A Blast From The Past - Relocated Coasters - Kiddieland's Little Dipper

The Blast returns after dealing with a nasty virus last week, the computer, not me. This week we are highlighting one of the Chicago area Little Dippers. In 1949 the Philadelphia Toboggan Coasters, Inc. began building a junior sized woodie at Kiddieland in Melrose Park Illinois.


Designed by Herb Schmeck, with the construction supervised by Frank Hoover, this little woodie brought smiles to the faces of riders of all ages.


Early in the season Kiddieland announced that the 2009 season would be the park's last. The details were all over the news and don't need to be rehashed here. Enthusiasts in the area were saddened by the news, but thankful the park had given people the chance to renew old memories, make new memoriew or just say goodbye.


The park closed it's gates on September 27th 2009. Unfortunately plans to sell all the rides to an interested person fell through. The park's rides were sold at auction in October and the roller coaster was sold to Six Flags Great America for $33,000. The park planned to rebuild the Little Dipper and have it open in 2010


The Little Dipper under went a major rehab. New wood replaced much of the original wood. As a matter of fact, only about 10-percent of the old structure was used at Six Flags.


The rebuild was made even harder when you consider they were doing it without blueprints. The handrails had to be raised, the brakes and restraints modernized, and the entire structure was painted white.


The Six Flags Great America Little Dipper thrilled it's first riders on May 27th 2010 and judging by the smiles on the riders faces, it was a huge success.

Weekly Rewind 7.4.10

Happy 4th of July to you all! Hopefully everyone got in their fill of amusement parks over this holiday weekend!

Busch Gardens Tampa is now offering a Play All Day and Dine For Free promotion where you can eat free all day at the park with the purchase of an admission ticket. The offer is good through September 6th at the theme park. That's quite a deal!

Legoland Florida is going to hold an open house for the public to come see the plans for the park this coming Thursday. Hopefully more details about the rides and attractions the park will offer will come from this. The park also announced the addition of three new Marketing staff members: "Director of Sales and Marketing Kim Isemann, Manager of Sales Todd Andrus and Public Relations Representative Jackie Wallace are bringing their expertise from Central Florida attraction destinations to promote the family theme park opening fall 2011."

Captain EO has made it's return to EPCOT at Walt Disney World in Florida. Fans have already celebrated the show's return in California and Paris, now the central Florida parks have MJ back as well. Here's a report with video from the media event for the reopening.

Cedar Fair has teamed up with Hipcricket to further launch their advertising strategies into the mobile market. Guests will be able to learn about in park specials, news, and other offers via their mobile devices. Cedar Fair is embracing technology!

Thorpe Park has submitted a planning application that shows what the park has planned for the next 6 years. Included in those plans are 5 "round rides" and two new roller coasters - one of which will be up to 40 meters tall, the other up to 50 meters. How that for a bright future!

Still no good new coming out of the closed Freestyle Music Park. A judge ruled against the park this week for unpaid bills, to the tune of $14 million. Park owners never even replied to the case, making the ruling quite easy. Owners say they're still looking for new investors to reopen the park with.

Fans of Facebook now have another way to spend some time - Six Flags Mascot Park. Six Flags theme parks has launched the new Facebook game which allows players to create a park mascot and then try to make them the "star of the show." If you want to play, start here.

The remains of Chicago's Kiddieland Amusement Park have met the wrecking ball. The park closed last fall, and will be replaced by a Costco. Thankfully as we well know, Six Flags Great America purchased the Little Dipper wooden coaster and now operates it at their park.

Spirit Mountain in Duluth, Minnesota, has opened the 3,200 ft. long Timber Twister Alpine Coaster. Riders control their own speed as they head down the mountain, topping out at 26 m.p.h. These rides are great fun, and it's wonderful to see a new one open.

The Indoor Waterpark Capital of the U.S.? That's what the Pennsylvania Poconos could be. With two facilities already open, three more in development, and one large outdoor park as well, things could get rather crowded. Still, many see the development as a good thing for the area. Check out the details here.

Little Dipper Goin' Up!

© 2010 Six Flags Great America

Vertical construction has begun on the relocated Little Dipper roller coaster at Six Flags Great America! The park has posted these photos that show that several sections of the ride were already up as of a few days ago.

As you can see there's a lot of new wood on the ride, which isn't really a surprise. In fact, I am somewhat surprised the entire ride isn't brand new, but you can see the white boards that were from when it was at Kiddieland.

I still can't give enough credit to Mr. Shapiro for having the ride moved and saved. Hopefully saving old wooden coasters will be his new hobby!

Six Flags Great America Little Dipper Release

I'm so happy that Six Flags Great America swooped in and saved Kiddieland's Little Dipper coaster that I wanted to share their official news release with you all. Moves like this show that a new era of the Six Flags parks has truly dawned. Many, many props to the park for this.
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Six Flags Great America Purchases Historic Wooden Coaster

Purchase of Classic Wooden Coaster from Kiddieland Amusement Park Keeps Chicago History Alive

Nov. 25, 2009 (Gurnee, Il.) -- Six Flags Great America announced today the purchase of a vintage wooden roller coaster, The Little Dipper. The coaster operated at Kiddieland Amusement Park from 1950 until September of this year when the amusement park closed. The coaster will retain its original name and become the 14th coaster in Six Flags Great America’s impressive line-up of roller coasters.

The Little Dipper was designed by Herbert Schmeck and built by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company in 1950. The family-friendly coaster features a three story tall lift hill and is designed as a figure eight track which runs 700 feet in length. It has been honored with the ACE Coaster Classic award by the American Coaster Enthusiasts.

“The Little Dipper has been a fond family tradition for over 50 years,” said Hank Salemi, Six Flags Great America’s park president. “We wanted to preserve this important piece of Chicago history for families to experience for many more years to come.”

Guests can create a season of memories on The Little Dipper with a 2010 Season Pass which is on sale now at sixflags.com for the low price of $64.99. Season Passes include admission to the best water park in the nation, Hurricane Harbor; as well as discount-packed value book with more than $500 dollars worth of offers including four Bring-A-Friend-Free tickets.

Six Flags Great America is located between Chicago and Milwaukee and offers fun for the entire family with heart-pounding roller coasters including Raging Bull, a free 15-acre water park, spectacular shows and parades, three children’s themed areas including Wiggles World and meet and greets with Six Flags’ world-famous cast of characters, including Mr. Six."

Kiddieland's Big Dipper Saved By Six Flags?

Today was the auction of Kiddieland amusement park, located in Melrose Park, Illinois, which closed forever this fall after 81 years of operation.

In a rather surprising move, at least to me, it seems Six Flags Great America purchased the Little Dipper wooden coaster at the auction for $33,000. The Chicago Tribune is reporting that the parks plans to add the ride in its children's section, possibly as soon as next season.

The coaster is a Schmeck design that was built by PTC in 1950. The coaster is only 28 ft. high and 700 ft. long, but it's perfect for a child's first big coaster ride. Hopefully the reporting on this one is good and the ride really has been saved!

Weekly Rewind 11.21.09

This week brought good news for UK coaster fans. The Dreamland Trust has received a 3.7 million pound grant from the government as part of the 2009 Sea Change program, and they plan to use the money open a new amusement park on the site featuring vintage rides. The centerpiece of this unique park will be Dreamland's own historic Scenic Railway, which will finally be rebuilt after being heavily damaged in a fire set by an arsonist last year.

The L.A. Times Funland blog has gotten a hold of some concept artwork for the Big Grizzly Mountain and Mystic Manor rides slated to be built at Hong Kong Disneyland over the next few years. Brady's commentary reveals some great details about the ride experiences as well, including a scene-by-scene tour of Mystic Manor provided by none other than one of the Disney imagineers who worked on it.

© 2009 Mike Brown, The Commercial Appeal

Members of the Save Libertyland group were shocked and appalled to discover that the city of Memphis ripped out a chunk of the beloved SBNO Zippin Pippin this week as part of their ongoing efforts to clear the site of the shuttered park for future development. It appears there is still more than a little disagreement over who owns the classic 1923 woodie. The city claims they dug into the structure to determine whether the coaster is salvageable, but between you and me, that's a load of horse manure. Relocating a wooden coaster entails replacing the great majority of the wood anyway. What's to "salvage"? End soapbox.

The notion has been batted around for several years, but this week Jeju Free International City Development Center has stepped forward and stated that an MGM theme park will indeed open in South Korea in 2013. The park, which will be called MGM Hollywood Way, will be controlled by a consortium of as yet unnamed Korean companies, with MGM itself taking a lesser stake. It will be the first MGM park outside the U.S.

They're labeled November 2008, but that didn't fool us. ACE Western PA has posted some new photos of the construction taking place at Kennywood on the former site of the Turnpike. Looks like they're mainly just pushing dirt around right now, but they'll be pushing steel around before you know it!

An $800 million movie theme park is coming to Rome, Italy. The first section of Cinecitta World, named after the city's own Cinecitta Entertainment, is scheduled to open in 2011, with the rest of the park opening by 2014. The attractions will be themed to classic titles, including the works of Federico Fellini. While few details are being revealed at this point, it sounds like some of them could be rather...um...interesting.

In a move that could be interpreted as the beginning of the end of the Busch theme parks' dominance in the atmosphere department, the company has announced that it is cutting ties with the landscaping company it has used for more than 30 years, effective December 31. Starting in 2010, the Busch parks will maintain their own grounds. More than 250 jobs in Virginia and Florida are expected to be lost as a result, although a Busch spokesperson has stated that the company hopes to hire back many of those individuals.

The long discussed but as yet homeless National Roller Coaster Museum (NRCMA) has made up some ground this week. Amusement Today reports that the NRCMA Board has secured a building in Texas which will be used to house part of its distinguished collection of park memorabilia. Just for good measure, the organization has also secured parts of both the Texas Giant (Six Flags Over Texas) and the Big Bad Wolf (Busch Gardens Williamsburg) for the museum's archives.

The final sad chapter in Chicago's Kiddieland's history is in the process of being written. Two trains which ran at the park have been sold, and the rest of the rides are scheduled to hit the auction block this Tuesday. Let's hope they find good homes so they can live on elsewhere.

Kiddieland's Final Weekend

This weekend marks the final operating days for Chicago's Kiddieland amusement park. After 80 years, the park will close it's doors to the general public forever on Sunday the 27th.

Sadly, the closure of the park comes from a dispute between the owner of the land it sits on and the group that actually operated the park. The land owner chose not to extend the lease any longer, forcing the park to close.

One of the park's highlights, among many, was the Herbert Schmeck designed Little Dipper wooden roller coaster. Talk has already started of a new developer who may purchased many of Kiddieland's rides, but nothing is official yet. These aren't the greatest times for starting a new park, after all.

We need some good news to tip the scales back... lots of sad items to report on lately!

A Blast From The Past - Hillcrest Park's Little Dipper

The closure of Kiddieland in Melrose Park, Illinois got me to thinking of the other Herb Schmeck/PTC Little Dipper formerly located in the Chicago area.

Back in 2003 there was a small park, located on Joliet Road in Lemont, IL called Hillcrest. The park was a 58.8 acre private picnic park catering to outings from 200 guests on weekdays to 2500 guests on weekends. Hillcrest operated for 51 years before a decline in corporate outings and a huge increase in value of the land caused its demise.

Hillcrest was a perfect park for company picnics, there was nice softball field for the annual management vs. labor showdown, complete with bleachers for lots of spectators. Miniature golf, volleyball, basketball, horseshoes ensured there was fun for all age levels. There was a DJ booth, with a park wide PA system, pavilions for both the preparing and eating of food, complete with bar and restrooms. And there were lots of big trees, providing plenty of shade on those hot summer days.

Many of the of the parks rides were added between 1960 and 1970. There was a 1.5 mile train ride, with both gasoline and steam engines. The other rides included a Mangels Kiddie Whip, Arrow Developments only four across Carousel, a Herschell Helicopter, and 16 Duce Bumper cars.

In 1967 the main attraction arrived at the park, a PTC Little Dipper wooden roller coaster. This jewel of a junior coaster was purchased when Kiddy Town, also in the Chicago area, closed. Originally built by PTC and designed by Herbert Schmeck in 1952, this flanged wheel design was a delight for children of all ages.

Hillcrest's gates closed on September 1st, 2003. The park's rides and equipment were auctioned off on October 25th. And, the land was sold to developers to build several large warehouses.

However, this story does have a happy ending for the Little Dipper. It was purchased by the folks at Little Amerricka in Marshall, Wisconsin. And, after a total overhaul opened as the Meteor on August 8th, 2007.