I WILL UPDATE THIS ALL SOME DAY! This is a very brief history of Chippewa Lake Park near Medina Ohio. The original intent of this site was to simply provide pictures of the park in its abandoned state. During my research, mainly research aimed at finding out what certain buildings used to be and where rides went, I found that Chippewa Lake had a pretty vast history. I thought it would only be fair to put a little about it here. Please keep in mind that I was only about 2 years old when Chippewa Lake Park closed its doors forever. I had never heard of the park untill less than one year before this was written (11-17-99). My only memories of the park include broken buildings and rusted rides. My interests were simply to explore abandoned places and an amusement park seemed all to good to pass up. With the great history that Chippewa Lake Park holds I managed to get pulled in, and am very interested in the parks history now. Please enjoy what is provided here. Again, it is brief and will be added to over time. If you have anything to add please feel free to email me at admin@illicitohio.com. Chippewa Lake Park began its days as a picnic grounds on the shores of Chippewa Lake. The official opening of the park, or pleasure grounds, was 1878 however organized picnics date back to the 1840s. The Pleasure Grounds as they were called were run by a man named Edward Andrews. At this time they were refered to simply as the Andrews Pleasure Grounds. This era featured mainly picnics, dancing, holiday fireworks, and an occasional show. The 4th of July seems to have been one of the biggest days for the park then, and throughout much of its history. During the early 1880s many attractions began coming to the park and its amusement park status was already beginning to take hold. A steam boat was added to the pleasure grounds along with the first roller coaster. The first roller coaster was basically similar to those at other parks at the time, where a car ran down a hill on a track, then was pushed back up by some workers. Edward Andrews was still running the grounds at this time, although ultimately his aparent lack of gusto would eventually cause the park to change hands. Visitors were often unimpressed with his efforts, the condition of the grounds, and his inability to keep alcohol related problems at bay. Enter Mac Beach. By the early 1900s Mac Beach was running the midway at the park. He had lease the land he was using, and made some crucial changes for the park. Mac can be reguarded as the true father of Chippewa Lake Park, not only becasue of the changes he made, but becasue he eventually assisted in the creation of Parker Beach (his son) who would run Chippewa Lake during its glory days. Mac, who brought the first caresouel to the park, would head the park in the direction it needed at this time. He outlawed Whiskey on the grounds. Overall, Mac made many changes that would carry the park through much of the century. I will detail the rest of the histoy one of these days... but basically Parker takes over the park. Runs it really well with great personality for years. Eventually leaves the park and sells it to continental business enterprises (in 1969). CBE has big plans for the park as can be seen from the flyer posted on the main page. The plans never develop for a few reasons. CBE stops putting money in to the existing park. People start going to bigger parks like Cedar Point, Geauga Lake, etc. Chippewa Lake Park closes its doors at the end of the 1978 season. I'll try to get a complete detailed history together one of these days. Sorry for the delay.