Mountain Park: the Later Years

Mountain Park's sudden closing in 1987 was a shock to everyone in the Pioneer Valley.  I suddenly realized that I had taken very few photographs of the park while it was in operation, and I scrambled to document what was left.

Original gate, 1988
This was the original automobile entrance to the parking lot, with the words MT PARK welded into the framework.  The gate was appropriated sometime around 2000.

Mt. Park Lead Horse, 1988
Dominic Spadola was brought in for one last task in 1988, when Jay Collins planned to sell the merry-go-round.  He set up dozens of small margarine tubs with different colors of japanese oil paint.  He would dip a rag in a color and then walk the entire ride, smearing paint on the horse in a seemingly random way.  This was the magnificent result on the lead horse.

Mt. Park flower horse, 1988
This is the horse that would eventually be known as Angie, after Angela Wright who helped save the merry-go-round for the city of Holyoke.

Mt. Park ehite horse, 1988
Another terrific example of Spadola's quick but effective work.  Notice the light box for the ring game hanging in the background at the top right of the image.

Grocery Game clown, 1988
Examples of Spadola's work remained all over the midway.  This clown head was on the side of the Mini Arcade.

Barbie?
Another one of Spadola's figures that adorned the midway, with a vintage 1960's look.  Many of these figures were taken by a guy from Orange, MA, who called himself the Orange Trader.  He still has many in his warehouse and charges exhorbitant prices (considering he didn't pay anything for them).

Dinosaur Den door
Spadola created an enormous amount of artwork for the park's famous Dinosaur Den.  This is the ride's entrance door.

Dinosaur Den, 1988
The Dinosaur Den was a spectacular sight.  These huge dinos (one on either side) stood watch at the overhang.  The mouths would move and the eyes lit up.  They had an iron frame covered with chicken wire and Celastic.

Cavemen, 1988
Over the years, the additions to the Dinosaur Den got stranger and stranger.  The caveman, made out of Homasote, was at least sticking with the theme.

Flower Power, 1988
But what in tarnation were these flower children doing in a dinosaur-themed dark ride?

Frankenstein, 1988
For that matter, what was Frankenstein doing there?  This stunt, which bobbed up and down, was near the exit of the ride and was visible from the midway.  It was stolen shortly after the park closed, and I have no idea how they did it.  The thing was made of iron and had to weigh at least 500 pounds.  Originally, this space was occupied by an animatronic of a caveman dunking his wife into a big pot.

Pirates and a chest, 1988
Spadola's last major job for the park was the design of the Pirate's Den (which replaced the old Fun House).  The interior held a set of plywood dioramas colored with florescent paint.  The figures were blacklit at night and looked spectacular.

Pirate's Den interior
Because of insurance regulations, the ride had to include an easy means of escape in the event of an emergency.  So four garage doors were built into the front and were wide open when the ride was in operation.  During the day, this is what a trip through the ride looked like.

Adeline
These whimsical 1800s-style figures were attached to the bandshell in the Clambake Pavilion.

Clambake Pavilion, 1988
This is the interior of the Clambake Pavilion, looking out from the stage.  Roger Fortin helped build the laminated wood arches.  The posts down the middle were used in the winter to support the weight of snow.  The building was used to store rides and figures until the next season.

Back of the mini arcade, 1988
The Mini Arcade was located across from the Clambake Pavilion.  The whimsical back wall was another Spadola creation.

Frosty Joy, 1988
The curved Frosty Joy stand served soft ice cream, sundaes and milkshakes.  To the right is the ticket booth for the Bubble Bounce.  To the left of the booth would have been the Scrambler.

Pizza
The end section of the Clambake Pavilion served terrific pizza, which I often ate on my lunch breaks.

Kentucky Derby, 1988
The Kentucky Derby was a horse race game with water guns, next to the Dinosaur Den.

Dino Den sign
This sign originally hung in the entrance to the Dinosaur Den.

Kiddie Coaster, 1988
The back end of the terrific and bouncy Shiff Kiddie Coaster.  The section of track pictured stood on the edge of a cliff.

Puffing Billy, 1988
This was taken standing at the base of the Puffing Billy lift hill.  The boats are to the left.  The Whip is off to the right.

The Dots, 1991
In the early 1990s, I was in the band The Dots, playing keyboard.  We took a series of publicity stills at the park.  The Dinosaur Den is just to the left of the Chocolates stand.  From left to right are Craig Kurtz, Scott Haworth, me and David Gowler.  The large broken triangular red section behind us used to light up when the park was in operation.

Another Spadola clown head, 1988
Here's another clown head designed by Spadola.  It's amazing how his splashes of color and line created such fun figures.

Billboard clown 1988
This Spadola clown was once atop a billboard advertising the park.

Behind the Merry-Go-Round, 1988
Lots of Spadola figures were placed throughout the Merry-Go-Round building.  The big orange pile on the left was a bounce castle that operated briefly.  The big black ring was a spare central gear for the Satellite.

Action, 1988
Early on, this was a novelty game.  Then it became the Midway Lunch stand.  It ended life as a popular SkeeBall arena.

Fred Fried and Jay Ducharme, 1988
In 1988, Jay Collins agreed to sell the beautiful Merry-Go-Round to a Holyoke non-profit group headed by John Hickey.  The ride had to be appraised, so Hickey got Fredrick Fried, the country's foremost expert on carousels, to evaluate it.  I spent the day with Fried (pictured on the left).  He had a wealth of knowledge about the ride.  I was amused that we shared the same taste in clothes....

Last ride, 1988
As a farewell, Hickey held one last ride on the Merry-Go-Round.  Over 1000 people showed up that day, paying a dollar to take their final spin at Mountain Park.  Pictured in the foreground is Terry Lyons, who operated the ride in its final year.

Merry-Go-Round building, 1988
It began life in 1897 as a dance hall,  Then it became and arcade.  It survived two hurricanes and was the best home the park could have found for their carousel.  The upper structure was held in place by four giant wooden trusses.  The wood was a foot-and-a-half thick and forty feet long.  Unfortunately, John Hickey couldn't find a way to save it.  In 2005 it succumbed to arson.  In this photo from 1988, the entrance (normally on the far right) was repositioned for John Hickey's event.

Hold Your Horses
The Route 5 billboard was re-painted by John Allen, a local performer, to help with John Hickey's fundraising efforts.

North Midway. 1988
This is a view of the north midway, taken from the top of the Whip building in 1988.

Ferris Wheel, 1988
With no buyers for the park, Jay Collins sold off the rides one by one.  The Ferris Wheel, Scrambler, Train and Mangels Auto Cars went to Sandspit Amusment Park on Prince Edward Island.  I helped dismantle this giant wheel.

Winter on the Midway, 1988
Winters often brought up to two feet of snow on the midway.  I'd shovel a path so that I could make my rounds as watchman.  Notice on the left that the Baseball Game had been sold and the booth was boarded up.  Near the center of the image is the Birthday Game and to the right is the gypsy fortune-telling booth.

Playland, 1988
This is a continuation of "arcade row," which was established by Louis Pellessier in 1929.  The Playland arcade expanded into the area on the right once occupied by Out of This World.

Out of This World remnants, 1988
These were some of the last remaining figures from Out of This World, placed over the new arcade entrance on what used to be the ride's walk-over.

Out of This World robot
One of the Out of This World robots remained above the arcade.  The other was placed near the Dodgems.

Tilt-a-Whirl, 1988
The structure of the Tilt-a-Whirl stood like an alien skeleton.

Satellite entrance, 1988
The entrance to the Satellite gradually deteriorated.  It, like so much else in the park, was made of Homasote.

The elephant
For many years, this forbidding pachyderm stood next to the Dodgems.

Dead dino, 1989
The company that came to claim the Dinosaur Den wanted to take the big dinos with them, against Roger's advice.  When they cut the one on the right free of the building, the huge beast tumbled to the midway.  And there it lay until it disintegrated.

The Mountain Flyer
The Mountain Flyer was an amazingly narrow roller coaster, occupying about twenty feet at the back edge of the park property.  It packed quite a punch for its size and had some really steep drops.  When Jay Collins was trying to sell the ride, noted coaster designer Bill Cobb (who built the Riverside Cyclone among many others) came and walked the track to appraise it.  He was really impressed with how well it was maintained.

Mountain Flyer in the fall, 1988
The Mountain Flyer had a slight curve to it, which helped throw you against the sides of the well-padded train.

Mountain Flyer turnaround, 1988
The coaster had a viscious turnaround that slammed you hard to the right and then snapped you to the left.

Flyer return, 1988
The return trip was a series of quick rabbit hops.

Flyer brake run, 1988
Down into the brake run...

Flyer brakes at night, 1988
The brake run at night was a little eerie.

Flyer station, 1988
The trains, chain, motor, brakes and rollbacks were sold to Arnold's Park in Iowa to rebuild their own coaster.

Mountain Flyer demolition, 1990
Vandals would climb the lift hill, rip out the handrails and throw them through the roofs of the buildings below.  For liability reasons, Jay Collins had the coaster demolished in 1990 after trying to give the structure away for free.  Here, Roger Fortin watches the turnaround (which he had rebuilt so many times over the years) fall to a backhoe.

The lift hill comes down, 1990
It took Allard Lumber of Hatfield two weeks to demolish the ride, cutting, pushing, pulling and smashing the structure.  It was surprisingly stubborn.

John Sabot, 1990
John Sabot, known to everyone at the park as Lucky, ran the Flying Jets and the Scrambler.  He was also a watchman.  Here he watches the demolition of the lift hill.

Dave Griffin, 1988
Dave Griffin, the park's bookkeeper, was one of Jay Collins' right-hand men for many years.

Roger Fortin, 1988
Roger Fortin kept the park running for nearly 40 years.  He was one of the best bosses I ever had, a man of untiring dedication and high integrity.  He worked from six in the morning till after midnight every day the park was open.  He never complained.  After the park closed, he was charged with dismantling everything he had spent his life maintaining.  He created a vegetable garden in the dirt that was once in front of the ballroom and busied himself that way.  Long after the park was dismantled, he still walked the grounds every day.  Roger passed away on July 15, 2011.  He was an inspiration to everyone who knew him.

Jay Collins, 1988
Jay Collins was a true gentleman, one of the nicest people you'd ever want to meet.  Like Roger, he was tirelessly dedicated to the park.  When he put the park up for sale in 1987, I think he was truly surprised that no one stepped forward to buy it.

After the Fire, 1994
Shortly after I left the park to go work for the new Holyoke Merry-Go-Round, a series of suspicious fires broke out.  The first consumed the entire Clambake Pavilion.  The second, in 1994, burned down the entire south stretch of buildings up to the Rollerball game.  Thankfully, the office was spared.  The Holyoke Fire Department asked Jay Collins if they could test out a new fire-retardant spray on the remaining buildings, and he gave them the go-ahead.  The spray didn't work and the rest of the midway buildings down to the arcade burned to the ground.

Burned-out Tilty Room
In 2000, this is what remained of the burned-out tilted room from the original Fun House.  It was built by Roger Fortin and remained attached to the Pirates Den, hidden from view.  The grating on the ground was part of a jail-like maze of iron bars.

Drinking Fountain, 2002
This was a drinking fountain next to Kiddieland.  In the background are the remains of the park office after it had burned.

Casino Ticket Booth, 1988
Eventually, the only recognizeable remnant of the park was the ticket booth for the Casino, abandoned in the woods.  In 2002, crushed by vines and trees, it too collapsed -- nearly 100 years after it was built.

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