Chippawa Lake Park - Fire - etc.

After seeing those pictures, which are all great btw, I can't understand why the rides are all still there standing. Why wouldn't they tear everything down and try to sell what they could when the park closed? I can see leaving the wooden coaster standing (look at how long Idora's stood before they were finally demolished) but they could've sold off the tumble bug, wild mouse, ferris wheel and kiddie coaster for a few bucks.

I recently visited my childhood park, Cascade Park, which ended ride operations in the late 70's, early 80's and as far as rides go, there isn't anything left. Sure there are still footers and bridges that were used by the coaster down in the gorge, but all the other rides were removed shortly after the park closed. I also found the coaster trains and the tumble bug tubs sitting in a fenced lot in town.

Is the coaster at Bertrand Island still standing? I was looking at some pictures of the coaster w/ some people walking the abandoned track.

Thanks Steve H, It's been over a year since I visited the area to get pictures, and I remembered that little street as being filled with some very small cottages and some trailers I thought. After all the dogs started barking, I didn't want to attract any more attention to myself and left.

Wood - anything else is an imitation

How many coasters do you think there may be still standing at abandoned or closed parks?

The neighborhood is a dump. Everything around there is a dump. The park is worthless unless you're going to buy up all of the dumps around the park. Even then, the only real profitable use for it is a big subdivision, which the locals would never approve anyway.

So, you are saying the locals wouldn't approve a big subdivision but don't mind a vacant, rotting, dangerous, abandoned park sitting there for the last 25 plus years?

This is also waterfront property. It has to be worth something.

What coaster does the Big Dipper most similar too. I'm having a hard time picturing the layout.

-ADAM

My Dad used to work at the park when he was in High School. My grandma owned one of the cottages and he spent most of his summers there. Makes it pretty easy to see where I get my CP addictiion from. Anyway he worked with Dave Francis when he worked at the park.

Millenium Force29: The Bertrand Island coaster is long gone. It stood for a couple of years after the park closed but everything wwas pretty much buldozed around 1986 or so. The land stood vacant until just recently when they started building condos.

I know some Chippewa Lake locals that would take issue with the "dump" comments. Not everybody thinks a subdivision of look-alike oversize houses is an "improvement." If anything, the land should become a public park. Isn't Chippewa the largest natural lake in Ohio (outside of Lake Erie of course!)?

Here are my pics from November 16, 2003:

http://www.pbase.com/dannyjphoto/chippawa_lake_park

I don't care if they'd take issue with it. I call it was it is. Modern subdivisions are not look-alike me-too projects for the upper middle-class. Developers and municipalities learned in the 70's that such an approach kills property value. I'd know, I live in one that started building four years ago. Not a single house looks the same, even though there are in fact only seven models.

And even "old" doesn't mean "bad." Look at many of Cleveland's east side neighborhoods. 100 years + later and many houses are still over $250k.

Yes, Chitown, it's a freak of nature that doesn't make any sense. I can't explain it. If you go only a couple of miles north into Medina you'll see a city and the surrounding four townships in hyper-build mode, and it's mostly nice stuff.

There's one street a block south of the old main gate that you can go down, the end of which shows most of the coaster. Talk about dumps, that's about the most skanky street you'll ever see. You don't see a lot of really poor folks in rural areas in Ohio, but this is certainly one of them.

WOW! Awesome pics Dan! Thanks for posting those!

I think all cities have the same. There are areas here in Charleston where you have a so-called "nice" area. Go literally one block and you are considered to be in the "bad" part of town.

Although I didn't see it the last time I was out there, people tell me that the Paramount Studios in Hollywood is in a "bad" part of town. You would not know it from the pics. :-)

-Tina

*** Edited 2/1/2004 2:05:21 PM UTC by coasterqueenTRN***

"Bad" and "dumpy" are too different things to me. :) Although Northeast Ohio has more of a transition between good and bad parts of town. It's not like Detroit where you cross 8 Mile and go from crack houses to giant houses.

Does anyone know who owns the property as of now? Cause I would like to know, because I still can see this park coming back from the . It just needs a little help and peoples attention brought to it. I think financial funding would be suprisingly easy to get.

As far as I know, the property is owned by Continental Business Enterprises (CBE). I don't know much about them except that they are very hard to get in touch with. From what I've heard, this is the same company who bought the park in 1969(?) from original owner, Parker Beach. They had grand plans to expand the park and build a casino. The plans fell through and the company abandoned the park. Who knows what they are thinking concerning the property. Looks like they haven't though much in the past 26 years.

CBE still collects a lake-use fee from the people living in the cottages surrounding the park.

The Chippewa Lake Yahoo! Group should have all the details you need. Check it out.

Wildfire, don't be shocked by the price.

6.5 I think.

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Millenium Force29 said:
So if say I wanted to get a look at the park and take some pics, I would have to get in touch with her?

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No. She doesn't own the property and can't give anyone permission to enter. As Thrillerman said above, you're trespassing if you enter. You're not going to get permission from anyone to enter; you just have to take the risk if you really want to see it.

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OrientExpressKid said:
What coaster does the Big Dipper most similar too. I'm having a hard time picturing the layout.

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It's actually quite similar to SFWoA's Big Dipper without the semi-dogleg in the middle. It's basically just an out and back, with a Phoenix-like tunneled turn before the lift.

-Nate

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Wildfire01 said:
Does anyone know who owns the property as of now? Cause I would like to know, because I still can see this park coming back from the .

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It'll never happen. There's no possible business plan that will put a park there. Nostalgia is not a business plan.

You'll want to be extra careful if you do tresspass. There are the obvious dangers from rotting structures, etc. but I've also heard that the police are keeping an closer watch on the place ever since the ballroom fire.

I went early on a sunday morning around 10am. We were there for about 2 hours. We came across two other couples who were just walking the park and they said that they do it all the time with no problem. The lift of the main coaster is literally in the backyard of a few of the "cottages" there were people working outside one of the cottages but they didn't say anything to us.

If you go in a small group of two or three people, wear dark clothes and for the most part stay quiet, I really don't think the locals will call the police.