Puritas Springs Footage Found

While checking out some of the Flying Turns videos, I scrolled down the related video files and discovered almost 10 minutes of footage from Puritas Springs Park. It's divided into two parts, the first is black and white, the second in color. It only has a brief 6 second part with the Cyclone in motion, but it does have footage of a bunch of rides including: Comet Jr., Roll-O-Plane, Rock-O-Plane, Tumble Bug, Flying Scooters, Tilt-a-Whirl, Whip, what appears to be a NAD Train, a bunch of kiddie rides, Moon Rocket and something called Spitfire, which appears to be similar to a Paratrooper but has planes instead of umbrellas! Throw in Jungle Larry and you have an interesting video.

HERE IS THE LINK

Tom

Great find! I recently found an interesting little history on the park here (with pictures):

http://www.westparkhistory.com/thennow/gone/gone.htm#puritas

I remember when I was a kid that Puritas Rd. had washed out and was closed for years. You can still see the retaining walls there. I'm not sure where the remaining remnants of the coaster are, but perhaps that's something for a treasure hunting day.

Nice, I have never seen that particular blurb before, nor those 1979 pictures. I was there in the early 90's before the road was rebuilt. 3 friends plus me parked up top in the residential neighborhood one night and made our way back to the other side of the ravine, where the old wooden bridge that crossed it still stood. We did not take the bridge, it looked bad, we stuck to the road. We went along the back side of the apartments and saw two eyes looking at us, turned out to be a raccoon that ducked beneath a fallen tree...no, that's not a tree, it has metal! We had found trackage!!! We scrounged around that ravine and discovered more stuff, but it was hard to make out much with just flashlights. We climbed back up and made our way through some back yards looking for something, anything(I was introduced to motion sensor lights then, scared the crap out of us!). We eventually decided to come back the next day when it was light out since we now knew we could get into the ravine without trespassing on peoples property. We came back the next day and parked at the base of the washed out road and made our way into the ravine where we discovered a ton of remains both in the ravine and at the top of the cliff. Unfortunately none of us had a camera with us. This was around 1991 or 1992 so what's left is fading fast. You can see 5 pictures taken in 2006 here.

Tom

So what's left is on the north side of Puritas, between the golf course and the housing?

Great post! Anytime that I get to see more footage of this park and coaster, however minimal, makes me yearn for more and more. Wish someone out there in had a POV of the P.S. Cyclone.

My mom grew up in Cleveland and I've been intending to go have all of my grandfather's films transfered to DVD and post any footage of Puritas Springs and all the other surrounding parks such as Euclid, Cedar Point, Chippewa, and Geauga. Mom says they went to them all and I know he shot some footage of Euclild...I've seen it. While I doubt he's got POV I'm hoping his footage includes some of the coasters.

If I find anything I'll post it to youTube.

The retaining walls that you see on the map were added a few years ago in order to reopen Puritas Hill. It was closed my whole childhood. It's been open for about 10 years now. I can't remember exactly.

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Jeff said:
So what's left is on the north side of Puritas, between the golf course and the housing?

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Ok, I have an aerial picture of Puritas springs as it was that I am looking at now to try to explain it. When I was there we found remains on BOTH sides of the ravine. The track remnants we found on the south side of the ravine were probably from the brake run area as they ran parallel to the top of the ravine. We also found remnants going up and down both sides of the ravine, but I do not know if they were from the inital drop or the final one. Now if you look at your link to the birds eye view, just to the southwest of that cul-de-sac is actually the top of a bluff/cliff if I remember correctly, it's hard to tell in that shot. Anyway, that's where the turnaround was and we also found remains there. If you follow that area of trees up and to the right that is actually the ravine that the coaster crossed, it gets shallower the further up you go.

Tom

I edited to the best of my memory, I have no idea what happened to the rest of the post.

*** Edited 2/15/2008 2:19:58 PM UTC by LdScotsman***

^Did you fall asleep in mid-sentance?

Wow, I have no idea what happened there, and I logged off right after I posted. Let me check my memory and edit it. Sorry.

Tom

But what ravine? Are you talking about the one on the north side of Puritas? Between the subdivision and the golf course?

That's some incredible footage. Thanks for sharing!

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Jeff said:
But what ravine? Are you talking about the one on the north side of Puritas? Between the subdivision and the golf course?

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The ravine is between the apartments and the housing development. More specifically it is the land that runs north of Puritas and south of Thornridge Avenue.

To give a better perspective of the layout don't do birds eye, go back to hybrid. The entrance to the park was NOT opposite Grayton road but a little further to the east, right about where West 194th is now. We found coaster remnants near where the pool in the apartment building was, and on the north and south sides of the ravine between those apartments and the houses on the other side. If you scroll northwest to where Thornridge Circle is, that's the cul-de-sac, that sits right around the area where the turnaround for the coaster was. The loading station and first drop were located on the south side of the ravine. The drop took you into the ravine and came out on the north side and hung a sharp left. You headed westward along the top of the north side of the ravine and did a turnaround near where the cul-de-sac is, which is right at the top of a steep cliff/bluff. On the return trip you travelled for some distance next to the outbound leg but made a hard right at the top of a hill and you were now heading southbound and diving back down the largest drop on the ride into a much deeper part of the ravine. After coming out you made a right and were heading into the brake run. The more I think about it the more I seem to recall definitely finding more trackage closer to the deeper end of the ravine, so that would be on the return trip.

Sorry if I have confused anyone. I need to scan this aerial picture of the park that I have with rides and coaster intact and post them. Will try to do that soon. I also have a picture of the coaster the day after the fire.

Tom

LdScotsman, can't wait for you to post them.

I spent 3hours Saturday back in the woods looking for the remains of the Cyclone track. The only things we found were concrete footers, old building foundations, and old iron fencing. We looked up and down the ravines above the golf course parking lot. No sign of the track though......Dale at the Nursery was great! He had videos of the park and some old pics.

If anyone has any tips on finding the track remains please let me know.

therondannemiller@yahoo.com

Puritas Hill re-opened in August 1993. I grew up not one mile south east of there, around W.185th & Puritas. I was only 12 at the time, but I remember that day as being a festive day for the area, as it had been I believe 15 years since the road washed away. The retaining walls were constructed for the new road.

Anyways, this is the best that I've been able to figure out where the park actually was: http://s28.photobucket.com/albums/c225/e99layzie/?action=view&curre...asPark.jpg

The image to the right was taken from Google Earth, while the image to the left was found on the internet.

Also, interestingly enough, about two years ago, the Puritas Park condominiums that reside across the street of where the park once was debuted new signage for the complex which pays homage to the old park.
http://www.puritaspark.com/history.html

^^ I didn't think much was left. Same with Cascade Park in New Castle, PA. I'm pretty sure nature starts to take over after a couple of decades. Frankly, I'm amazed that so much of Chippewa was left standing for so long.

Great find, Scotsman! I love old park footage like that. I enjoyed the other films as well.