Luna Park was a

trolley park Trolley may refer to: Vehicles and components * Tram, or trolley or streetcar, a rail vehicle that runs on tramway tracks * Trolleybus, or trolley, an electric bus drawing power from overhead wires using trolley poles ** Trolleytruck, a trolleyb ...

(a type of

amusement park An amusement park is a park that features various attractions, such as rides and games, as well as other events for entertainment purposes. A theme park is a type of amusement park that bases its structures and attractions around a central ...

) in

Cleveland Cleveland ( ), officially the City of Cleveland, is a city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Cuyahoga County. Located in the northeastern part of the state, it is situated along the southern shore of Lake Erie, across the U.S. ...

Ohio Ohio () is a state in the Midwestern region of the United States. Of the fifty U.S. states, it is the 34th-largest by area, and with a population of nearly 11.8 million, is the seventh-most populous and tenth-most densely populated. The sta ...

, USA, from 1905 to 1929.

Specifications

Constructed by

Frederick Ingersoll Frederick Ingersoll (1876 – October 23, 1927) was an American inventor, designer, builder and entrepreneur who created the world's first chain of amusement parks (known collectively as "Luna Parks" regardless of their actual name) and whose man ...

, the park occupied a hilly site bounded by Woodland Avenue, Woodhill, Mt. Carmel (originally Ingersoll Road), and East 110th Street and included

roller coaster A roller coaster, or rollercoaster, is a type of amusement ride that employs a form of elevated railroad track designed with tight turns, steep slopes, and sometimes inversions. Passengers ride along the track in open cars, and the rides are o ...

carousel A carousel or carrousel (mainly North American English), merry-go-round (List of sovereign states, international), roundabout (British English), or hurdy-gurdy (an old term in Australian English, in South Australia, SA) is a type of amusement ...

s, a

fun house A funhouse or fun house is an amusement facility found on amusement park and funfair midways and is where patrons encounter and interact with various devices designed to surprise, challenge, and amuse them. Unlike thrill rides or dark rides, fu ...

, a

Ferris wheel A Ferris wheel (also called a Giant Wheel or an observation wheel) is an amusement ride consisting of a rotating upright wheel with multiple passenger-carrying components (commonly referred to as passenger cars, cabins, tubs, gondolas, capsules ...

, a

roller rink A roller rink is a hard surface usually consisting of hardwood or concrete, used for roller skating or inline skating. This includes roller hockey, speed skating, roller derby, and individual recreational skating. Roller rinks can be located i ...

, a

shoot-the-chutes Shoot the Chute is an amusement ride consisting of a flat-bottomed boat that slides down a ramp or inside a flume into a lagoon. Unlike a log flume or super flume, which generally seats up to eight passengers, a modern-day Shoot the Chute ride ge ...

ride, a

concert A concert is a live music performance in front of an audience. The performance may be by a single musician, sometimes then called a recital, or by a musical ensemble, such as an orchestra, choir, or band. Concerts are held in a wide variety a ...

shell, a

dance hall Dance hall in its general meaning is a hall for Dance, dancing. From the earliest years of the twentieth century until the early 1960s, the dance hall was the popular forerunner of the discothèque or nightclub. The majority of towns and citi ...

bumper cars Bumper cars or dodgems are the generic names for a type of flat amusement ride consisting of multiple small electrically powered cars which draw power from the floor and/or ceiling, and which are turned on and off remotely by an operator. Bumpe ...

, a

baseball Baseball is a bat-and-ball sport played between two teams of nine players each, taking turns batting and fielding. The game occurs over the course of several plays, with each play generally beginning when a player on the fielding tea ...

field, and a 20,000-seat

stadium A stadium ( : stadiums or stadia) is a place or venue for (mostly) outdoor sports, concerts, or other events and consists of a field or stage either partly or completely surrounded by a tiered structure designed to allow spectators to stand o ...

(unofficially called "Luna Bowl", destroyed by fire in August, 19
Clipped From The Akron Beacon Journal
in which

American football American football (referred to simply as football in the United States and Canada), also known as gridiron, is a team sport played by two teams of eleven players on a rectangular field with goalposts at each end. The offense, the team with ...

was played. On May 18, 1905, Cleveland's Luna Park became the second Ingersoll park of that name (out of 44) to have opened before his death in 1927, and the second amusement park (after

Luna Park, Pittsburgh Luna Park was an amusement park in the North Oakland neighborhood of the city of Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania, USA, from 1905 to 1909.

, which opened weeks earlier) to be covered with electrical lighting.

History

The monetary demands of upgrading and maintaining his embryonic chain of amusement parks forced Ingersoll, the original owner of Cleveland's Luna Park, to declare bankruptcy in 1908; Ingersoll was forced to sell his Cleveland park to Matthew Bramley, an original investor in (and, later, owner of) Ingersoll's Luna Park Amusement Company who built the Cleveland Trinidad Paving Company into the largest paving company in the world. Bramley added rides to Luna Park as its popularity as a

grew, in part because beer was sold on the park grounds. After the passage of the

Eighteenth Amendment to the United States Constitution The Eighteenth Amendment (Amendment XVIII) of the United States Constitution established the prohibition of alcohol in the United States. The amendment was proposed by Congress on December 18, 1917, and was ratified by the requisite number of ...

and the beginning of

Prohibition Prohibition is the act or practice of forbidding something by law; more particularly the term refers to the banning of the manufacture, storage (whether in barrels or in bottles), transportation, sale, possession, and consumption of alcoholic ...

(1920), a primary source of revenue was removed as the park's popularity waned. Bramley officially closed the gates to Luna Park in 1929 for the final time as the

Great Depression The Great Depression (19291939) was an economic shock that impacted most countries across the world. It was a period of economic depression that became evident after a major fall in stock prices in the United States. The economic contagio ...

took hold in the United States. The park was beset with incidences of

arson Arson is the crime of willfully and deliberately setting fire to or charring property. Although the act of arson typically involves buildings, the term can also refer to the intentional burning of other things, such as motor vehicles, wat ...

, including the fire that destroyed the football stadium, and most of the rides were dismantled and moved to other amusement parks in the early 1930s.

Luna Bowl tenants

The

Cleveland Panthers The Cleveland Panthers were a professional American football team. They were an independent team founded in 1919 from the remains of the Youngstown Patricians. The Panthers played, with various degrees of success, continuously from 1919 and event ...

of the first American Football League and the

Cleveland Bulldogs The Cleveland Bulldogs were a team that played in Cleveland, Ohio in the National Football League. They were originally called the Indians in 1923, not to be confused with the Cleveland Indians NFL franchise in 1922. However, after team owner S ...

of the

National Football League The National Football League (NFL) is a professional American football league that consists of 32 teams, divided equally between the American Football Conference (AFC) and the National Football Conference (NFC). The NFL is one of the ...

played their home games in Luna Bowl, and (after the dismantling of the amusement rides had begun) the

Federal League The Federal League of Base Ball Clubs, known simply as the Federal League, was an American professional baseball league that played its first season as a minor league in 1913 and operated as a "third major league", in competition with the e ...

Cleveland Green Sox,

Negro league baseball The Negro leagues were United States professional baseball leagues comprising teams of African Americans and, to a lesser extent, Latin Americans. The term may be used broadly to include professional black teams outside the leagues and it may be ...

teams Cleveland Stars (1932),

Cleveland Giants The Cleveland Giants were a Negro league baseball team. The team played only one year, 1933. Their home games were contested at Cleveland's Luna Bowl in Luna Park. History In 1933, the struggling Columbus Blue Birds of the Negro National Le ...

(1933), and

Cleveland Red Sox The Cleveland Red Sox was a Negro league baseball team in the Negro National League, based in Cleveland, Ohio, in 1934. In their only season, they finished with a 4-25 record. References African-American history in Cleveland Negro league ...

(1934) each played their home games at the ballfield that was originally adjacent to the football stadium. On December 12, 1938, the last vestige of the park, the skating rink, was destroyed by fire. In 1940, the Woodhill Homes housing development was built on the park site. Collegiately,

Case School of Applied Science The Case School of Engineering is the engineering school at Case Western Reserve University in Cleveland, Ohio, USA. It traces its roots to the 1880 founding of the Case School of Applied Science. It became the Case Institute of Technology in 1947 ...

defeated

Western Reserve University Western may refer to: Places *Western, Nebraska, a village in the US *Western, New York, a town in the US *Western Creek, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western Junction, Tasmania, a locality in Australia *Western world, countries that id ...

7–6 on November 19, 1927 during their annual rivalry football game, played only once at Luna Park. The winning touchdown was scored by Case's Frank Herzegh.

References

External links

First-year tour of Cleveland's Luna ParkSanborn map showing parts of Luna Park including athletic field
* {{Authority control Amusement parks in Ohio Culture of Cleveland Defunct amusement parks in Ohio Defunct American football venues in the United States American Football League (1926) venues Defunct baseball venues in the United States Negro league baseball venues History of Cleveland Sports venues in Cleveland 1905 establishments in Ohio 1929 disestablishments in Ohio Defunct sports venues in Ohio Federal League venues