With each passing year, the memories grow fainter along the sunny shores of Summit Lake.
Only those of a certain age can still hear the calliope music, feel the rumble of the roller coaster, smell the fresh paint of the concession stands, taste the salt of the popcorn and see the colorful chaos of the midway.
This summer should have been the backdrop for the grandest party ever held at “Akron’s Fairyland of Pleasure” and “Akron’s Million Dollar Playground.”
Summit Beach Park would have turned 100 years old.
The amusement park opened its gates with great fanfare July 4, 1917, welcoming thousands of well-dressed visitors beneath a blazing sun on Independence Day as World War I consumed the international headlines.
“Most of the citizens left town early in the morning, taking their lunches with them and went for long auto trips or spent the day at Summit Beach or Silver Lake parks, where the beaches were crowded with bathers and the lakes were dotted with canoes and parasols of every color,” the Beacon Journal reported.
It was the final season for Silver Lake Park, which had been open since 1874. Summit Beach, however, was just getting started.
Akron businessmen John L. Snyder, Philip Austgen and Jack Rampanelli, who had conceived the idea for the park in 1914 while chatting over billiards at a South Main Street poolroom, spent a couple of years recruiting financial backers.
The Summit Beach Park Co. incorporated in 1916 with $200,000 in capital stock and E.A. Shutt as president, George Wolfe as treasurer and Snyder as secretary and general manager. For their resort, they chose a 15-acre site along Summit Lake’s eastern shore adjacent to Lakeside Park, which the Akron Street Railway & Herdic Co. opened as a picnic grounds in 1887.
In a pitch to potential stockholders, the company explained enthusiastically: “Right in the heart of Akron — the greatest show town in America — is a lake and amusement park. Ten minutes’ ride from the center of Akron! Within walking distance of 20,000 people! 130,000 people to draw from! Who in summertime crowd our theaters and sidewalks! These people must have some place to go!”
Rides and attractions
More than 100 prospective concessionaires flooded the company’s office with proposals to operate rides and other attractions at Summit Beach. Akron Storage and Contracting Co. began to construct 50 stucco buildings in the Spanish colonial style.
Former Silver Lake Park employee John “Jack” Kaster built the Dixie Flyer, a wooden coaster that snaked around the park. (“The fastest and steepest ride in the state,” Summit Beach bragged. “One mile long. It takes away your breath. You will want to ride it again.”)
Walter G. Shaw of Coney Island, N.Y., built a Ferris wheel for concessionaire Charles X. Zimmerman. (“The biggest ever brought into Summit County. A beautiful view of the surrounding country can be gained from the top of this velvet ride.”)
Shaw also constructed The Whip, a whirling ride, for operator Pickles Witherspoon. (“A thriller that will make you laugh long, hard and loud. A sure cure for the blues.”)
William H. Dentzel of Philadelphia hand-carved 46 wooden animals, including horses, lions, pigs, deer, mules and tigers, for concessionaire Eugene Sheck’s $25,000 carousel, which featured a Wurlitzer band organ. (“The first thing all children from 1 to 90 look for when they enter any park.”)
Motorcycle daredevil Fred R. Elias risked his neck daily while zooming 70 mph on the 22-foot circular track of the Motordrome. (“Speed! Speed! Speed! The most thrilling hair-raising spectacular and death-defying sport ever introduced in Akron.”)
Other attractions included a dance hall, roller rink, penny arcade, shooting gallery, miniature railway, boat launch, pony ride and a swimming beach on Summit Lake with a bath house where 3,000 dark-blue, one-piece bathing suits were available for customers. Within two years, the lake was considered too polluted for guests, so the park built the chlorinated, mosaic-tile Crystal Pool.
Grand opening delayed
Summit Beach hoped to open for Memorial Day 1917 but a windstorm May 20 caused $15,000 in damage, wrecking the roller coaster, ripping the roof off the dance hall and creating other havoc. Organizers announced a June opening, but that had to be scrapped, too.
Finally, after some hasty rebuilding, a grand-opening celebration was held on the Fourth of July.
Bustling crowds enjoyed picnicking, dancing, swimming, skating, boating, riding rides and viewing fireworks. Although concessionaires missed out on more than a month of sales, they quickly made up for it. More than 300,000 tickets were sold that summer for The Whip alone.
After the debut season, Summit Beach announced plans to add more attractions in 1918, including Hilarity Hall, Scenic River, Steeple Chase, Shoot the Chute and a new roller coaster, Over the Top.
The amusement park expanded by swallowing adjacent Lakeside Park, which could not compete with its large, noisy neighbor.
The ride had just begun. Summit Beach reigned for generations.
Averaging 25,000 customers a day at its peak, the amusement park enjoyed 40 years of summer fun until it shut down after the 1958 season without any warning.
“Akron’s Fairyland of Pleasure” has been gone for nearly 60 years, but Summit Beach memories — no matter how faded — still provide a thrill.
Mark J. Price can be reached at 330-996-3850 or mjprice@thebeaconjournal.com.