforts to keep things fresh and to maintain Silver Beach Park is the main attraction for people within an easy drive or boat ride away.
Chief and Bobby were facing new realities television, movies, air conditioning malls, freeways two cars in every driveway and theme parks which dwarfed the mom and pop amusement parks.
TV comes in and now your amusement is brought into your your own home.
And so people stop going to the amusement parks in the 1930s or forties.
Fifties, it just goes into a long decline in that period of time.
Some of the big amusement parks we know of today, we're starting to advance and become become more exciting.
The amusements were more exciting with the Disney World, Disneyland and places like Cedar Point Chicago Parks and that they just kind of took over and it really just shut us down down here.
I remember in first grade, some kid brought an eight millimeter film to class of their trip to Disneyland.
Every kid was on the edge of their desk.
So much for Silver Beach when you went to Silver Beach Amusement Park, you always knew what you were going to see because it never really changed much.
In other words, the thing that changed about Silver Beach was that it stopped changing with decreased attendance and revenue Chief and Bobby simply couldn't afford to keep pace with the competition of other forms of entertainment.
Silver Beach Park could no longer deliver what their customers had always come to expect Something new, something fresh, something to bring them back again and again.
I think even by the time we were approaching our teen years, we we were feeling the effects of of Silver Beach Amusement Park not remaining relative with what kids wanted to do.
But I think there was too many fights and too much trouble that the police were down there.
An awful lot so people really didn't like going down there because of all the problems.
And it was run down and it was really not practical for them to build it up again and then put in new buildings.
I guess the dirtier things deteriorated as as it did in all cities and became expensive or someone who had some money to keep it up.
It was starting to get a little rough at the time the St Joe Police were getting tired of coming down.
There would be disturbances from busses that would come in.
They closed it down.
I mean, the police just said that's you know, that's just too much.
I really don't believe it would have lasted much longer, given society's expectations What what the definition of fun was and how it changed in the seventies.
It would be easy to point a finger and say this reason or that reason is why Silver Beach closed.
But in reality, Silver Beach closed for the same reasons.
All of the hundreds of other small amusement parks closed.
They simply became irrelevant.
They were an anachronism.
Their amusements were seen as not exciting enough, not modern enough, or simply just not enough.
And times changed and amusement parks faded away.
It's the same kids like myself that grew up here.
It's some of my fondest memories, and I feel very fortunate that I was a part of that.
It was something to behold, something to see.
It was a reason to be here.
Silver Beach was the place to be.
It was heaven to us around here.
It was heaven.
It was what we looked forward to all winter.
What happened here isn't going to happen again.
It was a unique thing, and it was a big deal.
It's a wonderful memory that I have after a hundred years.
Although the park closed down before the end of the season in 1971, the intention was to reopen the following year.
Well, it did not open the following year because the state of the city was wanting the park to do a $50,000 upgrade in electrical systems and that the owners were getting up in age.
The park action needed a lot of restoration work, you know, and so they decided not to open up the Terrells sold off whatever rides and attractions they could, including the funhouse, the laugh in the dark, the Ferris wheel and the machines from the Penny Arcade.
One by one, pieces of the park were sold off leaving only the empty buildings and the comet roller coaster, standing as a silent testament to what had once been a playground of joy.
But they too fell to the ravages of time.
The city declared the abandoned buildings a health and fire hazard.
The coaster was torn down.
The steel sold for scrap and the rest of it burned in a controlled fire.
The rest of the building soon suffered the same fate, save for the shadow Land Ballroom, which continued to hold events, dances and concerts for the next few years.
But even this grand dame of dance halls was no match for Michigan.
Winters.
With the roof needing extensive repairs.
It was simply no longer economically feasible to keep it open.
And so in December of 1981, the St Joe Fire Department unceremoniously set it ablaze.
The last time I was there, they were tearing it down There was nothing left of the boardwalk.
It was just desolate.
Within a year or two, nature had reclaimed the site.
There now was only weeds, sand and the ghosts of a bygone era.
Silver Beach was now just a beach.
Once more Now, it would be a cruel trick to end this story on such a doleful note.
Surely you think there must be some ray of sunshine to end.
And you would be correct if you've ever been to Silver Beach or any amusement park, you've probably noticed a rather glaring omission up to this point in our story, and that is the absence of a particular ride that is fairly emblematic of amusement parks, the centerpiece of many of them, and one that is enjoyed by just about every person who rides it, regardless of age.
It is also the feature most lovingly remembered by anyone who wrote it the carousel, or in the vernacular, the merry go round, which truly deserves its own story.
The spectacular Silver Beach Carousel was built by Misters Frederick Dole and Andy Borelli of North Bergen, New Jersey, and was installed in Silver Beach Park in 1910.
The 44 horses adorning the carousel were hand-carved by master craftsman Charles Kamal a Russian immigrant who carved horses for nearly every carousel manufacturer at one time or another.
They were painted in a dazzling array of colors and each horse sported an actual horsehair tail.
The original carousel featured horses known as standard, meaning they did not move up and down or forward and back.
But as was the standard practice of Drake and Wallace.
They improved the carousel in 1924 by adding jumpers which moved up and down as the carousel turned.
The carousel was an immediate hit with patrons with riders clamoring for their favorite horse We all had our favorite horses that we loved and we liked the ones that went up and down.
We can never understand why people sat on the benches in the middle The carousel was a focal point of the park, the center around which it seemed everything else revolved around the system.
High powered.
It's not deaf defying, it's just getting on.
One of those horses and going around with the music carousel is it's a family ride, if not a thrill ride.
You know?
So it's a ride that parents, grandparents, babies, teenagers, everybody can ride the carousel and enjoy it.
You know?
So it's just it's just joyful.
A key feature of the carousel was a mechanical musical instrument known as a band organ, which was intended to replicate the sound of an entire orchestra I love the carousel because it was the music that I really was gravitate towards.
I just think it's beautiful.
I could stand there all day if I didn't ride it and listen to the band, an organ, the music It's just beautiful.
It may please you to know that the carousel from Silver Beach Amusement Park has been saved and lovingly restored.
However, there's a bit more to that story.
They offered us the carousel if we wanted to buy it, but Ron and I weren't in a position to buy it.
At that time, we were living in New York City, I believe, and there was no way that we could buy it and afford to store it somewhere.
With no other willing buyers.
The carousel was put up for auction and was purchased by Maryann Stevens of Roswell, New Mexico.
She was a carousel historian, collector, restoration specialist, dealer, lecturer, and writer.
The carousel was dismantled, shipped and put into storage.
She did not sell it off piecemeal and kept it in storage.
The process of trying to bring that old carousel back was first finding it I know a lot of research went into figuring out who bought the carousel after the amusement park dismantled and where where it was located.
In 1997, the Silver Beach Carousel Society was formed in the hopes of finding, purchasing and restoring the original carousel and to house it in the yet to be constructed.
Silver Beach Center, the Silver Beach Carousel Society got together and they wanted to bring back the old original Silver Beach Carousel when it was discovered that the original carousel was still in Roswell, New Mexico.
It was exciting because the thought of bringing back the carousel to this area was a dream.
Contacted the owner and said that we're interested in buying it.
Maybe some time we have to line up financial backing.
We have to line up a site and make other arrangements, but we'll be back in touch.
The first order of business was pulling together enough money to buy the carousel.
We did know it was on the open market, that it could be sold to anybody, you know, if they had the money.
And we had raised about $200,000 in a four year period.
Fast forward a couple, three years when after they were able to do that and they made contact with the owner and said, Oh, well, I sold the carousel and that took all the wind out of the sails.
The Silver Beach carousel was gone, sold to the Three Rivers Carousel Foundation in Kennewick, Washington, where it indeed was lovingly restored and is now known as the key to the Carousel of Dreams.
Although they were discouraged, the Silver Beach Carousel Society board got together and decided on a new course of action.
They decided to, well, let's start from scratch and let's create a whole new carousel.
The board knew they had their work cut out for them.
They needed a site to build on.
They needed sponsors.
They needed donors.
They needed community support.
And they got it.
Marci Gast.
Schalon was the catalyst who really got things going and drove the project forward.
She along with her husband Ed, her brother, Warren Gast, and his wife Lou bought the property on which the center now stands and donated it to the center.
Marci was influential in leading others in the community to donate toward the project as well.
And there were no tax dollars that were spent in creation of the Silver Beach Center or the Carousel.
There are no tax dollars funding the Silver Beach Center with funds committed.
The board contracted with Carousel Works in Mansfield, Ohio, a premiere builder of hand-carved hand-painted wooden carousels, and asked them to design a carousel that was in the style of the original.
So, yes, it's a brand new carousel, but we've got six figures on the carousel that are carved reminiscent of the original figures that were on the original Silver Beach carousel.
The new carousel is made for us.
It's not from somewhere else.
It was made for us.
As it turned out, not being able to get the original carousel was a blessing in disguise as it needed extensive of restoration that would have cost over $1,000,000 in addition to the $750,000 cost of the carousel.
In one sense, we got a bargain and we got a carousel that we had custom made for us the way we wanted it to be.
While work proceeded on the carousel ground was broken for Silver Beach Center in July of 2008, and the grand opening was held in January of 2010.
In the middle of a snow storm and we had over 1000 people show up even with the blizzard going on.
But people were anxious to see what we were bringing here.
You know, we didn't know if we were going to make it.
I mean, that was a big, big speculative move.
When we opened, it's like an I hope people show up.
They did the finished product represents the culmination of a unique public private corporate partnership, which includes the Silver Beach Carousel, The Curious Kid's Discovery Zone, and the new Shadow Land Ballroom, along with the Whirlpool Campus Fountain and the adjacent community event Green Space.
But the centerpiece is the carousel.
The carousel features two chariots and 44 meticulously carved and painted figures, including horses and some rather unique animals in the menagerie, like the panda, the praying mantis, the raptor, the rooster, a sea otter, a sheepdog, a snow leopard cub, the Saint Joseph Bear, and, of course, a Michigan State Spartan horse, I was on a committee to bring the Benton Harbor, put a bit harbor tiger on this new carousel, and I was determined to ask people for money or to help make it happen.
And we had the most gorgeous tiger on the carousel.
And I have two grandchildren.
It took me to Silver Beach and they said, Come on, Grandma, get on this merry go round and have a ride.
Pick it, pick out a horse, whichever one you like.
So I picked up one, and I got to ride it for my 100th birthday.
Yes.
And so that's the one feature of Silver Beach.
That's really come back is that that carousel.
And it's a lot of fun.
And you see that the families with the kids and they're all riding the carousel and seeing oh, my gosh.
You were doing that 100 years ago, literally 100 years ago.
The families are doing that.
It's come back.
It's still fun.
The legacy of Silver Beach Amusement Park is that this space where we're standing now is going to remain dedicated to public use for the next 86 years with 13 years into a 99 year lease.
So the fun that you see down here in late spring through early fall.
That's the legacy of Silver Beach Amusement Park.
It just makes you feel good and it's fun, you know, it's just fun.
We as a society, tend to build memorials that honor great tragedies like the sinking of ships or battlefields where many have died, or even places where important events occurred.
But if memory has ethics, we should also memorialize places where people simply came together to play laugh.
Have fun.
Dance and fall in love.
Oh, it was magical.
It was happy.
Which and it still is today.
It's still a very happy place.
And that's what the silver Beach Center is.
A memorial to the spirit of fun, of joy, of being a kid again.
But every time I walk in that building, and that is every day except two and sometimes more, I feel like a kid again.
It's my joy in life.
If you want to know more about silver Beach Amusement Park, pay a visit to Silver Beach Center.
The exquisitely built diorama of Silver Beach Park, gives you an idea of what it might be like to stroll the midway again and experience the sights and sounds of the amusement park.
A portion of the dance floor from the original Shadow Land ballroom is inset into the floor of the new ballroom, so you can still dance on the same board that thousands of dancers swept across over the last century.
Children can have fun while learning in the Curious Kid's Discovery Zone.
And of course, be sure to ride the carousel.
The jewel of Silver Beach Center.
You need to just come in and see this carousel.
You're not going to.
You're not going to believe how beautiful it is.
Silver Beach Amusement Park was a dream made real by Logan Drake and Lewis Wallace, who took a patch of sand and turned it into a place where people came for nearly 80 years with the sole purpose of having a good time.
It is still that place.
Come and be a part of it.
A Legacy of memories.
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