Crystal Lake Amusement Park Dance Pavilion Route 4, Marion, OH. Construction in 1924 to built a new dance pavilion at the park before the rides came along. I believe the gentleman in neat suit standing facing the camera was the owner/operator of the Crystal Lake Park Company. Source: Spooky Marion.
Crystal Lake Bathing Beach Route 4, Marion, OH. Originally a limestone quarry but it turned into a swimming lake. Opened by the YMCA but a month later, the Crystal Lake Park Company took over. Source: Spooky Marion.
Crystal Lake Amusement Park Roller Rink Route 4, Marion, OH. The front entrance to the park. The skating rink was easily seen from the road. Straight ahead into the dance pavilion. On the left was a huge gazebo. Looks like work was being done on the gate frame structure. Source: Spooky Marion.
Crystal Lake Amusement Park Roller Rink Route 4, Marion, OH. Likely late 1950s. Big bright building was where the dance and roller rink was. Just behind, kitty corner is the swimming pool/lake. To the left you can see the remainant of the quarry that was left untouched after they closed. The amusement park was completely gone and sold. Source: Pinterest.
Crystal Lake Amusement Park Route 4, Marion, OH. The advertisement in May 1925 explains the new park that was just opeend. Source: Marion Star, Wednesday, May 27, 1925.
Crystal Lake Amusement Park Route 4, Marion, OH. Oops! Source: Marion Star, June 1929.
Crystal Lake Amusement Park Route 4, Marion, OH. Whoa, quite eerie I have to say. Look at her last name! Spooky isn't it? Her name was Mabel Hell. Oh boy. And please, no mockery here, this is NOT THE Crystal Lake where Jason Voorhees drowned and was possessed and became alive to mutated campers at Crystal Lake. The Crystal Lake I am referring to in the movies, Friday the 13th is based in New Jersey. (Clue, in one of the movies, they thought Jason was dead and he was transferred to the morgue in New York City). Source: Marion Star, October 11th, 1943.
Crystal Lake Amusement Park Roller Rink Route 4, Marion, OH
Crystal Lake Amusement Park Roller Rink Route 4, Marion, Ohio. It was located north of Marion, Ohio. Located north on Route 4 just after the Route 4 / Route 423 split, This rink had interesting history. It began as a Limestone quarry which was owned by the Central Ohio Lime & Stone Company.
Then they leased the property to the YMCA and the YMCA built a bathhouse and a swimming lake when the water was filled in the former quarry. The pool was called, YMCA Outdoor Swimming Pool, officially opened on July 19th, 1922. However, the Crystal Lake Park Company took over in the Late Summer/Early Fall of 1922. Apparently, maybe the YMCA realize they could not afford a huge swimming lake operations and focus on its known fitness and housing ministry. It cost around $175,000 to build the lake. It would be about 3 Million USD (2021). The pool was very popular.
The pool itself was very clear. Hence the name Crystal Lake. It was on Limestone bedrock so it made sense it would be clear water. Limestone is sort of Marble-ish colors which is Marble White and Gold, depends on which Marble you are speaking of but majority are those colors.
The Crystal Lake Park Company began operating in 1922 and slowly added amusement park rides and the new dance hall. Columbus, Delaware and Marion Electric Line interurban offered daily transportation to and from the park. This made as a Trolley Park, not fully an amusement park today that normally has no dance hall and no swimming pool but a wave pool and a theater or auditorium for bands to play but no dancing.
The dance pavilion with a accommodation of more than 1,000 couples on the dance floor at the same time. That means 2,000 people, not counting bands playing. Yes, bands were later added during dance sessions with big bands like Guy Lombardo.
They operated this park till 1932. They added rides and activities including a roller coaster, a carousel, bumper cars, Skee Ball, gun ranges, airplane swings, pony rides, and all kinds of different things.
But in 1929, as the Great Depression was upon everyone, the company focused on the popular swimming pool and the dance hall and not the amusement park anymore. During the Depression, it hit amusement parks hard everywhere that the number of amusement parks declined drastically from 2,000 parks in 1930 to just 245 in 1939. Crystal Lake was able to remain open. In 1932, the Crystal Lake Park Company announced it was leasing the dance pavilion and swimming facilities to C.J. Utoff of Toledo. The rest of Crystal Lake Amusement Park including the rides, the concessions, and the games – would all be sold off. Although Crystal Lake hosted a number of dance marathons at the dance pavilion in the early 1930s, roller skating largely replaced dancing during this time.
In 1949, the Crystal Lake Amusement Company bought Crystal Lake. Perhaps in an effort to capture some of the park’s original magic, the new owners added amusements like Skee-Ball courts and Dodge ‘em Cars and pony rides. These reboot efforts were quite short-lived. By the next year, only swimming and roller skating appeared to be the recreation activities being offered at the park.
By the early 1950s, Crystal Lake had begun hosting surplus sales during the summer months in tents on the southern portion of the property. In 1953, when the roller skating rink closed for the season, these sales continued in the skating rink. The Crystal Lake Bargain Center, as it was known, was the first use of the former dance pavilion as a retail space, and it was a sign of what was to come.
In 1957, Hyman Ullner and Hyman Swolsky, two Ohio businessmen, bought the Crystal Lake property and set about converting the dance pavilion into the Crystal Lake Bargain City, a shopping center. Two years later, when it was apparent that the former dance pavilion was no longer sufficient for their needs, the owners decided to construct a new Bargain City on vacant land south of Crystal Lake. Construction began in the spring of 1968 and the store opened in November of that year. In 1975, the former dance pavilion burned down. So, what left of the park was right back to the swimming lake like it was once before.
And the swimming pool and dance hall were very popular during that time. Good, glad to hear people kept themselves busy when there were no jobs and cannot afford other fancier activates to attend. I do know that dancing DO can make you forget depressing things and needs to keep physical activity but also romance can help get depressing mind off just like roller skating did for 2 years during the Great COVID Depression as I call that.
But the popularity kind of cool off during World War II but after winning the war in 1945, it became very popular again.
But Crystal Lake remained fairly popular until it closed down permanently in 1958, when Rink's Bargain City purchased the land and opened a department store there.
Today, part of the former 52-acre site is a residential site owned by William D. Rose, while the rest is owned by Allen's Coin Shop of Westerville.
It was abandoned for many years after the store went out of business. Part of the former park is now a private residence with the remainder used for light manufacturing.
The hall was a roller rink but they also kept the dancing venue as well they had weddings on roller skates.
About the amusement park--
About the amusement park itself, when they first opened in 1925 as an amusement park, they had a roller coaster called ZIP. A wooden coaster and already during the first week, two people were thrown from the rail car because witnesses said they removed their seatbelts. (I believe rides today needs seatbelts that locks by the computer when moving and when they stop, seatbelts can be unbuckled. And safety bars are the same way. Stay locked when moving. If anyone moves, the ride should be stopped automatically. Problem is.. how? That is another subject another day.)
Later, on the same ride, a gentleman was riding the coaster and he lost his glass eye. They attempted to find it until later, a staff found it in the rail car he was riding! Got to be embarrassment for gentleman with the glass eye. Image glasses! They do say to remove them. Hearing aids? Depends on what kinds. The mold would be well fitted may can work but do not ride wet rides with it! They have not invented a wet or scuba dive type of hearing aids yet. Some rides are not made for everyone. Sorry! Always know this, when skating or riding on any amusement park rides (Umm, I never seen an amusement park has you to sign a wavier...hmm), or even on a skateboard, scooter, or motorcycle or even a moto scooter, it carry risks. Skate or ride at your own risk.
Here is the tragic story-- On June 19th, 1925, in the Marion Star newspaper article, it explained that a 18-year-old Leonard Hoffman and his cousin, 18-year-old Roxalena Garcelon, were catapulted from their seats while going over one of the smaller hills. Leonard later died of multiple injuries while Roxalena survived. Leonard's other brother, Arthur who was riding behind them saw the whole thing occurred
When the car coasted into the platform, Arthur jumped out of the car, and ran back to the scene of the accident. A huge crowd had already gathered around the victims. Leonard and Roxalena were just being placed in automobiles as Author broke through the crowd.
Witnesses reported that the two riders removed their seatbelts and they got thrown out. Were they attempted to stand up?
There were more tragedies that are more of suicides occurrence at the park. We will not go there. You can read more about this at Spooky Marion.
In 1975, the former dance pavilion burned down. So, what left of the park was right back to the swimming lake like it was once before. In 1979, Bargain City, which was now more commonly refereed to as Rink’s Bargain City or just Rinks, moved to a new location on Marion-Mount Gilead Road. The former Bargain City building left behind on Route 4 is still in commercial use. The rest of the Crystal Lake property is now a private residence.
Timeline:
Pre 1922 - Quarry owned by Central Ohio Line & Stone Company.
1922 - YMCA leased and built bathhouse and pool.
July 19, 1922, the YMCA Outdoor Swimming Pool opened to public.
1923 - Crystal Lake Park Company acquired it and operated the pool.
1925 to 1932 Full-fledged amusement park, the Crystal Lake Amusement Park.
19232 to 1940 Great Depression, only focused on swimming and roller skating with limited dancing.
1940 to 1958 - Swimming, dancing, and roller skating very popular until the company sold to Rink's Bargain City purchased the land and razed to make way for an A-store. (A-store means Anchor or Department store, D-store means Dollar or Discount store).
1949 - Revitalized amusement park under new ownership/management by adding Skee-Ball, Dodge 'em Cars, and pony rides but...
1950 - Back to just swimming and roller skating. Unfortunately.
1953 - As The Crystal Lake Bargain Center began to do retail.
1957 - The dance hall became Crystal Lake Bargain City.
1958 - first store, then residences and light manufacturing places.
1975 - Burned down.
Now resident area.
The Interior.
Wood interior, likely Maple. It was all wood built.
The Exterior.
The Stats:
Rink Size: N/A. Floor: N/A. Floor Layout: N/A.
Building Size: >16,000 SF. Built/Renovations: N/A. Demolished: 1975 by fire.
Type of Building: Free-Span Steel Trusses Steel-Walled Warehouse - like Building.
Roof: Gable.
Acres: N/A.
Operated: (Overall)-- N/A.
Reason for Closure: N/A.
Wanted: Information regarding exact dates of open/closed, why closed, size of rink, rink materials. Also photos/articles. Anyone knows or have photos, please let me know by emailing at [email protected]. Thank you.
Sources:
Marion Star (a USA Today newspaper, link) - Crystal Lake Amusement Park, new book.
Marion Star (PDF) - Crystal Lake Amusement Park, new book.
Marion History - New book on the amusement park.
Spooky Marion - Excellent lengthy essay on amusement park.
The Marion Star, June 19, 1925
The Marion Star, December 4, 1926
The Marion Star, January 7, 1927
The Marion Star, June 18, 1929
The Marion Star, October 12, 1943
Crystal Lake Park, Randy Winland, 2019
Spooky Marion (2) - Another excellent essay on the park.
Date of issue: 16 July 2021.
For office use only:
© Copyrighted by Dead-Rinks. All Rights Reserved. Jn 3:3 and 16.
®
Then they leased the property to the YMCA and the YMCA built a bathhouse and a swimming lake when the water was filled in the former quarry. The pool was called, YMCA Outdoor Swimming Pool, officially opened on July 19th, 1922. However, the Crystal Lake Park Company took over in the Late Summer/Early Fall of 1922. Apparently, maybe the YMCA realize they could not afford a huge swimming lake operations and focus on its known fitness and housing ministry. It cost around $175,000 to build the lake. It would be about 3 Million USD (2021). The pool was very popular.
The pool itself was very clear. Hence the name Crystal Lake. It was on Limestone bedrock so it made sense it would be clear water. Limestone is sort of Marble-ish colors which is Marble White and Gold, depends on which Marble you are speaking of but majority are those colors.
The Crystal Lake Park Company began operating in 1922 and slowly added amusement park rides and the new dance hall. Columbus, Delaware and Marion Electric Line interurban offered daily transportation to and from the park. This made as a Trolley Park, not fully an amusement park today that normally has no dance hall and no swimming pool but a wave pool and a theater or auditorium for bands to play but no dancing.
The dance pavilion with a accommodation of more than 1,000 couples on the dance floor at the same time. That means 2,000 people, not counting bands playing. Yes, bands were later added during dance sessions with big bands like Guy Lombardo.
They operated this park till 1932. They added rides and activities including a roller coaster, a carousel, bumper cars, Skee Ball, gun ranges, airplane swings, pony rides, and all kinds of different things.
But in 1929, as the Great Depression was upon everyone, the company focused on the popular swimming pool and the dance hall and not the amusement park anymore. During the Depression, it hit amusement parks hard everywhere that the number of amusement parks declined drastically from 2,000 parks in 1930 to just 245 in 1939. Crystal Lake was able to remain open. In 1932, the Crystal Lake Park Company announced it was leasing the dance pavilion and swimming facilities to C.J. Utoff of Toledo. The rest of Crystal Lake Amusement Park including the rides, the concessions, and the games – would all be sold off. Although Crystal Lake hosted a number of dance marathons at the dance pavilion in the early 1930s, roller skating largely replaced dancing during this time.
In 1949, the Crystal Lake Amusement Company bought Crystal Lake. Perhaps in an effort to capture some of the park’s original magic, the new owners added amusements like Skee-Ball courts and Dodge ‘em Cars and pony rides. These reboot efforts were quite short-lived. By the next year, only swimming and roller skating appeared to be the recreation activities being offered at the park.
By the early 1950s, Crystal Lake had begun hosting surplus sales during the summer months in tents on the southern portion of the property. In 1953, when the roller skating rink closed for the season, these sales continued in the skating rink. The Crystal Lake Bargain Center, as it was known, was the first use of the former dance pavilion as a retail space, and it was a sign of what was to come.
In 1957, Hyman Ullner and Hyman Swolsky, two Ohio businessmen, bought the Crystal Lake property and set about converting the dance pavilion into the Crystal Lake Bargain City, a shopping center. Two years later, when it was apparent that the former dance pavilion was no longer sufficient for their needs, the owners decided to construct a new Bargain City on vacant land south of Crystal Lake. Construction began in the spring of 1968 and the store opened in November of that year. In 1975, the former dance pavilion burned down. So, what left of the park was right back to the swimming lake like it was once before.
And the swimming pool and dance hall were very popular during that time. Good, glad to hear people kept themselves busy when there were no jobs and cannot afford other fancier activates to attend. I do know that dancing DO can make you forget depressing things and needs to keep physical activity but also romance can help get depressing mind off just like roller skating did for 2 years during the Great COVID Depression as I call that.
But the popularity kind of cool off during World War II but after winning the war in 1945, it became very popular again.
But Crystal Lake remained fairly popular until it closed down permanently in 1958, when Rink's Bargain City purchased the land and opened a department store there.
Today, part of the former 52-acre site is a residential site owned by William D. Rose, while the rest is owned by Allen's Coin Shop of Westerville.
It was abandoned for many years after the store went out of business. Part of the former park is now a private residence with the remainder used for light manufacturing.
The hall was a roller rink but they also kept the dancing venue as well they had weddings on roller skates.
About the amusement park--
About the amusement park itself, when they first opened in 1925 as an amusement park, they had a roller coaster called ZIP. A wooden coaster and already during the first week, two people were thrown from the rail car because witnesses said they removed their seatbelts. (I believe rides today needs seatbelts that locks by the computer when moving and when they stop, seatbelts can be unbuckled. And safety bars are the same way. Stay locked when moving. If anyone moves, the ride should be stopped automatically. Problem is.. how? That is another subject another day.)
Later, on the same ride, a gentleman was riding the coaster and he lost his glass eye. They attempted to find it until later, a staff found it in the rail car he was riding! Got to be embarrassment for gentleman with the glass eye. Image glasses! They do say to remove them. Hearing aids? Depends on what kinds. The mold would be well fitted may can work but do not ride wet rides with it! They have not invented a wet or scuba dive type of hearing aids yet. Some rides are not made for everyone. Sorry! Always know this, when skating or riding on any amusement park rides (Umm, I never seen an amusement park has you to sign a wavier...hmm), or even on a skateboard, scooter, or motorcycle or even a moto scooter, it carry risks. Skate or ride at your own risk.
Here is the tragic story-- On June 19th, 1925, in the Marion Star newspaper article, it explained that a 18-year-old Leonard Hoffman and his cousin, 18-year-old Roxalena Garcelon, were catapulted from their seats while going over one of the smaller hills. Leonard later died of multiple injuries while Roxalena survived. Leonard's other brother, Arthur who was riding behind them saw the whole thing occurred
When the car coasted into the platform, Arthur jumped out of the car, and ran back to the scene of the accident. A huge crowd had already gathered around the victims. Leonard and Roxalena were just being placed in automobiles as Author broke through the crowd.
Witnesses reported that the two riders removed their seatbelts and they got thrown out. Were they attempted to stand up?
There were more tragedies that are more of suicides occurrence at the park. We will not go there. You can read more about this at Spooky Marion.
In 1975, the former dance pavilion burned down. So, what left of the park was right back to the swimming lake like it was once before. In 1979, Bargain City, which was now more commonly refereed to as Rink’s Bargain City or just Rinks, moved to a new location on Marion-Mount Gilead Road. The former Bargain City building left behind on Route 4 is still in commercial use. The rest of the Crystal Lake property is now a private residence.
Timeline:
Pre 1922 - Quarry owned by Central Ohio Line & Stone Company.
1922 - YMCA leased and built bathhouse and pool.
July 19, 1922, the YMCA Outdoor Swimming Pool opened to public.
1923 - Crystal Lake Park Company acquired it and operated the pool.
1925 to 1932 Full-fledged amusement park, the Crystal Lake Amusement Park.
19232 to 1940 Great Depression, only focused on swimming and roller skating with limited dancing.
1940 to 1958 - Swimming, dancing, and roller skating very popular until the company sold to Rink's Bargain City purchased the land and razed to make way for an A-store. (A-store means Anchor or Department store, D-store means Dollar or Discount store).
1949 - Revitalized amusement park under new ownership/management by adding Skee-Ball, Dodge 'em Cars, and pony rides but...
1950 - Back to just swimming and roller skating. Unfortunately.
1953 - As The Crystal Lake Bargain Center began to do retail.
1957 - The dance hall became Crystal Lake Bargain City.
1958 - first store, then residences and light manufacturing places.
1975 - Burned down.
Now resident area.
The Interior.
Wood interior, likely Maple. It was all wood built.
The Exterior.
The Stats:
Rink Size: N/A. Floor: N/A. Floor Layout: N/A.
Building Size: >16,000 SF. Built/Renovations: N/A. Demolished: 1975 by fire.
Type of Building: Free-Span Steel Trusses Steel-Walled Warehouse - like Building.
Roof: Gable.
Acres: N/A.
Operated: (Overall)-- N/A.
Reason for Closure: N/A.
Wanted: Information regarding exact dates of open/closed, why closed, size of rink, rink materials. Also photos/articles. Anyone knows or have photos, please let me know by emailing at [email protected]. Thank you.
Sources:
Marion Star (a USA Today newspaper, link) - Crystal Lake Amusement Park, new book.
Marion Star (PDF) - Crystal Lake Amusement Park, new book.
Marion History - New book on the amusement park.
Spooky Marion - Excellent lengthy essay on amusement park.
The Marion Star, June 19, 1925
The Marion Star, December 4, 1926
The Marion Star, January 7, 1927
The Marion Star, June 18, 1929
The Marion Star, October 12, 1943
Crystal Lake Park, Randy Winland, 2019
Spooky Marion (2) - Another excellent essay on the park.
Date of issue: 16 July 2021.
For office use only:
© Copyrighted by Dead-Rinks. All Rights Reserved. Jn 3:3 and 16.
®