Happy Birthday Corkscrew!

On this date, May 15, 1976, Corkscrew opened to an excited and anxious public waiting to ride the world's first triple looping rollercoaster at Cedar Point. Designed by Arrow Development and legendary engineer Ron Toomer, the ride cost $1.75 million dollars and was part of $4.5 million spent that season to expand the park midway along with adding Troika. Themed to America's bicentennial, the ride featured red, white, and blue trains that barreled through Arrow's first designed loop element and then the iconic corkscrew element over the park midway, a feature that could be seen all the way to the main entrance of Cedar Point and easily could be called the most photographed rollercoaster moment ever.

Robert L. Munger had just taken over as President of Cedar Point in 1975 so this would have been his first of several major attractions to debut. First riders included well known management figures including George Roose (at 81 years old), Dick Kinzel, Arrow Development employees and construction workers. They knew they had a hit on their hands.

Corkscrew is historical in a far greater sense than just her construction and the marvel of a rollercoaster going upside-down. That season, Cedar Point attendance increased by 500,000 guests and put Cedar Point in the 3+ million yearly attendance club for the first time. Corkscrew was a people eating machine with her 3 trains and efficient operations by her all-female crew, yet lines would quickly fill her queue and snake down the midway, past Jungle Larry's African Safari and all the way to the corkscrew element. Corkscrew represents a time when amusement park executives saw the power of what a rollercoaster can do, both from a guest experience perspective as well as a financial one. In my opinion, it was Corkscrew who gave us the following decades of "coaster wars" to come.

Those of us at a certain age can fondly look back and remember that Summer of 76. It was a time of celebration, pop culture, and excitement about the future as the country slowly recovered from difficult economic years. Corkscrew, in all her glory, combined those themes into an experience that shaped what was about to come for the future of Cedar Point: bigger-taller-faster rollercoasters, emerging new executives focused on park operation excellence for the masses, and making Cedar Point an icon in the industry that everyone else was challenged to live up to. Corkscrew did that, and so much more.

There may be no big celebration this summer (a huge missed opportunity, IMO) and there doesn't seem to be much recognition from the coaster enthusiast clubs but many of us remember what was started on May 15, 1976 and what it meant for the industry, for Cedar Point, and for tourism in Sandusky, OH. I dare say that for some, it changed the trajectory of their professional lives and/or hobbies and interests, eventually giving us clubs like American Coaster Enthusiasts and sites like CoasterBuzz, all because of a rollercoaster named Corkscrew.

Happy 50th Birthday Corkscrew, and thanks for all you have done that gave us the amusement park industry we all know and love today!

Nicely done!

And to think a year later another one of these newfangled Arrow loopers would show up 80 miles to the east when Geauga Lake opened Double Loop, and then a year after that they would add their own standard model Corkscrew. I wasn't alive yet, but I can only imagine the excitement at the time!

“Double Loop and Corkscrew too…only at Geauga Lake” was the fun “jingle” written for advertising and it was catchy!

Do folks know that a contender for the 100th anniversary of Geauga Lake was to combine Corkscrew with Double Loop into one mega coaster? There were many questions about how to do it but it was considered and talked about. Eventually Charles Dinn entered the picture and Gasper Lococo/Dale VanVoorhis went with revisiting a classic wooden coaster thus creating the Raging Wolf Bobs.

If I recall, their ads made it look like it was one coaster. Double Loop had some classic Toomer transitions - they should have had a concussion tent at the exit.

I always thought Double Loop was one ot the smoothest Arrow loopers ever built. I loved the long ride up the second hill into the "tree turnaround" and on a hot day sitting in the back row would get me a Millennium Force style gray out in the loops.

Then in the front you'd get a wild pop of air at the top of the small incline coming out of the second loop and into the helix with the bend halfway through it.

I loved that ride!

Many early Arrow rides included a long, slow stretch (or two or three) leading up to short sections of speed and/or inversions. There was scarcely an Arrow mine ride built that didn’t have slow, straight sections combined with jerky u-turns and banked spirals for a layout.

I also loved Geauga’s ride. Arrow gave us an interesting mix of standard models and custom designed rides and Geauga was fortunate to have one of each. Double Loop was the perfect example of alternating slow with more dynamic stretches of track, with the action spelled out in doses. Today’s crowd might consider it to be awkward pacing, but back then it was the height of suspense-filled thrills.

BrettV:

I always thought Double Loop was one of the smoothest Arrow loopers ever built.

Wow, we have different memories. I remember especially the transition from the loops to the helix being a headbanger. But in fairness, I only rode it a couple times.

It was a good coaster lineup for a park that size, though, or would have been if they could have gotten Raging Wolf Bobs to track properly and eliminated the seat divider that I landed on every time.

I'm sure I had a few bad rides on Double Loop over the years, but I always preferred it and found it far more comfortable when compared to Corkscrew at Cedar Point.

As for Double Loop/Corkscrew being combined, the layouts were so different I can't imagine how they could have done it. I suppose they could have done it Turn of the Century to Demon style and reused the corkscrews. I'm glad they didn't do anything like that, those two rides complimented each other very well for almost 20 years.

hambone:

if they could have gotten Raging Wolf Bobs to track properly

Sorry for the double post. But riding in the very back row of RWB in those PTC trailered trains before any of the new track work the ride got toward the end was a thing of beauty. Watching (and hearing) the cars in front of you violently shuffle as you got thrown around with nothing but a buzz bar and painful seat divider is a core childhood and young adult memory!

On Friday someone brought a bunch of hats and kazoos and had the whole station sing happy birthday to Corkscrew lol.

That’s awesome that some park guests did that! I was joking with an enthusiast friend how funny it would be to leave “Happy 50th” birthday notes, can you imagine what people would write?!

I still wish the ride crew would be given “50 years of thrills” buttons to wear or celebratory banners in the station to recognize the history of the ride. I guess given the financial shape FUN is in now it’s impossible to do much of anything. 😞

This is a popular photo available from construction of Corkscrew in the winter of 1975-1976. In those early days of Arrow Development, track and structure were welded together. As time went on the “nuts and bolts” assembly became the norm, thus allowing sections of track needing replacement to be easily removed. In the background on the right is one of the old dormitories, the original Tiki-Twirl, and on the left you see Jungle Larry’s attraction. Within 2 years this new pathway would lead to Gemini and create the loop back to Frontierland.

For anyone who remembers the fruit shaped juice bottles, there was always a cart right here in this area since the line for Corkscrew would reach this point!

I've always loved this photo. It's interesting to see the support structures, especially the braces for the loop and corkscrew, essentially complete and simply waiting for installation of the track.

Happy a birthday corkscrew!

worlds of fun had their own version as well called Screamroller originally. I think it opened in 1976? In the early 80s they converted it to a stand up coaster called EXT, but that only lasted a year or two. Then it became a sit down again.

It's pretty cool that it has lasted 50 years. Those corkscrews over the midway are iconic, and is so satisfying to watch as you approach from a distance.

That said, it's the only coaster at CP I won't ride. It's so incredibly rough and uncomfortable... part of it is due to my height but even my kids skip it. I believe it's well past time to replace it with something modern and enjoyable. BUT... whatever replaces it, I would hope it would mimic the double corkscrew in the same location.