Historic Amusement Parks With Odd Attractions
Amusement parks used to be way weirder. Before Disney sanitized everything and liability lawyers got involved, parks featured attractions that ranged from mildly questionable to “how was this ever allowed?” Some historic parks still operate today with their odd vintage rides intact, while others have thankfully closed, taking their bizarre attractions with them.
Here’s a look at some of the strangest attractions from amusement park history.
Dreamland’s Premature Infant Exhibit, Coney Island
Dreamland at Coney Island had an actual working infant incubator exhibit where premature babies were displayed to paying customers. Dr. Martin Couney ran the exhibit from 1903 to the 1940s, and it wasn’t just for show—he actually saved thousands of babies’ lives because hospitals at the time didn’t have incubators.
Parents would bring their premature infants to be cared for at an amusement park (because apparently that made sense in the early 1900s). Visitors paid 25 cents to watch nurses care for the babies through the glass. It’s simultaneously a medical breakthrough and deeply uncomfortable by modern standards.
Hell Gate at Coney Island
This was a boat ride through depictions of hell. Literal hell, with demons and torture scenes and fire effects.
You’d float through in a boat while animatronic devils tormented sinners around you (this was the early 1900s version of a dark ride, apparently). The entrance was designed as a gaping mouth. Inside there were scenes of the underworld with skeletons and devils and probably some uncomfortable religious imagery.
It burned down in 1911, which feels appropriate given the theme.
The Human Roulette Wheel at Steeplechase Park
Steeplechase Park at Coney Island had a spinning wooden disk about 15 feet in diameter that people would sit or lie on. Then it would spin faster and faster until centrifugal force threw everyone off onto padded walls.
That was the entire attraction. Get thrown around until you fly off. There was also the Blowhole Theater where compressed air jets would blow up women’s skirts while they walked across, and men would sit in stadium seating to watch.
George Tilyou, who owned the park, apparently had a very specific idea of entertainment that wouldn’t exactly fly today.
Luna Park’s “Trip to the Moon”
This Coney Island attraction from 1901 involved boarding a spaceship prop and experiencing a simulated trip to the moon. You’d sit in a room decorated like a spacecraft while employees moved scenery past the windows and rocked the room to simulate flight.
When you “arrived” on the moon, you’d meet performers dressed as moon people (who were basically just people in weird costumes making up nonsense). It was ridiculously popular and people genuinely thought it was cutting-edge entertainment.
Which it probably was, considering movies barely existed yet.
Prater’s Geisterbahn
The Prater in Vienna has been around since 1766 and still operates today (with the famous Wiener Riesenrad Ferris wheel that appeared in “The Third Man”). But the old Geisterbahn dark ride is legitimately unsettling—it’s a ghost train from the 1930s with hand-painted scenes and mechanical figures that look more threatening than fun.
The Vienna Prater also historically had freak shows and all sorts of questionable exhibits that were standard for European pleasure gardens at the time. Most of those are gone now, thankfully, but the atmosphere still has this vintage carnival weirdness to it.
Riverview Park’s Bobs Roller Coaster
Riverview Park in Chicago (closed in 1967) had a roller coaster called the Bobs that was basically just trying to kill people. It opened in 1924 and immediately got a reputation for being dangerous—the trains had no restraints except a leather strap across your lap, the turns were brutal, and riders regularly got injured.
The park also had Aladdin’s Castle, which was a fun house with various rooms designed to disorient and scare you, including a “barrel of love” that was a rotating tunnel you had to walk through (which sounds romantic until you realize it was designed to make couples fall into each other awkwardly while strangers watched).
The Canals of Venice, Various Parks
Multiple old amusement parks had “Canals of Venice” attractions which were basically tunnel of love rides with an Italian theme. You’d get in a boat expecting romance and gondolas and probably end up in semi-darkness with questionable decorations and a long awkward ride if you weren’t actually with someone you liked.
Kennywood in Pennsylvania still has one called the Old Mill from 1901. It’s been updated over the years but maintains that vintage vibe of “let’s trap teenagers in boats in the dark and see what happens.”
Blackpool Pleasure Beach’s River Caves
This ride opened in 1905 and still operates at Blackpool Pleasure Beach in England. It’s a dark boat ride featuring various scenes including caves, jungles, and inexplicably, hell again (why did old amusement parks love hell so much?).
The scenes are hand-painted and the mechanical figures have that unsettling jerky movement that old animatronics always have. There’s something weirdly charming about how low-budget and strange it all is, the fact that it’s still running over a century later is kind of impressive (and kind of concerning from a safety perspective, but let’s not think about that too hard).
Playland’s Laffing Sal
Playland-Not-at-the-Beach (originally at Playland at the Beach in San Francisco) featured a huge mechanical laughing woman named Laffing Sal. She was seven feet tall, would cackle maniacally, and her mouth would open impossibly wide while her shoulders shook.
She’s terrifying. Generations of children had nightmares about her (probably). Several versions existed at various parks and some are still around in museums or other locations, continuing to haunt people.
The laugh is genuinely unsettling—it’s this loud, aggressive cackle that goes on way too long.
Tivoli Gardens’ Rutschebanen
Tivoli Gardens in Copenhagen opened in 1843 and still has its wooden roller coaster from 1914. What makes it odd is that it still has a brakeman who rides on the train and manually controls the speed using a brake lever.
Because apparently trusting physics and engineering isn’t enough, you need a human sitting on top of a moving roller coaster. It’s one of only seven roller coasters in the world that still operates this way.
The whole park has this strange mix of very old rides next to modern ones, creating this disorienting timeline where you’re not sure what era you’re in.
The Whip
This ride existed at basically every old amusement park. You’d sit in a car that ran along an oval or rectangular track, and as you went around corners, you’d get whipped to the side violently (hence the name).
The cars would pivot and swing out at high speed, probably causing whiplash injuries that nobody documented because it was the 1920s and safety wasn’t invented yet. Kennywood and Lakeside Amusement Park in Denver still have operating Whip rides.
They’re not exactly thrilling by modern standards but there’s something satisfyingly simple about a ride whose entire concept is “spin around violently.”
Saltair’s Troubled History
Saltair on the Great Salt Lake in Utah opened in 1893 as this massive Moorish-style pavilion and amusement area. The problem was that the Great Salt Lake smells terrible in summer (like rotting brine shrimp), the water level kept changing and sometimes the beach disappeared entirely, and the original building burned down in 1925.
They rebuilt it. That one also burned down in 1970.
A third version exists now but it’s mostly abandoned. The whole place has this cursed quality—multiple fires, flooding, the smell, swarms of brine flies. It’s still technically there but nobody really uses it.
Just sitting on the lakeshore, slowly deteriorating, which is its own kind of odd attraction.
Knott’s Berry Farm’s Ghost Town
Before it became a full theme park, Knott’s Berry Farm started as an actual berry farm in the 1920s, then added a chicken dinner restaurant that became wildly popular (people would wait hours for fried chicken). To entertain waiting customers, they built a Ghost Town with Old West attractions starting in 1940.
Some of the original Ghost Town attractions are still there, including the Calico Mine Ride from 1960 which is this slow journey through a mine with animatronic prospectors and animals. It’s incredibly dated and kind of boring but also has this weird charm because it hasn’t been updated to be exciting or modern, it just exists as this artifact of what people found entertaining in 1960.
When Weird Was Normal
Looking back at old amusement park attractions, you realize how much society’s definition of entertainment has changed. Watching premature babies in incubators, getting violently thrown around on unsafe rides, sitting in stadium seating to watch women’s skirts blow up—these were considered normal family fun (which says something about the past that’s not entirely flattering).
Some of these old rides and attractions have survived and become charming vintage experiences, while others are best left in the history books where they belong.
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