Story Land

[mmcirvin]

I'm on vacation this week having fun with Jorie for the week between school and summer day camp. Sam's got a new job and doesn't get any vacation for a while, so it's the two of us. Today, since the weather was likely to be the best of the week, we took an ambitious day trip to Story Land, a kid-oriented amusement park way up near North Conway, NH. It seems to have started out as a small nursery rhyme/fairytale-themed attraction similar to the Story Book Land place in Virginia I remember from my own childhood, then gradually added rides and other stuff.

This was perfect for Jorie. She's at the age in which she'll be equally fond of small roller coasters and meet-and-greet with Cinderella. Other highlights included swan boats kids can steer, a pirate-themed mini-cruise, and a domed area called the Loopy Lab that was basically just full of devices for shooting foam balls in all directions (I did feel like swimming in hand sanitizer afterward, since it unavoidably involves handling these balls that everyone steps on).

The one "credit", as coaster fans call it, was the Polar Coaster, a small Hopkins terrain coaster that basically consists of a series of switchbacks down a hillside and a single helix. For thrills I would probably place it below Hersheypark's Trailblazer (though above the Dragon at Canobie), but Jorie declared it her new favorite and we rode it three times, front seat, middle and rear seat. Anything that has an actual chain lift is the big time as far as she's concerned. It does make nice use of the existing hill.

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Comments

[urbeatle.livejournal.com]

I saw a short documentary on PBS a couple nights ago about old amusement parks and rides that are still in operation. It reminded me of your posts, especially since most of the parks and rides covered were back east. They had one plcae that may even have been the one in NH... they were talking about how the crooked house was built without levels or plans; the carpenters just did whatever they felt like.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

The Crooked House at Story Land is actually the park's admission gate.

The exit is through a candy store that has an elaborate talking clock beckoning children inside to its world of sweet wonders; it's a Barnumesque THIS WAY TO THE EGRESS! touch.

[urbeatle.livejournal.com]

The program I saw was Rick Seback: Great Old Amusement Parks. I looked it up and it seems that the one I recalled was Story Book Forest at Idlewild.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I think the Crooked House was one of the required elements of these circa-1960 Storybook Village-type parks.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

This got me wondering about whatever happened to the Storybook Land in Virginia. It died long ago:

http://www.washingtoncitypaper.com/articles/5686/fractured-fairy-tales
http://www.quailbellmagazine.com/3/post/2012/2/woodbridge-vas-storybook-land.html

Here's a list of dozens of these parks, most of them defunct:

http://theimaginaryworld.com/PARKS1.html

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

...That last link's vintage pictures of the NH Story Land are great too. Some of that stuff is still there; some is not. There's still an Old Woman in the Shoe doing meet-and-greet in that shoe. Cinderella's pumpkin coach is now a gasoline-powered pumpkin with plastic horses on the front, and it provides shuttle service up and down the hill to the castle. I think they have one of the low-tech pumpkins on display near the bridge.

[cheryln.livejournal.com]

Knoebels Grove does not have the fairytale bent but is similarly charming and heading towards its 80th year. I wonder if things like this simply have to be far enough away from civilization for the land to be not of much use for housing or other more lucrative development.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

Wooden-coaster fans consider Knoebels a holy place, because of their efforts in restoring or rebuilding classic rides. The Phoenix is legendary, and the Twister is an attempt at reconstructing the first big coaster I ever rode on, the Elitch Gardens Mr. Twister.

I haven't been there but would very much like to visit.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

It also helps for shinier competition to not be too close. Giant amusement parks designed to attract faraway visitors by interstate highway killed smaller competitors over vast regions, and the availability of other forms of entertainment means that the pie they're dividing isn't as large in the first place.

I've written before about how I think Canobie Lake survived basically by being the last Boston-area trolley park standing when all the others died, and being sufficiently convenient from Boston that they can maintain some sort of competitive equilibrium with the Six Flags way out in Agawam (formerly Riverside), which is really the only huge megapark in New England.

[mmcirvin.livejournal.com]

I'd been wondering about RCDB's identification of the Polar Coaster as by Hopkins, since I'd only ever heard of them making water rides: log flumes, Shoot the Chutes and such.

Turns out they made seven steel roller coasters, all in the 1980s and '90s, and varying in type and design. But they also had some business making replacement track and supports for Arrow coasters, including the Canobie Corkscrew. Their track design as it appeared on the Polar Coaster is very Arrow-esque.