He Bought Cedar Point – Part 2

Emile Legros’ Favorite Ride

Here’s Part 2 of the Journal’s profile of Emile Legros, the investment banker who bought run-down Cedar Point in the 1950s with the intention of closing it down and converting it into a real estate development. Instead, he and his partner George Roose launched the beloved park’s comeback, leading to its status today as the best amusement park in the country.

The full-page article appeared in the paper on April 27, 1969. Part 2 begins with his just having purchased Cedar Point.

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Banker Emile Legros Took a Fling at Cedar Point - Part 2
by BOB COTLEUR
Staff Writer

“AT THAT TIME it was physically run down. A terrible place. A place not to come to. And quite frankly we bought Cedar Point because of the real estate. We were going to tear it down and make a real estate development of it. Governor Launch decided that was a wrong thing to do and he went so far as to call the legislature together to introduce a bill which would have the state take it over,” Legros said.

“So we had a feasibility study made and it looked like it was feasible to rebuild it, although it would be a long hard job.

“Now if you have the money to spend and rebuild the physical part, that’s one thing but the moral part – so the people will bring children here and be able to turn their children loose in the park without fear of being molested – well, that’s what we have today.”

That’s how an investment banker got into the field of amusement parks, but what gives him the special talent to run it as board chairman?

“I don’t have the talent. I wouldn’t have the slightest idea how to run that hotel (Breakers Hotel), not the slightest idea of how to run the rides. And I don’t know how to run a marina.”

At first, he stole people from Disneyland.

“Sure, I did. I got Doc Lemmon, general manager here for a while, and a fellow named Jacobson that we put in as rides manager and four or five others,” he smiled.

They made their mark and set the pattern for how the Point operates today. Legros hires experts, gives them budges “which are their bibles” and concerns himself with decisions based on logical criteria any investment banker would understand.

Such things as the rate of return on an investment (the newest is un-banklike and called the Runaway Mine Ride and cost $600,000 plus), safety, maintenance, and operator needs.

“I LOOK FOR ability and honesty and loyalty in hiring people and I don’t second guess them. They’re supposed to be the experts. I think where many people make mistakes is in second guessing.”

He recently lost two of his top lieutenants who will soon open a new amusement park at Geauga Lake, east of Cleveland. How does he feel about Gaspar Lacocco and Earl Gascoyne?

“Anyone that is afraid to train someone for his own job won’t go very far. Should I have not given them their heads and trained them and told them everything so they could go out and do this on their own?

“I think there’s a lot of things they don’t know, but they’ll learn. They have the ability to learn. I want them to be successful. I don’t want them to fail.”

He said the park they took over “is a tough one. It has the same weakness Cedar Point had when we bought it. It’s physically as well as morally run down.”

But the two have one big break. Emile Legros was their teacher.

Cedar Point today runs about $15.5 million in sales a year with earnings last year of $1.058 millions. It has 425 acres and Legros says “we’ve only scratched the surface.”

He plans to continually build, but highway access is today’s major problem. “Not the people. We can handle the people, but one time last summer we had them backed up three miles on the Oho Turnpike and along SR 250.”

The interest in Cedar Point and the 2,500 college youth who staff it in summer led to Cedar Point (and Legros’) acquisition of Miss Teen Age America “which fits in with our motives of what we want to do with the young people we’re working with,” Legros said.

“Believe it or not we can do things for your children that you can’t do yourself. For instance, this is the age of resenting mother and daddy yaking at the kids too much.

“HERE WE SET DOWN the rules. We tell our teenagers what is expected of them. They come in knowing what is expected, that there is a curfew law, that they must be courteous, must be clean, how long sideburns can be, that they can’t have mustaches, beards, clothes must be clean and they must pick up dirt on the midway.

“You try to tell the same things to your children and they get resentful of you.

“My own daughter is part of the new Cedar Point Courtesy Corps of hand picked youngsters and she love this. She likes the discipline.”

Debbie has a beautiful room in the splendid cottage Legros built for his wife and himself next to the Marina at Cedar Point. But when Debbie works with the corps, she stays in the dormitory – a fact that Legros is still pondering in the good old way by scratching his head.

But he’s proud of his daughter’s special qualifications for the Courtesy Corps, which Legros hurriedly founded last summer when he found customers had a million questions which they needed answered. Where’s a washroom? How far to Detroit? How many employes at Cedar Point? “She speaks Russian and various Latin American languages. And we have girls that speak French and other languages.

“Yes, we get visitors from all over the world.”

He admits to being second to Disneyland but you can see the light of first place in the nation shining in his eyes.

“THE RIDES? Yes, I guess I rode all of them last year. If you’re my guest and go on a ride, I’ll go too. My favorites are a tossup between the riverboat and the railroad. I’ve ridden everything but the [Wild] Mouse and the Rollie Coaster. Had a heart attack a number of years ago so I don’t go on them.”

He plans to ride again this summer. He’s the man in the Cedar Point coat who looks a little bit like he might be the official ride tester at the park.

Which he is.

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A lot of changes have occurred since this article was published in 1969.

One of Mr. Legros’ favorite rides – the riverboat cruise – closed on Labor Day 2011. The Runaway Mine Ride, which opened in 1969, is now the second oldest roller coaster at Cedar Point, behind the Blue Streak. (Here’s a link to a Wiki page about former Cedar Point attractions.)

Emile Legros passed away in 1975. At the time of his death, Cedar Point was earning about $24 million annually.

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Click here to visit the Cedar Point page on the Ohio History Central website for a nice capsule history of the park.

And click here to check out all of my Cedar Point posts over the years. There’s been a lot of them in the last ten years, and if you happen to scroll down to the bottom of the page, there are more if you click on “Next Posts” on the lower right.

Topics include: vintage Cedar Point postcards; going to Cedar Point via the Causeway or the Chaussee; the Cedar Point Totem Pole; Visions of Cedar Point 1966 (one of the all time most-visited series on this blog); its follow-up series, More Visions of Cedar Point 1966; a visit to Cedar Point in 2012 after not being there in decades; the opening of the Causeway in 1957; the 2014 demolition of the 1905 Auto Entrance to the Breakers; Cedar Point Then and Now; the opening of the Frontier Trail; the closing of the Paddlewheel boat ride; more Paddlewheel Memories; some 1964 video of the park; and the (*sniff*) demolition of the Space Spiral.

Cedar Point's The Hermitage

Cedar Point is always a popular topic on this blog. In fact, one of the posts on the amusement park is the most visited since I started the blog in 2009.

And since it's Cedar Point's off-season now, here's an off-season story about an old house that was located on the park grounds. It's gone now. The story ran in The Journal on November 30, 1969.

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Cedar Point's The Hermitage Now Is History

HISTORY OF CEDAR POINT was recalled this week as
The Hermitage, a 16-room house where many of the Funway's
operators lived, was torn down.

The Hermitage, 65-year-old two-story frame dwelling that housed much of Cedar Point's history in its 16 spacious rooms, fell before the wreckers' onslaught this week.

THE KNOLL on which the gloomy grayhouse stood, flanked on one side by Sandusky Bay and on the other by Cedar Point lagoons, will be the new site of a gaily-colored station for the Cedar Point & Lake Erie railroad, being moved to make room for an 800-ft. extension of the main Funway.

What used to be the dismal backyard of the Hermitage will become part of the gaiety of the Funway new rides and attractions.

According to Sandusky historian Charles E. Frohman, the house was completed in 1905 and for a time housed a crew of men who policed the Lake Erie recreation center during the winter.

With no transportation available and no roads to use anyway, the small band of hardy souls claimed they hibernated like hermits during the winter. They dubbed their house, naturally, The Hermitage.

Gus Boeckling, brother of early Cedar Point impresario G. A. Boeckling, lived at The Hermitage for many years as head "hermit."

The demolition is in progress

Daniel M. Schneider, one-time operator of Cedar Point, who lived in the house for eight of the nine years he ran the resort. Schneider and his wife now live on Bank Street in Milan.

Mr. and Mrs. Edward S. Starr, now of 2201 Cedar Point Roadway. Starr, former rides manager of the resort, lived at The Hermitage in 1950.

George A. Roose, president of Cedar Point, inc. Roose and his wife occupied part of the huge house from 1959 through 1963.

A 24-room employes' dormitory that had been added to the original house was torn down in 1958.

In 1965, The Hermitage was home for about two dozen young men who worked at the Silver Dollar restaurant on the main Funway.

In its final years, The Hermitage was home to Mr. and Mrs. William Hackett, who operate the huge Cedar Point laundry. Mrs. Hackett has worked at Cedar Point for 42 years.

Less than an hour after the Hacketts moved out of The Hermitage, the wreckers moved in.

The Cedar Point Chaussee vs. Causeway Part 2

On June 12, 1957, the Cedar Point Causeway opened, effectively replacing the Chaussee as the preferred way to get to the park. Visitors to Cedar Point pay a toll to cross Sandusky Bay.

Here is an aerial photo, also from the Arcadia Publishing Images of America book on Cedar Point and credited to the Cedar Point archives.

During the years my family made its annual trek to Cedar Point, we usually took the Chaussee, or the "back way" as my parents called it. There never seemed to be that much traffic on it that I can remember, and it was interesting looking at the homes and cottages along the narrow road. Plus it was particularly exciting when the park finally loomed into view at the end!

Going home after a day at the park, we would take the Causeway. My guess is because it was often difficult to navigate the car over to the Chaussee route when the park had cones and signs directing you the other way. While on the Causeway, Dad would play around by turning his headlamps off to plunge the roadway into total darkness for a few seconds, and my siblings and I would all shriek, knowing there was water on both sides of the road!

Despite the popularity of the Causeway, the Chaussee is still in use, although it is no longer promoted with signage. Here is a photo of the Route 6 entrance to the Chaussee today, as you approach from the east.

As you can see, there is no sign indicating that it is the way to Cedar Point. Quite a difference from the way it used to look in this postcard! (Below)

To see someone's short clip of 1951 home movies showing this entrance to the Chaussee, click here. And here's a link to a great 2008 video that literally takes you from the entrance to the Chaussee on Route 6 all the way to where the road meets the lake.

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Anyway, back to the present. If you do turn in to the unmarked Chaussee entrance shown in the above photo, after a few hundred feet you are greeted with this sign. (Click on the photo.)

The sign basically hornswoggles you by telling you to turn left to go to Cedar Point (forcing you south back to Route 6), instead of turning right to take the Chaussee!

Meanwhile, remember the original, abandoned 1914 Chaussee entrance that was further east? Well, you can still take that road today, although on foot. How can that be? Read on!

In 1954, Dr. Dean Sheldon, a Sandusky obstetrician, purchased the 54-acre tract that included the original 1914 Cedar Point road for use as a family retreat.  He was a dedicated conservationist who built a cabin on the site, but otherwise left the land undisturbed so as to attract birds and other wildlife. The state of Ohio purchased the property from Dr. Sheldon’s estate in 1979, and today it is part of the 465-acre Sheldon Marsh State Nature Preserve.

According to the Ohio Department of Natural Resources, the Sheldon Marsh State Nature Preserve is important because it is one of the last remaining sites where undeveloped coastal beach turns to marsh. The preserve is also a critical stopover for migratory birds, and consequently is known for providing excellent bird watching opportunities. More than 300 bird species have been identified there.

The 1914 roadbed itself, which previously carried Model T's to a day of fun at Cedar Point, now carries foot traffic and looks like this.

Also of interest to those who walk the trail through the preserve today is a NASA pump station located at the northern end of the road. It was originally built in 1941 to provide water for the manufacturing of munitions at the Plum Brook Ordnance Works.

As a tribute to the preserve’s origin as part of the first Cedar Point road, the original brick pillars and iron gates have been recreated near the entrance. They look like this from Route 6.

Nearby, a historical marker erected by the Erie County Historical Society commemorates the important role that the road played in the development of Cedar Point.

Cedar Point's New Rides – April 1964

Vintage postcard of Cedar Point Millrace

Cedar Point may not be the top-ranked amusement park today when it comes to attendance or public polls, but it will always be No. 1 in the hearts of those who visited it during the 1960s and 70s. It was during that time period that the park introduced many beloved rides that helped transform Cedar Point from the rundown resort of the 1950s to the popular thrill center it is today.

The 1964 season was a big one for Cedar Point, as noted in the article below, which appeared in the Journal back on April 9, 1964. 

Vintage postcard of Millrace with Blue Streak
in background

It notes, "At least five new rides, representing an investment of more than $600,000 will greet visitors on opening day.

"Heading the list will be a $200,000 roller coaster named the "Blue Streak" which will be 2,400 feet in length and starts out with an 80-foot climb. It replaces the Cyclone which was dismantled 12 years ago.

"Other new rides are the Calypso, a circulating and tilting sensation, the Broadway Trip, which takes passengers on a ride through a three-level dark enclosure, and a French Frolic a swinging ride, which is also being installed at the New York World's Fair.

"Among the rides which has proved a favorite and installed 10 days prior to last year's closing was the Millrace.

The article also notes that "a number of new animated features have been added to the route of the narrow-gauge Cedar Point & Lake Erie Railroad which operates two trains with four cars each, including a caboose added for the new season."

In case you're wondering what the Calypso was like, here's a nice YouTube video to dizzily remind you.

It's hard not to get overwhelmed with nostalgia thinking about the Cedar Point of the 1960s and 70s. I have many memories about our visits to the park as a family: going to the Millrace first (and getting wet to start the day, much to Mom's annoyance); visiting Jungle Larry's Safari Island; the (long-gone) Pirate and Earthquake Rides; dinner at the Silver Dollar; riding in the Cadillac Cars (a decade before getting a real driver's license); an evening ride on the Cedar Point & Lake Erie Railroad; and a nighttime view of the park from the Space Spiral.

Happy Days.

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Cedar Point has been a topic on this blog many times. In fact, my 3-part post on "Visions of Cedar Point 1966" is my sixth most visited post of all time.

He Bought Cedar Point – Part 1

For many Northeast Ohioans, the warm weather means only one thing: the expectation of another visit to Sandusky's Cedar Point, the best amusement park in the country.

But many younger fans may not know that at one point in the late 1950s, Cedar Point was sold and came very close to being closed forever – and converted to a real estate development.

Read all about Emile Legros – the man who bought Cedar Point with the intention to close it and ended up saving it – in the article below. It was written by Journal Staff Writer Bob Cotleur (whose excellent work has been showcased many times on this blog) and appeared in the paper on April 27, 1969.

The article is a bit long, so I’m presenting it in two parts. Part 1 deals with Mr. Legros’ early career and business philosophy.

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Banker Emile Legros Took a Fling at Cedar Point - Part 1
by BOB COTLEUR
Staff Writer

EMILE LEGROS, 63, a tall, distinguished investment banker, spends a lot of time riding most of the rides at Cedar Point each summer.

He owns the place.

But he says it’s fun to ride. “What the hell, every guy ought to have a little real fun once in a while,” he explains.

Cedar Point is Ohio’s answer to Disneyland.

Legros bought it originally for a real estate development. But after the outraged cries of Governors and newspaper writers and people in general he built it up instead of tearing it down.

In addition to owning and operating Cedar Point, as chairman of the board, he is also board chairman of Erie Bank of Vermilion and board chairman of Miss Teen Age America, Dallas, Tex. He lives year-round at Waite Hill, Willoughby, Ohio and maintains a summer residence next to the marina at Cedar Point, Sandusky, Ohio.

He was originally and still is an investment banker. Even today he occasionally hangs his hat in Cleveland as a partner of Prescott, Merrill & Turben, Co., perhaps the largest investment banking firm between Chicago and New York, according to Legros.

But “I’m spending more and more of my time at Cedar Point, full time, you might say, in the summer,” he adds.

IN BYGONE YEARS Emile Legros bought, merged, modernized management and sold commercial banks, “lost my shirt” in boats and breweries, and smashed a bases-loaded home run with the purchase of Cedar Point.

Yet he began his business life as a college dropout.

After three years toward a degree in chemical engineering at Toledo University he decided he’d never  make a good engineer because he wasn’t detail-minded enough. He discarded the idea then of getting into commercial banks because “people didn’t go very far in the business.”

He quickly settled into investment banking.

“I wanted to be where the money was. I figured if you’re going to make money you’ve got to be where the money was.”

It was the first of his major and characteristic quick decisions.

“Most of my life has been decision making. I make fast decisions. If I make a mistake, I try to live with it, correct it if I can. But a lifetime of indecision would be the unhappiest in the world. You an go crazy with indecision. If you turned left and found you should have turned right you can turn around and correct it. But you can’t sit there for an hour saying 'I don’t know which way to go.’”

Emile was born on Christmas Day in 1905 and married the former Florence Francke (he calls her “Frankie”) of Toledo 16 years ago, two years after losing his first wife.

He’s the father of four, three who are married and who treat dad as an adult equal, close, friendly and sharing, and Deborah, 18, who treats Mom and Dad one way at home and another when they visit her at Trinity University, San Antonio, Texas.

“I think we communicate well with our daughter. Communications away from home are excellent. At home I think it’s different because we’re at her all the time. We don’t recognize she’s a grown young lady. We’re still saying she’s a mama’s girl and mama doesn’t want to give her up.

“WE DO THE SAME things with our children at home that others do. I’ve heard Debbie say ‘Mother get off my back, you’ve said that to me three times today.’”

Legros sounds, acts thinks and feels like an ordinary mortal with all the ordinary problems of life attached. The only basic difference in Emile Legros and Joe Doaks is that Legros studies the problem and acts.

“I got into investment banking by spending some years in an office and later in the field learning the business. Before long I was in sales, making some pretty good money,” he said.

In 1935 he opened his own firm labeled the First Cleveland Corporation and it existed until he first merged his people into Prescott & Company in 1963 and later merged in himself and the corporation in 1966. He said Prescott is currently capitalized at around $9 million, has 300 to 400 people covering principal cities throughout Ohio.

“Once I found out, after the banking holiday of the early 30’s, that you could buy banks for 30, 40 or 50 cents on the dollar, to me that was buying a dollar for 30 or 40 cents.”

The Depression made that true. But after World War II he found another way to buy banks for the same kind of money.

“Take a look at the history of banking,” he said and traced the formation of many small community banks to area business people who once got into the business because of the need and expected, as their father before them, to have sons take over in time.

“BANKING TOOK a peculiar turn after the war. Sons went to college, became engineers and went into engineering for $700 or $800 a month instead of working for dad at $250. I saw the opportunity of buying bank stock cheap because older people owned them and, in time, had no place to turn. And there were too many banks in the country.”

“Take Dover, O. There were four banks in Dover. I bought the Exchange Bank for about 30 cents on the dollar and then I bought the First National Bank and merged them into one, the National Bank of Dover.”

He had also noted another peculiarity of small town bank owners. “They wouldn’t sell out to each other, or ‘the competitor’, but they’d sell to a perfect stranger,” Legros said.

Legros bought. He brought the elusive dollar back from 30 to 40 cents to 100 cents “by improving management. I hired experts.”

He made similar purchases in Painesville and elsewhere. Banks were his strong point because “I studied the philosophy of banks and banking people.”

But he struck out with breweries “which I thought would make a comeback after the war” and with a Great Lakes pleasure boat called the Alabama.

He missed a chance to buy in with Bill Veeck and the Cleveland Indians, one of the area’s great sales stories, in favor of a brewery which finally folded.

Then, in 1957, “we purchased Cedar Point.”

Next: Part 2

The Cedar Point Chaussee vs. Causeway Part 1

While blogging about Cedar Point last week, I forgot to mention that a big part of going there was (and still is) deciding on the best route. Did your family take the Causeway across Sandusky Bay? Or did your family prefer the Chaussee?

If these two terms are a bit confusing, or if you get them mixed up like my family, read on for an explanation as well as a bit of history. (The following is an abridged version of an article I wrote for The Black Swamp Trader & Firelands Gazette, and the material appears here courtesy of that publication.)

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Since Cedar Point is on a peninsula, originally the only way to get to it was by steamship. To solve this access problem, in 1911 it was announced that a road would be constructed. Cedar Point general manager George A. Boeckling realized that building a road to cater to the increasingly popular automobiles would be the key to the park’s continued growth and success.

Work began on the road in 1913, and construction across the marsh was costly and difficult. When the two lane concrete highway was finished, it ran one mile north to the lake and then six miles west along the length of the peninsula to the park.

The completed road was widely regarded as an engineering marvel, and was one of the first concrete roads built in Ohio. The new highway was even given a special name, “The Chaussee,” which is a French word for a paved road. Brick pillars and iron gates gave the Chaussee entrance a handsome appearance.

The Chaussee opened on July 19, 1914 and was an immediate hit. On the following day, the Sandusky Register reported that, “More than 500 automobiles traveled the new Cedar Point Chausee [sic] or automobile roadway from a point near Rye Beach where it connects with the Cleveland–Sandusky road, designated as Main Market Road No. 13, to Cedar Point.  At 3 o’clock Sunday afternoon the number of autos that had passed through the gate was 352. At the same hour there were so many machines parked at the end of the Cedar Point midway that the men in charge of the improvised garage said they didn’t know what they would do if any more came.”

The newspaper article also stated, “The auto roadway impressed those who drove over it as one of the most remarkable pieces of construction work in this or any other country. When the fact that it was constructed through the stretches of bog and marsh land bordering on either side was taken into consideration, the transformation seems little less than miraculous.”

In 1917, a spring storm destroyed much of the eastern end of the Chaussee and subsequent storms did even more damage. Eventually the 1914 entrance was abandoned, and a new one leading to the now-shortened peninsula road was constructed further west on Cleveland Road. It opened in 1920.

Here is a photograph of that newer, 1920 alignment courtesy of the Cedar Point Images of America book.

Here is a later postcard view of the entrance to the Chaussee.

By the 1950’s, Cedar Point recognized that a new road was needed to relieve traffic jams on the crowded Chaussee. 

Next: The birth of the Causeway and the 1914 Chaussee entrance today

Cedar Point Postcards Revisited

Last Friday’s post about Berardi’s and their famous French Fries brought up many memories of going to Cedar Point as a kid in the 60s and 70s.

Today I’m posting some Cedar Point postcards from that era, since that's the time frame for the park that I and many of the people who read this blog feel most nostalgic about. Most of the postcards are ones I haven’t seen or posted before.

It was an exciting time for the park, as it was on the comeback trail from a time in the 1950s when it appeared that it was going to close. Patterning itself after Disneyland, it added bigger and better rides until it evolved into the world-class amusement park it is today.

That’s the beauty of Cedar Point. Everyone has their own special memories of it, from going there with their families as a kid; with their friends in high school; with dates; or with the spouse and/or families and friends as an adult. The park is always changing; we may not always like the current version of the park the best, but someone else inevitably does.

But even though I’ve been there many times over the decades, the Cedar Point I like best is the one that my parents took us to, when it was the high point of the summer. I’m getting teary-eyed as I write this – so I’d better post those vintage postcards.

The great Card Cow website always has a nice selection of Cedar Point postcards for sale. Here are a few of them to start this shindig. There’s even one featuring Jungle Larry himself.

And here are some postcards, culled mainly from Ebay.

This “Greetings” postcard from 1962 caught my eye, because of the tiny piece of clip art of a gal on an inflatable beach toy. We have that same piece of Harry Volk clip art in our art files at work, from 1956.

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I’ve written about Cedar Point many times in the last ten years. In fact, my 3-part series on “Visions of Cedar Point 1966” is one of the most visited on this blog. Click here to visit all the posts about Cedar Point, and when you scroll down to the bottom, be sure to click on the Older Posts link in the lower right hand corner to see the rest of them.

New Blue Streak Roller Coaster at Cedar Point – June 12, 1964

Sixty years ago, Blue Streak rollercoaster at Cedar Point – so-named to honor the Sandusky High School athletic teams – was brand new. Above is the Journal page from June 12, 1964 making the announcement.

As the article notes, "The new $250,000 Blue Streak roller coaster is one of hate new 1964 attractions which is helping make fun the keynote for this year's season at the Point.

"The roller coaster which was built by Cedar Point construction and maintenance crews is 72 feet high, 2,400 feet long, and travels at a maximum speed of 25 miles an hour. Each train of cars carries 24 persons on a two-minute ride.

"From the top of the Blue Streak's high hill, Cedar Point unfolds with a view to the left of the runway, the mile-long beach, the 1,000-room Hotel Breakers, the Sky Ride and the Sky Wheel.

"The updating of Cedar Point began after its purchase by Toledo real estate developer George A. Roose, and Cleveland financier Emile A. Negros.

"At that time plans were announced to convert Cedar Point into an exclusive residential area. The announcement loosed a storm of public protest. Private citizens and public officials did not want to lost [sic] Cedar Point.

"The new owners then assured the public that the resort would not close and plans were disclosed to rebuild Cedar Point into one of the finest recreation areas in the country."

Here's a vintage postcard of the beloved ride.

This April 2024 blog post explored the same 'new for 1964' theme, with an emphasis on the Mill Race.

I remember Brady family trips to Cedar Point in the 1960s in which the Blue Streak was seen as rather scary, with a few of us reluctant to ride it. The last time I rode it (about 8 years ago), I still thought it was a pretty good roller coaster.

Anyway, the page above includes ads for many restaurants, night clubs and businesses previously covered on this blog, including The Note, Manners, Colony Bar, Vian's, Lincoln Park, Maple Inn, Lorain Arena and the Sands.

Cedar Point Opens for the Season – June 1965

The San Francisco Earthquake Ride, new at Cedar Point in 1965

Cedar Point has been a favorite topic on this blog since the beginning. One of the posts, "Visions of Cedar Point 1966 Part 3" was one of the Top Ten visited posts for many years, but slipped to No. 11 at this point. 

Today's post features a full page of photos from the Journal's great photographer Norm Bergsma that ran in the paper on June 12, 1965. 

The year 1965 was a big one for Cedar Point, with many of its most iconic rides opening that year, including the San Francisco Earthquake ride, Turnpike Cars, Jungle Larry's Safari Island and the Space Spiral.

Although the Cedar Point of our youth is long gone, you can revisit it at the great Cedar Point Historical Museum in Downtown Sandusky. It’s located right inside the Sandusky Merry-Go-Round Museum in the former 1927 Sandusky Post Office – so you get to visit two great museums for one low price!

The Cedar Point Historical Museum has been open since December 2024. It’s an incredible collection of artifacts, photographs, posters, pennants, postcards, souvenirs and other memorabilia, all related to the park. It’s organized chronologically in display cases so that when you view the collection, it’s like visiting the park in a time machine, stopping at each of its eras. 

Cedar Point Totem Pole

I saw this 1965 Cedar Point postcard on Ebay recently, and thought I’d post it here as a nice reminder that spring – and the opening of Cedar Point – is getting closer every day. It’s also a quaint reminder of the Cedar Point of my youth.

Here’s another shot of the totem pole, courtesy of the Retro Postcard Gallery on tumblr.com.

Seeing these two postcards reminded me of something (rather conveniently) that I hadn’t thought of for decades. It happened during one of my family’s visits to Cedar Point in the 1960s.

It was late in the day, and we were walking along the Midway. Suddenly, a dollar bill blew into my field of vision, and I quickly snatched it off the ground.

Now, a dollar bill is a lot of money to a little kid who is too young to earn an allowance. Did I bring it home so I could think about what I was going to do with it?

Naw.

That dollar immediately burned a hole in my pocket. I bought a small wooden totem pole with "Made in Japan" stamped on the bottom of it.

I had that thing for a couple of years, until we made one of our 60’s Western camping trips, and I came home with an souvenir totem pole made by a real Indian. Then, the Cedar Point one seemed kinda chintzy, so I got rid of it. I still have the other one.

Anyway, you can also see the Scamper ride in the postcard at the top of this post. That was such a great ride for a little kid.

Courtesy Cedar Point History Facebook page

Click here to visit a Wiki page with a list of former Cedar Point attractions, along with the years of their opening and closing.

Visions of Cedar Point 1966 Part 1

Well, it's summer at last - so it's time to think about going to Cedar Point in Sandusky, Ohio!

   I found an old 1966 Cedar Point brochure in a local antique shop, and while thumbing through it, I was immediately transported back to the Cedar Point of my youth.

   Unlike the Cedar Point of today, with its focus on youth-oriented thrills and excitement, the park of old concentrated on wholesome entertainment for the whole family – even parents! It was sort of a Midwest Disneyland.

   The Cedar Point of 1966 was packed with atmosphere. There was Jungle Larry's Safari Island, the Pirate Ride, the Earthquake Ride, the Cedar Point and Lake Erie Railroad, and the Western Cruise Boat. Other rides included the Mill Race, the Mono Rail, the futuristic-sounding Super Satellite Jets, the Calypso and of course the relatively new Space Spiral.

   Stop back here tomorrow for some great photos from the brochure of some of these attractions!