Former Indiana Beach owner Tom Spackman dies at age 100
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Thomas Earl Spackman, former longtime owner of Indiana Beach and a well-known figure in the tourism industry, died Monday. He was 100. His father, Earl W. Spackman, founded Ideal Beach in 1926. Spackman became chief executive officer of Ideal Beach in 1945 and changed the name of the resort on Lake Shafer to Indiana Beach in 1952. In 2008, the Spackman family sold the park and two nearby campgrounds to Morgan RV Resorts.
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Anyone that visited IB before the sale to Morgan RV can testify that it was truly a magical place to be. On par with Wildwood, NJ and Santa Cruz as ultimate "beachside" parks....
I went in the summer of 08 having not realized they sold the park. However, I did purchase a copy of a dvd celebrating the 80th anniversary of the park.
In said dvd it showed how much the man pioneered and engineered the park to include such things as a roller coasters. He turned the park into a very distinct extension of his ideas. He saw a place where he could add something and never took an answer that it couldn't be done. Case in point was the Hoosier Hurricane which became the state of Indiana's first wooden coaster to be built I think since before the depression.
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