Louisville Mojo: Weep Not for Six Flags, but for Fontaine Ferry

While everyone else bemoans the passing of Kentucky Kingdom, I'd like to take a moment to bow my head in memory of a real amusement park of another era - Fontaine Ferry. For a time, we had the aesthetic apex of carny beauty right here in Jefferson County, unlike the modern shallow and plastic lowest-common-denominator pop-culture-driven park that Six Flags is and Kentucky Kingdom was.

From a Hello Louisville article about Kentucky Kingdom:

Among the artists scheduled to perform in the new Starburst® Summer Concert Series are teen star Raven Simoné of the Disney Channel's That's So Raven; Miranda Cosgrove, best known as character Carly Shay on Nickelodeon's iCarly, and Grammy Award-winning tobyMac... the summer-concert series will offer a variety of musical genres, including pop, rhythm & blues, country and Christian."

Hey now! I'm proud to say that I've never heard of any of these people and I don't listen to any modern examples of music in any of those genres. So, uh, how about some entertainment for the rest of the population besides television-breastfed teens?

By contrast, Fontaine Ferry's glory days were before the time when all of American society became dominated by an artificial "youth culture" which set up an endless carousel of disposable music, movies and products that kids are tricked into wanting, and parents are duped into paying for.

It all started in 1798, when Captain Aaron Fontaine developed a 44-acre plantation by the river, with a boat landing. He used it to shelter runaway slaves as part of the Underground Railroad during the Civil War, and later opened a hotel and beer garden on the site.

Fontaine Ferry Park was developed by John Willard, the designer of Palisades Park in New York and opened in the summer of 1905. It had several different roller coasters during its lifespan: the Scenic Railway, the Racing Derby, the Loop-the-Loop, the Velvet Racer, the Comet and the Little Comet. Other rides included the Whip, the Rock-O-Planes, Ye Olde Mill, the Loop-O-Planes, the Rocket, the Turnpike, the Scrambler, the Tilt-A-Whirl, the House of Mystery, the Tumble Bug, the Haunted House, the Caterpillar, the Scrambler, the Ghost Train, and of course a Ferris Wheel.

The park also attracted top-notch entertainment, and swingers of the day such as Sinatra, Como, and the Dorsey Brothers all passed through Fontaine Ferry's gates.

Like Kentucky Kingdom and other modern amusement parks, Fontaine Ferry saw its share of disasters and controversies. In 1937 the great flood wiped out the Velvet Racer. Then the Comet tossed a rider and two others were killed on the Racing Derby. A rumor began widely circulating about dangerous snakes in the water at the Tunnel of Love ride, necessitating its closure.

Things only got worse for the park as we entered increasingly socially progressive times. It's an unfortunate conundrum that the further back toward the Victorian Era you go, you find superior architecture, clothing, toys, culture and just plain cool stuff, and yet these were also times of extreme racism and callousness. By the early 1960s the times finally began to catch up with Fontaine Ferry, who, like much of America, had basically been ignoring the Emancipation Proclamation for years.

In 1964, a black man named William Dady courageously decided to challenge the park's policy of segregation and entered the pool. He was told to leave and that Fontaine Ferry was a "private club"; therefore city laws of integration did not apply. Dady came back with friends and flouted the order again. Although they were again kicked out, the actions of Dady and his friends sparked off a series of protests against the park that carried on throughout the turbulent sixties. It all came to a head on May 4, 1969, when a mob of youths decided enough was enough: they marched in, attacked workers, and completely wrecked and looted the park.

Reportedly, the damage cost the park $18,000 and took 25 policemen to handle. The park never reopened.

In 1972, someone tried to revive the place under the name "Ghost Town on the River".Unfortunately, that didn't last long and then the park was a literal ghost town, its rides locked away and sitting empty. By 1976 it was all over, when a fire swept through the slowly-rotting structures, and whatever remained in the aftermath was auctioned off.

Now that it's the 21st century, someone needs to revive the old-school amusement park with art-deco flair, moxie, and grandeur - Fontaine Ferry style - but without the racism and with a forward-looking space-age attitude.

Is Louisville ready for that? Oh, probably not. Is the Western Hemisphere ready for it? Doubt it.

Want to know more about the arcane glories of Fontaine Ferry? The website fontaineferrypark.com contains photos, anecdotes, and the full history of this magical playhouse eroded by the sands of time but remembered and preserved by hip historians in the know.

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Sherry Deatrick sat feb 06 2010 at 10:05 am ·


	Ironic that it started out as a haven for slaves on the underground railroad, but was destroyed by segregation and racist attitudes.

Indy.... sat feb 06 2010 at 7:38 pm ·


	YEP IT WAS THE BEST..

metricsister sun feb 07 2010 at 12:19 pm ·


	you have to be kidding aboutr never hearing of Raven Symone and Toby Mac right??

J.S. Holland sun feb 07 2010 at 12:45 pm ·


	Never heard of them. I stay as blissfully ignorant of "what's going on right now" in modern popular culture as possible.

Martha Boltz #322355 thu feb 11 2010 at 5:02 pm ·


	It was a great place to go when I was in high school, the big deal was to go there after "formals" in your fancy duds and ride the roller coaster. Yes, it all ended with integration, the park was never the same, white kids weren't allowed to go there,and apparently the community who wanted in so badly, didn't choose to keep its operation lucrative. So, who won? No one.

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