Memories
“My youngest memory of Crystal Beach Amusement Park goes back to when I was 3 years old. My father had a game booth there, probably between 1956 to 1959. I remember he kept wooden cartons of pop in the basement during the off season. You won a prize by dropping a wooden ring over the top of the bottle, which was almost impossible! We didn’t have pop in our home except for special occasions so I was very intrigued by these colorful red, orange and green bottles stored like fine jewels in their case.
I remember him bringing home a carload of Teddy Bears one time that filled the back seat to the top! I was so excited and didn’t understand why I couldn’t have one; they were for the prizes.
Another time he brought home a whole bag full of trinkets for us! They were prizes for the bubble gum machines back then, remember those? They were definitely more grand than the cheap toys you find in the machines today. He dumped them on the floor and my sisters and I took turns choosing what we wanted one by one. I still have some of those trinkets. There were plastic ducks that swam along a little river that went round and round. You got to pick a duck that had a number on it and you won a prize every time.
Remember Carnival glass? It was very popular as prizes too, I have a piggy bank and candy dish from those times.
I remember the whole midway, lined with games, a shooting range, and a fortune teller’s parlor. She stood in her doorway, enticing people to enter and have a reading. I was intrigued and frightened, all at the same time. I walked a bit faster by her, but couldn't resist turning back for one last look, she was so mysterious and exotic!
I remember the perfume of cotton candy, popcorn and candy apples wafting through the air, the fragrance tantalizing. The pungent aroma and loud “pop” of the rifles from the shooting gallery filled the summer night with excitement. The rides, the huge, scary wooden roller coaster rattling high above our heads, screams from the riders reaching us down on the ground.
There was the hammer, that swung over the crowd, holding it’s inhabitants upside down. I was too young to ride these, and spent most of my time in the kiddie land section. Every thing here, from the mini Ferris Wheel, to the boats and cars was painted in primary colors and I believe my love for bright blues, reds, greens and yellows comes for here.
One of my favorite rides was The Bug, it was a smaller, tamer ride than the gigantic and wild Thriller roller coaster. The cars all looked like giant bugs and went around a circular track with a few exhilarating hills that weren't too scary. I loved the silver rocket ships that were at the entrance to the park, flying high overhead, looking down on the crowd! Then, of course, there was the Merry Go Round, my very favorite ride!
The arcade sat on the edge of the cliff and had wealth of wonders to explore inside. There were silent movies you watched by turning a crank, the delightful claw machine that held prizes on a bed of marbles for you to try to pick up. My sister and I found many marbles through the years on the beach that looked like those marbles in the case. They were white with dark navy or black swirls in them and her theory was kids threw them into the lake, disappointed that they got crummy marbles instead of the prize they were aiming for.
There was a photo booth I’m sure many people in Vermilion had their pictures taken in through the years; my sisters and I still have a few. There was the train ride, the tracks went through the whole park and along the edge of the cliffside. I loved riding after dark, as we got near the lake, I could hear the rote of the waves against the cliff and was sure it was a creature breathing down there in the dark. I remember sitting on the sloping side of the hollow, watching fireworks on the 4th of July. We always told the story that if you were lucky enough to be on the train when the fireworks started, the train would stop to watch them and you would have a front row seat. We were never so lucky!
Crystal Beach has been gone since 1965, the rides and stands dismantled and sold; the laughter to be heard no more. These grounds hold many good memories for me, I have lived on the site of Crystal Beach for many years now, at home with the shadows of summers long past. I’ve watched children laugh and play in the field where the foundation for The Bug still stands, wondering if they feel the energy of those happy times from so long ago. When I first moved here, I would take a raft down to the cove and float all afternoon in the sun, lulled by the ripple of the water. I always stayed away from the cliffs, that old fear of the creature living down there, waiting, in the back of my mind. One day as I was drifting, I felt the raft bump against something and opened my eyes to face that mysterious cliff! I’d never encountered the cliff in the daylight, or been so close; I thought to myself, You aren’t so scary! The creature and I have been friends ever since. There is magic sitting out on summer nights, listening to the rote of the waves, and often, when I’m very still, I can hear the music of the carousel ringing merrily through the night, and the whistle of the train as it comes around the bend.”
Marcia Martin, Vermilion, OH
The Tumblebug: Crystal Beach Amusement Park [circa 1940]
UNVEILED September 3, 2020
SPONSORS The Crystal Beach Family
SITE Crystal Shores Community, Nantucket Drive, just east of Key Bank
ARTIST Brian Goodwin
On May 30, 1907, Crystal Beach Park opened on 23-acres along the shore of Lake Erie in Vermilion. As the new amusement park flourished, a merry-go-round, shooting gallery, ice cream parlor, boat rental, bowling alley, refreshment stand, water toboggan (from the cliff into the lake), and roller coaster (“The Thriller”) were added.
Marlene Feldkamp, whose family owned and operated Crystal Beach Park, remembers, “Rides like the Dodgems, The Caterpillar, the airplane swing and The Bug cost 15¢ a spin in the 1930s,” she said. “On The Bug, you always put the biggest kid at the end so the others would get squished!” The last car was most popular because it would “whip” as you came around. “There were no safety belts back then,” she recalled. “You just had to hang on and have fun!”
Marlene recalled, “Crystal Beach Park was known as the park with 1,000 trees, very shady and comfortable. On summer Saturdays companies like the Lorain steel mills would host picnics and rides for the workers and their families.
The park closed at the end of the season in 1962. On September 22, 2018 an historic plaque honoring and celebrating the memory of Crystal Beach Park was unveiled in Crystal Shores at the end of Nantucket Drive north of Liberty Ave.
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SOURCES: Memories of Crystal Beach Park, Vermilion, Ohio by Marlene Calvert Feldkamp, Sandra Calvert Mueller, and Tom Patrick Ryan, Copyright @ 2007
Public Art Vermilion's Postcard Project