Williams Grove Amusement Park

Williams Grove Amusement Park is an abandoned amusement park near Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. The park operated from 1850 until 2005. It is standing but not operating. The owners still live there and are trying to preserve the park and the historic buildings on the property but face frequent vandalism. The Williams family began hosting picnics in 1850 in a small grove located in the village of Williams Grove outside Mechanicsburg, Pennsylvania. The grove would within a few years grow into a park. Within two decades the park had grown into the Mechanicsburg Fairgrounds. After World War I, the park's ownership changed hands several times. In 1928, the first rides appeared at the park. The adjacent Williams Grove Speedway half-mile track opened in 1938. Morgan Hughes purchased the park in 1972 for $1.2 million. Many of the rides were relocated to Williams Grove from the defunct New Jersey's Palisades Amusement Park, which closed in 1972. Williams Grove Park was nearly destroyed in the summer of the same year due to Hurricane Agnes and the subsequent flooding from nearby Yellow Breeches Creek. The park was rebuilt and operated until the end of the 2005 season, when the Hughes family decided to focus all of their energies on Williams Grove Speedway. Morgan Hughes, who was in his mid-80s when the park closed, attempted to sell the property in 2006 to a prospective owner who would keep the park intact and operational, but was unable to find a buyer. The rides were auctioned off the same year. Hughes died in his sleep at his Pennsylvania home on April 12, 2008 at age 88. The Cyclone The Cyclone is a wooden roller coaster and the main attraction of the park. The Cyclone rises at a height of 65 Feet and travels at the top speed of 45 mph. Unfortunately the Cyclone closed after the 2005 season, leaving it standing but not operational as of 2017, abandoned and in disrepair with the train parked at the loading station. The cars have since been returned to Fort Lee, NJ, where they will be displayed at a museum. In the 2001, the park erected The Wildcat, a steel Wildcat-style roller coaster. Upon the park's closing, the Wildcat was relocated to Adventure Park USA in New Market, Maryland. The park had two smaller coasters, Kiddie Coaster, 1992 until closing, and the Little Dipper, 1950 until 1963. Fun Houses The park features a dark ride, which is still standing and is called "Dante's Inferno" and use to have walk through fun house called "Allotria" Water Slides In the early 1980s, the park erected one of the first water slides in the area. The platform is still standing abandoned where the 2 watersides were.