Abandoned Amusement Park in Ohio

Chippewa Lake Park was an amusement park in Chippewa Lake, Ohio (Medina County) that was open for 100 years - from 1878 through 1978. After it closed in 1978 because it was no longer as popular as it was in it's earlier days, the rides and buildings remained there, left to deteriorate over the next thirty years. As you can see in the video, it sure did deteriorate. It's always sad to see a place that once brought people so much joy left to become a place that eventually looks like the set for a horror movie.

And a horror movie it became. Scenes from the movie "Closed for the Season" were shot there in recent years. Since then, the land is on it's way to becoming Chippewa Landing: http://www.chippewalandingohio.com/

It's not an amusement park, but it certainly looks much nicer than the abandoned horror scene that park had become. I wonder if there was anything left worth saving though. Sadly, when an old amusement park gets abandoned, people sneak in from time to time and destroy it even further, or remove any remaining items that they can take with them. 

I am not sure of how many of the earliest amusement parks in America remain, but it seems to me that Chippewa Lake Park had to be one of the earliest. America used to have many of these smaller sized amusement parks. They were often located on lakes or beaches, or in a beautiful forest. They just couldn't compete with the newer, huge amusement parks that continued to grow and become even more tremendous. 

I can think of a few other old amusement parks in Ohio alone that are no longer around: 

Euclid Beach in Cleveland (which was modeled after Coney Island)

Geauga Lake amusement park (open 1887 - 2007) in Aurora, Ohio. I used to LOVE this place. I could write a whole blog entry about this park.

Sea World (there used to be one in Ohio by Geauga Lake). I remember seeing Shamu here as a little girl. I remember climbing rope ladders and sliding down slides in Captain Kids World (the children's play area at Sea World). 

Meyers Lake Park near Canton, Ohio: I had written a blog entry on this park: http://retropolis.com/blog/canton-ohio-meyers-lake-amusement-park-rip

I remember a place in Ohio called Mother Goose Land near Canton when I was very little, and I specifically remember being happy to see Dorothy and Toto (they were garden statues). 

There are probably many more amusement parks in the history of Ohio amusement parks that are now closed. The same is true for amusement parks throughout the United States. I wonder how many of them look similar to the way Chippewa Lake Park looked in this video, or, if in most cases, the rides and attractions were removed or destroyed years ago. How many amusement park ghost towns remain in the United States?

Thank you to independent30m for creating an interesting documentary and posting it on YouTube which gives me a good understanding of what Chippewa Lake amusement park used to be compared to what it had become. I never got to see it in person, so this virtual visit was my first visit there.