Cedar Point Frontier Trail Opens – May 1971

Well, Cedar Point opened for the season over the weekend, so it's a good time to post this article.

Courtesy www.rollercoasterfreak.com and Ebay

It's from the May 21, 1971 Lorain Journal and it announces the premiere of the new Frontier Trail. The addition of the Trail offered park visitors another way to get to Frontier Town (besides the now long-gone Frontier Lift and the train). It also provided some historical and educational entertainment with its recreation of Fort Sandusky, as well as various mills, a blacksmith, a trading post, glass blowers, etc.

What I didn't know (as the article explains) is that many of the pioneer buildings along the trail – the old cabins, barns and the grist mill – are the real McCoy, not recreations. The mill came all the way from Franklin, North Carolina; the 140-year-old barn came from Findlay, and the cabins came from Bucyrus and the Findlay-Galion area. It's a nice touch of authenticity that I certainly wouldn't expect.

Of course, having a trail that enabled you to walk to Frontier Town hastened the demise of the Frontier Lift, which lasted through the 1985 season according to this Cedar Point historical timeline website.