Duluth’s Forgotten Amusement Park

As we find ourselves here in the middle of summer, if you’re a history enjoyer like myself, you may wonder how Duluthians of old celebrated the season. 

Well today is your lucky day. Because I am going to tell you about one long gone and mostly forgotten Duluth summer attraction, The White City amusement park. 

Duluth’s White City opened to the public on July 1^st, 1906 to great fanfare. Here is an excerpt from The Labor World on June 30th, 1906.

Duluth’s White City Will Open Tomorrow
Zenith City’s First Real Summer Amusement Resort to Start Saturday. Begins Business Under Favorable Auspices With Fine Line of Attractions.

…The company is making a big feature of its free attractions, and every week the list is changed. At the opening there will be four free acts, including a balloon ascension, a high wire act, an acrobatic act on the high trapeze, and a funny turn by the “Two Jolly Rubes,” Raymond & Beaver. 

These are in addition to the concert by Flaaten’s Third Regiment band, which will play every afternoon and evening, in the pretty little band stand, which has been erected in the center of the grounds. 

The other shows are numerous and varied in their nature, and include the mystic river, the creation, the fun factory, the penny arcade, the gypsy village, the miniature railway, the merry go round, bump the bumps, the water chute, Hale’s touring car, the dancing pavilion, the automatic vaudeville, and last but not least, Hartman’s zoo. The latter show will also be free, and it is bound to prove a big attraction to the children. A good beginning toward a first class zoological garden has been made, and the collection of animals now includes four bears, four wolves, three deer, a porcupine, and an owl. The list will be added to from time to time, and during the next year or two it will be made a very presentable collection….

The White City seems to fill a long felt want in Duluth, providing as it does, endless opportunities for outdoor amusement at a price which is within the reach of the most slender purse.

I did a little digging and found out what some of those listed attractions were.

Hale’s touring Car
An old streetcar that was converted into a picture show theater, it toured around from place to place, and there was potentially a small fleet of them.

Bump the Bumps
I had guessed that this would be bumper cars, but I was wrong! It’s actually a large wooden slide with lots of bumps.

Water Shoot /Shoot the Chute
An amusement ride consisting of a flat-bottomed boat that slides down a ramp or inside a flume into a lagoon. Unlike a log flume or super flume, which generally seats up to eight passengers, a modern-day Shoot the Chute ride generally has larger boats seating at least four across.

Automatic Vaudeville
A short lived chain of Penny arcades. The owners rapidly had a falling out, and dissolved the company in 1904 dividing up the assets. Loew and Warfield’s share formed the basis of Loews Incorporated, backer of MGM, while Zukor went on to consolidate Paramount Pictures. The conflict between the reportedly continued for many years.

Mystic River
From what I can gather, this was a tunnel of love/ Old Mill style ride. A boat would have floated along a track in an enclosed dark ride. It  would have taken “visitors through a great variety of scenes and adventures.” Riders travel slowly on themed boats along an artificial river that meanders through decorated caves and tunnels featuring different themed scenes of lighting, sounds, props, animatronics, or other visual effects. The boats drift along on a gentle current, typically generated by a paddle wheel. This type of amusement ride became quite common at amusement parks across the UK and the USA in the mid-20th century. The concept of the river cave is also very similar to those of the early scenic railways in that they attempt to be both educational and entertaining. 

If you’re into theme park history, there is an old Mill ride that was built in 1901 in Kennywood park in West Mifflin Pennsylvania which still operates! (It was oddly enough themed as a Garfield ride from 2004 until the covid-19 pandemic shutdown) Defunctland on Youtube has a great video on the history of the ride! 

Incredible entertainers were brought to the park to impress guests with the kind of bonkers performances that would make Johnny Knoxville proud. Some examples include:

• “Cardillo” the human arrow
  Who suspended by his neck on a slender silver wire makes a slide for his life extending over 400 feet
• “Diablo” the demon diver
  Covered in gasoline, then set on fire before sliding down a 500 ft pole and into Lake Superior 
• Marvelous Martin
  Dives from a slender ladder one hundred and ten feet into a shallow tank of water
• Pauline Russell and her troupe of performing leopards
  She enters their cage in a marvelous exhibition of skill and patience

Also—whatever the heck you’d call this:

Drops In Bay. Balloon, Man and Monkey Are Rescued by Launches.

The balloon stunt at Joyland was pulled off for the first time yesterday according to schedule. The big balloon went sailing into the air carrying “Prof.” Gage and his trained monkey, Bedelia, and dropped them into the bay. The Drip in the bay was also per schedule, and launches were waiting to recue balloon, man and monkey.

The incident was witnessed by many people in the city and many feared that it was a serious accident and someone might be drowned. The police were notified by several anxious watchers, but a telephone call to the manager’s office at Joyland reassured them.

If you want to hear the full story of the rise and fall of this truly bonkers park, be sure to check out the podcast episode of Attracted to Duluth, The Greatest Show on Park Point, where we dig deep into this turn-of-the-century attraction. Click the button below.

Dear reader, I hope you have a fabulous rest of the summer season free from the stress of witnessing a dude and a monkey fall from a balloon into Lake Superior. 

Image courtesy The Northeast Minnesota Historical Collections, housed in the Kathryn A. Martin Library, on permanent loan from the St. Louis County Historical Society