Lost Amusement Parks - Glen Echo, Maryland

[@plendl1959]

Just discovered this place recently. Love that it has been restored and maintained. These photos are so clear. Thank you for posting this.

[@KeithElliott]

Thanks for posting this historic footage. I went there yesterday. Pretty interesting place...much different now.

[@1royalpalm]

I used to go to Glen Echo Amusement Park in the 1950s as a kid. In 1963 my family moved about two miles from the park. On clear days you could sometimes even hear the fat lady laughing from the Fun House.

[@WMGIII]

Thank you, that was excellent. Born in 1951 I grew up about a mile or so from Glen Echo Park (in Sumner, Maryland, near Massachusetts Avenue) and visited often as a youngster. Oh the memories! There was a small roller coaster for us little kids, and then when we got a bit older and braver the BIG roller coaster. Scared out of my mind getting on the big one for the first time, couldn't keep me away afterward ... loved it! The wooden airplane ride was upgraded with more aerodynamic metal planes; the penny arcade, still there, added 5c pinball machines (and later 10c machines). The "whip", an excellent ride was popular in the '50s and '60s as were the bumper cars which had been upgraded considerably. And the 1920s $15,000 carousel, oh wow, that's a million dollars in today's currency (to give people an idea of how incredibly fabulous it is!) The old round building (clearly from the 1800s before it was an amusement park) with many signs inside was closed and sealed off from the public, and there were no fortune tellers. The shooting gallery (bb rifles fired at moving metal ducks on a dark shelf) was still there, unchanged. Overall, I'd say Glen Echo in the 1950s and 1960s was, with minor modifications, a good 80%-90% the same as it was in the 1920s. I suppose I should add, to keep this historically correct, that although this great amusement park was in the very wealthy and liberal Montgomery County, Maryland, it was a "whites only" park until 1961. The first black protest against the park was in 1960 when I was only 9 years old but I still remember it because of the murmuring among the "grown ups". The following year park owners removed restrictions and integrated Glen Echo. I remember the integration and it went well ... until the massive Martin Luther King riots in 1968 that damaged the park and ended its 75 year history.

[@ReelNostalgia]

Thank you 9 months later :)

[@stereopolice]

I absolutely loved reading your comment thank you so very much.

[@stereopolice]

I was there. If you weren't all I can say is I wish you had a Time machine.

[@32ghostworld]

I was there today

[@eight10aaronn]

I remember when in 1989 the parking lot crashed down..