Fontaine Ferry Park was an amusement park in

Louisville, Kentucky Louisville ( , , ) is the largest city in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the 28th most-populous city in the United States. Louisville is the historical seat and, since 2003, the nominal seat of Jefferson County, on the Indiana border ...

from 1905 to 1969. Located on 64 acres in western Louisville at the Ohio River, it offered over 50 rides and attractions, as well as a swimming pool, skating rink and theatre. The most popular attraction were its wooden roller coasters, of which 4 were built over the years. It was built on land originally part of Aaron Fontaine's estate and ferry landing, which he bought in 1814, and sold in 1887 to Thomas Landenwich, who built a hotel and other attractions there. The park opened to the public in May 1905. It was located at the western terminus of Market Street (originally Fontaine Ferry Road) at what is now Southwestern Parkway in Louisville's Shawnee neighborhood. Until the 1940s, visitors could travel to the park by steamboat from

Downtown Louisville Downtown Louisville is the largest central business district in the Commonwealth of Kentucky and the urban hub of the Louisville, Kentucky Metropolitan Area. Its boundaries are the Ohio River to the north, Hancock Street to the east, York and Jaco ...

. For nearly 60 years the park was off-limits to the city's African Americans. When the West End became integrated in the 1960s, the park remained as a constant reminder of Jim Crow to African Americans. The park became racially integrated in 1964, and was vandalized heavily during racial unrest on May 4, 1969. The nearby

Shawnee The Shawnee are an Algonquian-speaking indigenous people of the Northeastern Woodlands. In the 17th century they lived in Pennsylvania, and in the 18th century they were in Pennsylvania, Ohio, Indiana and Illinois, with some bands in Kentucky a ...

neighborhood had also been integrated, and

white flight White flight or white exodus is the sudden or gradual large-scale migration of white people from areas becoming more racially or ethnoculturally diverse. Starting in the 1950s and 1960s, the terms became popular in the United States. They refer ...

was occurring heavily there, especially after the 1968 riots in the West End. The park was sold in 1969, and renamed Ghost Town on the River in 1972, then River Glen Park in 1975, its last season. Following several fires, the city purchased it in 1981. The 1910 carousel was relocated to Marriott's Great America near

Chicago (''City in a Garden''); I Will , image_map = , map_caption = Interactive Map of Chicago , coordinates = , coordinates_footnotes = , subdivision_type = Country , subdivision_name ...

the next year and reopened as the ''

Ameri-Go-Round The Ameri-Go-Round was the name given to two carousels, one at each of Marriot's Great America amusement parks, Six Flags Great America in Gurnee, Illinois and California's Great America in Santa Clara, California. Marriott's Great America park ...

''. Fontaine Ferry has been cited bitterly as a reminder of

racial segregation Racial segregation is the systematic separation of people into race (human classification), racial or other Ethnicity, ethnic groups in daily life. Racial segregation can amount to the international crime of apartheid and a crimes against hum ...

in Louisville. It was located between two public parks and, prior to racial integration, one was designated for Whites (

Shawnee Park Shawnee Park is a municipal park in Louisville, Kentucky. It was designed by Frederick Law Olmsted, who designed 18 of the city's 123 public parks. Along with the rest of the city's Olmsted-designed park system, Shawnee Park was added to the Nati ...

) and the other for Blacks ( Chickasaw Park). It is now the site of a residential development called Fontaine Estates, where houses were first sold in 1996. The $1.2 million Shawnee Park Sports Complex was built on the former Fontaine Ferry site in 1997.

References

{{Reflist Aubespin, Mervin, Kenneth Clay, and J. Blaine Hudson. ''Two Centuries of Black Louisville''

External links

Memories of Fontaine Ferry Park
— Memories of Fontaine Ferry Park

— Photos of the Park in operation
Images of Fontaine Ferry Park
- from the University of Louisville Libraries Digital Collections 1905 establishments in Kentucky 1969 disestablishments in Kentucky Defunct amusement parks in the United States Former buildings and structures in Louisville, Kentucky

See also

References

External links