A Playful Theme

Theme parks, past and present, of the Adirondacks.

Story and photos by Josh Schermerhorn

In 1955, Walt Disney opened Disneyland in Anaheim, C.A., a park themed to entertain families in a fun nature.  Before creating the legendary park, however, Disney visited a small park in Wilmington, N.Y. called Santa’s Workshop to get ideas for Mickey’s new home.  Though Disney took his ideas into a global phenomenon, the Adirondacks are full of small parks that have grown and evolved over time.

Disney traveled to the North Pole in search of his ideas, where the remnants of Santa’s creations can be found at Santa’s Workshop.  Created in 1949 by Lake Placid entrepreneur Julian Reiss, and revolutionary designer Arto Monaco, the small village of North Pole-themed houses has attracted thousands of fans. 

“It’s the forerunner for the modern-day theme park,” says general manager Matt Stanley.

The site, located near Whiteface Mt., quickly began to generate interest among people around the country, appearing in more than 700 articles nationwide.  In the 1950’s, the park began to donate gifts to needy children from New York City to Washington, D.C. 

"It’s a magical place to come to.”

The park is still active today with the Yuletide Family Weekend program, dedicated to fun family entertainment.

"It’s a magical place to come to,” Stanley says. “It’s a pleasure to work here and we still bring joy to thousands of kids. The magic still lives. There’s no doubt.”

Although Santa’s Workshop may be the blueprint for the theme park, it did not turn out to be the biggest in the area. That honor goes to a theme-park-turned-commercial amusement park named Storytown, U.S.A., in Lake George, N.Y. 

Built by theme-park wizard Charley Wood, the park opened in 1954, based on Mother Goose nursery rhymes.  The park actually opened before Disney World, making it the first attraction of its kind.

“It was exactly what I remember it being: Storytown,” says Lake George native Nikki Measeck. “It was a wonderful and magical place to take your kids.  Characters like Cinderella would make children light up. It was fresh; it was real. It definitely touched you personally.”

People found a unique satisfaction about visiting the park.

“As kids, it was before television and computer games, there was a certain level of entertainment that you couldn’t get in your neighbor’s house in the backyard,” says Lake George native Brent Humphrey. “You were somewhat taken aback by something like that, and it was a treat to go to. It was something new and novel to the area.”

“Right down the road, you had this great park that you had access to, everyone wanted to have an opportunity to go there. And if you went there once, you felt like you needed to come back to get the full experience. With Wood constantly expanding it, you wanted to see what was new in it.”

“You were somewhat taken aback by something like that, and it was a treat to go to. It was something new and novel to the area.”

However, the park changed to the Great Escape in 1983, adapting an amusement park theme rich with big rides and crowds. Though the park has moved on to become a product of Six Flags, the traces of Storytown remain at the front gate of the park, and inside with small attractions still available to guests.

“Even though the remnants of it are left, Six Flags doesn’t draw me there,” Measeck says.

Due to the success of Storytown, Wood was able to create Gaslight Village, a small amusement park near Fort William Henry in Lake George. Based on Monaco’s design, Gaslight included many famous rides like a Ferris wheel, bumper cars, a merry-go-round, and a scrambler. 

“The biggest thing I remember about it was when you came into the town, that’s what you saw. You saw the lights and the rides, and in particular the big Ferris wheel,” Measeck says.

Unlike the miraculous wonders of Storytown, Gaslight did not hold the attention of the locals.

“It had a couple rides and some buildings to go in and look at cool cars, but as a local there wasn’t much of anything that would kept drawing me back,” Humphrey says.

The park closed in 1989, becoming a small Go-Kart track. The park is now vacant and all that remains are old buildings and skeletons of rides that entertained children and adults alike. Many items from the park have been auctioned off, and money from the sales has been donated by Wood and his foundation.

Those some of these parks have become larger or different attractions over the years, leaving behind decades of original creativity and entertainment.  Some of them have been deserted, leaving people only memories of the fun the parks once provided.

What's your favorite theme park?