Tuesday, August 10, 2021

Rajahland Opens – August 1971

Ad from the August 19, 1971 Amherst News-Times

Do you remember Rajahland?

If you do, then your family must have been a camping family like ours. Rajahland was a campground/resort located out on Portman Road, south of Vermilion. 

Rajahland opened back in early August 1971. It was the brainchild of brothers Rolland and John Angersbach, who decided to fulfill a dream by converting their successful dairy farm into a resort for campers.

The article below, which was written by Journal Staff Writer Dick Hendrickson and appeared in the paper back on August 1, 1971, explains how the brothers came to open the resort.

As the article notes, “We thought about it quite a few years ago,” explains John, the younger of the two at 38. He and Rolland, 41, had milked cows from their school days and had 130 head until last November. “We were mighty proud of those girls,” says John. “We felt we’d made a complete success in the dairy business, so we wanted to try another business.”

The two brothers were campers themselves. As noted in the article, “Rolly and I’ve been camping for quite a few years,” says John. They’ve tried to make “Rajahland” fit some of the best things they’d found in other places.

How did the resort get its name? As pointed out in the article, “The name, “Rajahland,” is drawn from the two names, Rolland and John, with a few extra letters to make it spell right, says Rolland. The camp's emblem is tear-shaped, with symbols of a tent, a trailer and a tree.”

The Vintage Aerials website includes a few views of Rajahland in its collection, with descriptions written by historian and longtime blog contributor Dennis Thompson. Here’s one from 1978.

The park encountered some financial difficulties in the early 1980s, but appears to have stayed open and retained the Rajahland name through most of the decade.

Today the park is known as Timber Ridge Campground. (Here’s the link to its website.) 
When I drove by Timber Ridge on Sunday in preparation for this post, the park was doing a booming business. 
The Angersbach brothers’ vision lives on.
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5 comments:

  1. AnonymousAugust 10, 2021 at 8:16 AM

    Is Rolland still alive?I see that John passed back in 2014 at the young age of 81.If Rolland is still alive he should be around 90-91 now.2 more members of the silent generation doing good for their fellow man and not just out for themselves.I should only hope to live that long.

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  2. MarkAugust 10, 2021 at 8:23 AM

    USe to go there all the time in the 80's - the slide really hurt your back though!

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  3. JIMAugust 11, 2021 at 6:33 PM

    Thanks for sharing this. We went there a few times in the mid 70s, but I could never remember exactly where it was (or even generally where it was). My dad has passed on so I cannot ask him.

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  4. AaronAugust 18, 2021 at 10:38 PM

    I was there as a boy in the 80's, the Elyria Eagles had their summer picnic there for a while. That slide was a rough one! I also remember getting a huge splinter in my toe on the wooden platform by the pond.

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  5. UnknownJanuary 7, 2022 at 10:27 PM

    My mom used to run the snack bar mid 80's...we used to stay up all hours of the night making her little homemade pizzas....I was the "sanitation engineer" at the age of 14 (cleaned all the shitters)....great memories....lots of Galaga, lots of life lessons....great campers....
    Remember bingo night ...? "all you buckeroo's out there in buckeroo land...."...I remember him as Rahl Angersbach....

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