Shady Lake Amusement Park

I have a very dim memory of Shady Lake Park in Streetsboro, Ohio, from Thanksgiving Day 1995. A friend of mine decided the time was right to go behind the still-standing entry way and checkout the "abandoned amusement park." But it was just a large, empty, flat piece of land. The park had only been open from 1978-82, and that archway was designed to look like the one from Euclid Beach Park.

That's no accident: the kid-centric park was opened by the Humphrey Family, owners of EBP, who bought the Streetsboro site in the late 60s. They then spent nearly a decade installing infrastructure and Kiddie Land rides from their defunct park, which closed in 1969.

Why did it fail? I have no idea. This excellent article was written by local amusement park expert John Frato for the Western Reserve Historical Society. It mentions a Humphrey family conflict, but I wonder if the area simply wasn't populated enough at that time? It was pretty much farm country, sitting 45-60 minutes from downtown Cleveland, Akron, Canton, or Youngstown (or Euclid!). The nearest densely populated area was Kent, home to many Kent State University students who would have no reason to visit a kiddie park.

I also wonder if the name was an issue: "shady" is not something you want to associate with kids.

Many former Euclid Beach/Shady Lake rides ended up at Old Indiana Fun Park. The archway stood along the north side of Rt. 14 in Streetsboro, abandoned, until about 2004... not long after the land started being redeveloped for Shady Lake Apartments. The photograph above as taken by Erik Breedon.

Aside from the Frato article , there’s very little information or photographs of Shady Lake online. I've tried to collect what I've found below.

This undated postcard looks to be from the mid-1930s:

From a Facebook post by the National Amusement Park Historical Society (9/16/21): "The Flying Scooter was a classic Bisch-Rocco flat ride at Old Indiana Fun Park in Thorntown, Indiana. The ride had previously operated at Shady Lake."

This was buried in a defunct Streetsboro Facebook group, but still turned up in a Google search; no username or posting date available. But when I re-posted it, several people confirmed that it was a Euclid Beach ride called "The Bug" which ended up at Shady Lake (and may have been renamed "The Turtle"):

Here's a Euclid Beach postcard (listed as being from 1968) which was for sale online, showing "The Bug":

 

From the Carousel Corner website, taken 1981 by B. Williams (as are the three following):

Also from Carousel Corner, these 1981 pics by B. Williams show what's labeled as a "Mangels Kiddie":

Flickr user Sled1025 took this photo of the (abandoned) offices in 1994, as well as the three following. This user has a few other pics from that era listed as Shady Lake, but they're actually of nearby Wonderland, which was reportedly built as a tax dodge that was never supposed to open to the public! The story is in Sled1025's comments.

More 1994 pics of the abandoned park, from Flickr user Sled1025.

Yet another pic rescued from Facebook (this time, the Streetsboro Historical Society):

Finally, the following three photos are from the Western Reserve Historical which is linked post above. Hopefully there are more high-quality images available out there, waiting to be discovered!