While in Cleveland to spend Christmas with my in-laws, I stumbled upon a piece of amusement park history. Please be patient as I tell the story of how.

It began with a Boxing Day trip to find some fun for my boys (had to get the 4 and 7 year old kids out of the house). We started with a trip to the toboggan run in the Cleveland Metroparks. For those that would like the feel of a good hill during the off season, this is a fun family activity (42" min height, up to 4 riders). See pics and video at the following link - http://www.clemetpar...on/tobogganing/

Following this we went to visit a train display that is put up in the Puritas Nursery as the boys and I all enjoy trains as well. Display has a Lionel section and an HO section - with the HO section having 8 different tracks with amazing landscaping (it is at a nursery after all). In the landscaping I came across the following:

Not surprised to see an amusement park in the train display - but was surprised to see the mulch somewhat covering up the roller coaster with name "Cyclone". Upon asking about it and then searching the web for more info since, I learned the following:

• The coaster and park are included in the display every year as a tribute to the old Puritas Springs Amusement Park that was just down the road from the Nursery
• Park operated from about 1900 until the late 50's when it was mostly destroyed by fire
• Cyclone was the big coaster at the park, a John Miller design that was a terrain coaster to some degree, leveraging the parks location on the edge of the Rocky River Valley
• According to one website, "Many of those who were brave enough to climb aboard and hang on still consider the Cyclone at Puritas Springs Park the meanest, roughest roller coaster they ever rode"
• The carousel they had there was acquired from Cleveland Luna Park when it closed and was relocated to Six Flags Over Mid America (St. Louis) in 1970
• There is apparently still small remnants of the coaster on the Metroparks hillside (see rcdb for pics of this)

There are also a couple of YouTube video's of the park that leave me with a feeling that I stumbled onto the history of a wonderful little park from a bygone era.

I enjoyed the chance to learn about this old park a little - wanted to share that opportunity with y'all. Hope you enjoyed.

Thanks for posting those links, it's interesting reading. I love learning about old parks. For my birthday last month I got Idora Park: The Last Ride of Summer by Rick Shale and Charles Jacques, and for Christmas I got Cincinnati's Coney Island by Charles Jacques (I've wanted this book for years). I think next year I'll be asking for this on Disneyland: http://www.amazon.com/Walt-Disney-Treasures-Disneyland-USA/dp/B00005KARE/ref=sr_1_1?s=dvd&ie=UTF8&qid=1294160202&sr=1-1

There are so many defunct parks I'd love to visit back in their heyday. If I ever get the flux capacitor working in my Impala, I'm up for a roadtrip. Who's with me?

(You know I'm willing and rarin' to go, so long as we can stop at several little places I wanna get to...)

^Of course we can! You have a wider range of knowledge on a greater variety of parks than I do. I tend to specialize in a select few.