Funk's Park (A.K.A. Forest Park) |
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| Posted- Sort of. | Patrolled- Nope, but local police still drive by. | Location- Chalfont, Pa | ||
| Danger Level- Low | Dangers- Some debris, but mostly just a walk in the woods. | |||
| Cool Factor- 3 | Haunted- Nope | Visits- 1 | ||
| Some history about the Forest Park- .Its beginnings
as a place of amusement may be traced back to April 2, 1885 when Isaac F.
Funk (1850-1911), a Mennonite farmer from New Britain Township purchased
the former 80-acre Charles Eckhart farm along Ferry Road, east of town, with
the intent of establishing a picnic grove enterprise with amusements. Funk
had big plans for his property, and constructed a dam on the Pine Run Creek
for boating and fishing. He also erected a dining pavilion, a dancing pavilion
and box swings for use by his patrons. On June 27, 1885 Funk’s Park (also known variously as Forrest Park and Funk’s Forest Park) officially opened for the public, with addresses given by Doylestown lawyers John D James, Esq., and J.F. Hendricks, Esq., with music furnished by the Chalfont Cornet Band under the direction of Professor Bruner. A large crowd was in attendance. Funk, who invested much of his profits into local real estate, two years later acquired the adjacent 61-acre William Biddle farm (also known as the Oakford farm) along the eastern edge of the park for future expansion. Almost immediately Funk promoted his park to area churches, schools, family reunions and civic groups. Known as a railroad park, because of its close proximity to the Doylestown branch of the Reading Company, Forest Park played host during the summer months to special Philadelphia and Reading passenger excursions. Trains as long as six to ten cars each, would drop off passengers along the lay-off siding at the park boardwalk that led into the park. In an effort to attract patrons, Funk began to expand his entertainment offerings during the closing years of the century by installing steam-operated amusements. About 1887 a “Flying Circus” ride was in operation at the park, which was a crude early open-air merry-go-round. Funk later purchased a second-hand German carousel with band organ from a Washington, D.C. park, and in December 1890 he erected a permanent building for the carousel in the western section of the park near the North Branch of the Neshaminy Creek. On July 15, 1893, a figure-eight toboggan slide, or early side-friction roller coaster, opened adjacent to the carousel, and remained in operation until the late 1930’s. When Chalfont Borough was incorporated in 1901, Funk’s Park was reclassified for the mercantile tax as a confections vendor. That same year, the road between Route 152 and Ferry Road was renamed Park Avenue to commemorate the amusement park. About this time the Chalfont United Methodist Church maintained a small baptismal pool in the Pine Run Creek. A banked bicycle track for racing also soon appeared, and a field for playing baseball was one of the first to appear in New Britain Township. Dancing to orchestral accompaniment and lively cakewalk competitions were frequent entertainment offerings. Visitors could pose for souvenir snapshots captured by photographer Craven, and several concessions opened along the midway offering ice cream, soft drinks, cigars, cigarettes, candies, postcards and other novelties. In 1899 a grandstand was erected for fans of baseball games; later this building served as the Penny Arcade, replete with coin-operated games of chance and amusements. The original 30’ x 100’ bowling alley later served as a combination Park Auditorium and picnic pavillion. A new bowling alley was built in the early 1920’s adjacent to the arcade. the park’s good fortunes were soon met with a setback. Its proprietor, Issac Funk, was struck by a severe case of pneumonia and died on February 12, 1911. Funk was interred in the New Britain Baptist Church graveyard, where he and his wife had been members since 1897. His widow Levina and son Sylvester continued to run the park well into the 1920’s. In March 1927 the Funk estate sold the 105-acre park to Emmanuel Kolb, an affluent Philadelphia industrialist and a relative of the Funk family. Kolb spent almost a half million dollars in improvements, and added a restaurant and a large concrete swimming pool to lure Philadelphia patrons tired of city heat. Completed in June 1928 by John S. Bailey and Brother of Doylestown, it measured 75 x 150 feet, with a capacity of 450,000 gallons of water, drawn principally from the Neshaminy Creek and equipped with modern filtration methods for water purification. With over 500 bath houses, slides, diving boards, diving towers, ladders and a sand beach, it cost $100,000 to build and was one of the largest concrete pools in the country at that time. He also built a new paved entrance at the east end of the property, to allow parking for hundreds of patrons who chose to enter from Route 202 and Bristol Road, avoiding the highway railroad crossing and the awkward Park Avenue entrance on the north side of the park. A new rest station for nursing infants was built along the ball field; it later became the park office. Concessions and games of chance included a milk bottle game and fish pond catch. Sixty new boats were placed on the Pine Run, new playgrounds, comfort stations and spacious rest rooms rounded out the latest improvements. Prior to Kolb’s ownership, the park was without electricity and still relied on steam power! During World War II, Forest Park was in its glory years and Lusse increased attendance through various promotional events. Hollywood stars such as Jimmy Durante, Mae West, Ed McMahon, Marlene Dietrich, Van Johnson, and boxer Joe Louis made appearances. With swelling numbers of employees due to defense contracts, many of the companies used trains to transport their picnickers. The Budd Manufacturing Company needed twelve trains of fifteen cars each to transfer its 45,000 workers to the park. To avoid any problems caused by the serving of alcohol, Mr. Edward G. Budd paid for the closing of all local taverns on the day of the outing. Other large corporations, including Merck, Sharpe & Dohme; Heintz Manufacturing Corporation; Ford Motor Company; Philco Corporation; and the Campbell Soup Company, used the park as well. Forest Park’s slogan became the place “Where Most Picnics Go.” In the 1940’s, the Philadelphia Mummers’ string bands were the major attractions. Usually at the end of the summer season, the bands performed a finale, and in 1947 President Harry S. Truman kicked off that closing ceremony. In many respects the 1940s were the glory years for Forest Park. The picnic business was booming. Through his many contacts in the amusement park industry, Lusse introduced many new rides to the park during his tenure, including a large 60’ Dentzel carousel housed in a spacious new building constructed in 1937, a Mangels Whip, a Traver Octopus, a Traver Frolic (relocated from Pontchartrain Beach in New Orleans), Lusse Auto Skooters, a Rocket Airship ride, a home-built minature train ride (using cars from the Mountain Alps Scenic Railway at Willow Grove Park), a Traver Rollo Plane, a Rocket ride, and an Eli Ferris Wheel. The midway showcased numerous novelty booths, a Trading Post, a Shooting Gallery, a Skee Ball Alley, a Chief Tamenend Exhibit, bird cage, light lunch pavilions, refreshment stands, spotted flower beds, ten pavilions and numerous picnic groves with cement benches and tables made impervious to flooding, with a total seating capacity for 10,000. A special area with children’s rides was designated as the Kiddie Koral. Pony rides and athletic events near the baseball diamond were popular affairs. A bird-dog-and-monkey show was presented at the Bandshell stage by George Roberts every Sunday afternoon. Harry Swartley served as General Manager from 1945 until 1953. The Forest Park illuminations were among the most fascinating attractions at the park. The nighttime illuminations, which were located at seventeen locations throughout the park, represented various storybook and fairytale characters: Humpty Dumpty, Jack and Jill, Mary Mary Quite Contrary, Uncle Sam, Little Red Riding Hood and many others. Electric lighting controlled the illuminations’ moveable parts and, therefore, demanded artistic workmanship in the construction of the lighted characters. In addition to Pleasure Beach at Blackpool, England, Forest Park was the only park in the world to feature these visual wonders. Unfortunately the illuminations were ruined in 1947 when a barn in which they were stored on the park grounds caught fire. But perhaps the most popular amusement from this period was the swan ride on the Pine Run Creek. The price for a swan ride was five cents for children and ten cents for adults. Twenty-three of these rides were built and assembled during the winter months in the park auditorium and stables from the 1930’s through the 1950’s by Lusse’s Swan Ride Associates for amusement parks around the world. It won popular acclaim at the 1939 National Association of Amusement Parks & Pleasure Beaches convention for the most novel device. And it could be found at many of the finer parks around the country, including Palisades Park in Palisades, NJ; Willow Grove Park; and at the New York World’s Fair, as throughout Europe and Canada as well. During the 1953 season, Frontiertown opened at the end of the minature railroad ride when it was extended across Pine Run Creek. It featured buildings such as an old bottle shop made of bottles, a barber shop, a dance hall, a fully-operating general store, the Silver Dollar Bar (replete with a year-round liquor license and a wagon wheel covered with actual silver dollars!), and a western-style restaurant. Later Lusse added a facsimile of Fort Dearborn and hired Chief One Star, a Cherokee Indian who lived on nearby Haycock Mountain, and Chief Halftown, a local television personality, to appear at the fort. Chief One Star’s activities gradually increased until he was entertaining groups of school children on a daily basis. The chief led the children through Frontiertown and the park on hunts for arrowheads, which were often found. He taught them how to identify trees and recognize various animal footprints. He also contributed many Indian artifacts for display at Frontiertown. And with twelve male and female Indian suits, Chief One Star and his tribe even staged mock holdups on the minature railway. Many of the problems could be attributed to poor management: extravagant spending, ill effects of the school board tax, disagreements among the various partners over direction, and little or no advertising. The park’s physical plant was run down and many rides were mechanically unsound or were rendered inoperable due to a lack of routine maintenance. On several occasions, the Ferris wheel would invariably break down and the Chalfont Fire Company was called in to rescue stranded passengers. To further complicate matters, a fire destroyed Frontiertown in the spring of 1964, and Lake Suzanne was condemned by the state board of health. With considerable debts owed, Forest Park finally closed for good at the end of 1964 season, never again to reopen. Many of the rides were old and decrepit and had little or no value to an outside buyer. In 1971 the property was condemned for a flood control project by Bucks County, as part of the anticipated construction of Lake Galena in New Britain Township. In the 1980’s, during the “Point Pleasant Project,” the North Wales and North Penn Water Authorities acquired the real estate for the construction of a water treatment plant, which was begun in 1989. Christened as Forest Park Water, it was erected on what was formerly the park’s baseball diamond, and opened in 1994. After years of struggle to resist residential development, only a small portion of the park property was ever developed into townhouses. But fortunately much of the original property still remains unspoiled, largely on floodplain, including the towering 250- to 300-year old majestic white oaks and maples, many of which date from the era of William Penn, the Lenni-Lenape tribes and the earliest settlers in the area. But the park’s history has not gone unforgotten. In an effort to preserve its history, the Friends of Forest Park was formed in 1984 by Chalfont resident John Malack. Preservation of the old oak trees, erection of a small museum and use of a portion of the grounds as a memorial picnic area are among the organization’s chief aims. An archeological dig performed in 1985 by the University of Pennsylvania unearthed many significant early Lenni-Lenape Indian artifacts, suggesting that the site is rich in Native American lore and culture. My Visits- Well, this is another place that my buddy "Drop Tool" told me about. So, one day we decided to take a trip during our lunch hour. At noon, Drop Tool, myself and our new explorer "B&E" set off for the Chalfont area of Bucks County, Pa. There really isn't much left of the old park. Once accross the bridge and waterfall, you can easily make out the paths that used to run through the park. Although they're covered with leaves, snow, etc., the asphalt can still be seen in a few places. What stands like headstones are many, many concrete "legs". They're actually the lages for the many beches and picnic tables that were all throughout the park grounds. We found one section that had rows and rows lined up. It resembled the seating arrangement that would be in front of a stage. Another section had a few tables that still had the wooden tops on them. Some more walking and we came up on what looked like rubble. On closer inspection, they appeared to be concrete anchors, the type used to anchor a ferris wheel or other large amusement ride. Drop Tool had been here a few years back and knew there was a year stamped on one of them. A few seconds and we found it- 1950. And that was pretty much it. There is a small lake on the other side of the bridge, but our lunch hour was quickly coming to a close. We had to hope back into ExplorerMobile (yup, I know that was corney) and head back. We'll check the lake out when it's a little warmer! |
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Built - 1885 Closed - 1964 |
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