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One of my favourite outings
[Submitted by: B]
One of my favourite outings is walking the boardwalk on the Friendship Trail through the old Erie Beach Amusement Park. Running parallel to the north shore of Lake Erie, it is an historical treasure. In the late1800s and early 1900s, amusement parks usually located near a river, lake or other large body of water, became a prime source of entertainment for the public. They provided endless hours of diversion. Locales were chosen by the availability of mass transit and limited for the most part to two mediums: steamers and trains. Highways were virtually non-existent and motorized vehicles still a novelty.
Most of the early amusement parks are gone now, victims of changing demographics, new modes of transportation and competition from the Internet, television and movies. Names such as Crystal Beach, Bob Lo, Lakeside Park, Grimsby Beach and Hanlans Point are mere memories; only a handful such as Cedar Point, Sandusky and the Canadian National Exhibition remain: islands of candy floss and roller coasters echoing with the shouts and laughter of children and adults alike. Today, like the bones of some prehistoric animal, the remnants of old buildings, broken piers, walkways and the outline of the once grand swimming pool are all that remain, but standing at one end of the boardwalk, one can almost envision the gaily dressed women, parasols in hand, escorted by men in their straw hats and suits walking arm in arm to and from the steamer. The entire area, once a magnificent playground, is now a rustic park with trails winding through the ruins and suburbia encroaching on its borders. Let us hope that a sense of history prevails and these majestic ruins are preserved just as they are.
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