To this day, the memories linger and are oh so sweet! I have no photographs of those times, so the memories are all in my heart.
When family visited Uncle Emmett in Chicago, the Riverview Amusement Park was a must visit. Uncle Emmett and I were buddies riding on the Bobs roller coaster and enjoying the high Pair-O-Chutes parachute ride.
Its original name was the German Sharpshooter Park when horse drawn cars pulled people to that hunting preserve with targets set up on an island in the river. Deer could be seen prancing about the woods. During its run the Park would gross about $10 Million in today’s dollars.
Tickets for the Bobs ranged from 25¢ to 50¢ for the first ride and 20¢ to 35¢ for second rides. The Park had seven roller coasters and I enjoyed them all. We were full of grins and giggles. The memories are frozen-frames of enjoyment with my favorite uncle. Beloved, after my father, of course.
The Bobs train consisted of 11 cars and each weighed 900 pounds empty. The first hill of the Bobs stood about 85 feet high with a steep drop. I loved that first drop! The train had inched oh-so-slowly, but everyone knew what was coming. We all screamed with glee! The timing on the Bobs was so precise so that another train could leave the platform every 20 seconds to accommodate the three trains.
The Bobs was a 3,300-foot coaster ride that took about two minutes, seven seconds. It seated 22 riders at a time. Its sand-test load was 6,600 pounds. That two minutes, seven seconds remain in my memory decades later as the best two minutes of my visit to Chicago.
The Park opened July 2, 1904 at Western and Belmont Avenues and on the west near the Chicago River. A billboard proclaimed it would be the “kingdom of magic with Mardi Gras Parades, bands, floats and elephants.” More than three Million received free passes each year through the mail. Another bargain for kids was the Park’s paying the streetcar fare to and from the Park for kids. The fare then was 2¢, but meant a great deal to families who visited the Park.
After the entrance garden, could be found the Penny Arcade. Most games were 1¢ up to 5¢. There was the Steam Shovel game and the post card machines. There were movie star cards, comic cards, and post cards of Riverview. One of the gardens had a pond for the Showboat ride.
Well, it might have been time to stop for a Coca-Cola soda and hot dog. And, as always, hot buttered popcorn. Once refreshed, we would begin again to enjoy the rides.
At the closing of the 1967 season, Riverview’s 2¢ days and 5¢ nights had come to a close. For 64 years “the World’s Largest Amusement Park,” entertained and delighted.
Their radio and television advertisements proclaimed “laugh your troubles away at Riverview.” The Park, as I remember, was clean, family-centered, reasonable, and tons of fun for a child.
Rides such as the Water Bug, the Caterpillar, the Tunnel of Love, the Blue Streak, the Boomerang and the Merry-Go-Round and all their parts went the way of the wrecking ball. No more spring testing of every ride would be completed. The 80 employees would have their memories. The money needed to operate the Park each morning was 200,000 pennies and nickels, 75,000 dimes and 10,000 quarters. The Chicago banks had to send special orders to the U.S. Mint to help supply all those coins.
Never to be forgotten. Always to be remembered: Riverview.
