Let’s Jump and Jive and Take a Ride at Ravine Park Tonight! Part 1

In the City of Fairmont, W.V., with the coal industry spurring on a growth of business and more and more people relocating here, something needed to be done about the entertainment in town. There wasn’t much for the whole family to enjoy. Sure, they had the Grand Opera house, with the burlesque dancers and vaudeville acts. The Hippodrome with pretty much the same, and movies were starting. A few men in the City were dealing with the answer to this problem.

They needed something for the whole family to enjoy and plenty of room so it could be grand. To help this to happen, the seven acres from Coal Run Hollow to Locust Ave would be perfect. The City agreed to lease it to the company now formed, The Ravine Amusement Co. The company envisioned a grand amusement park where people would travel near and far. With this, the company would profit, the City would benefit, and individuals that bought into it would gain. Upstart capital needed would be from private investors and stock to be sold to the public. Below is the original offering that came in the newspaper. 10.00 was all it took to be part of what was indeed to be a member of one of the most significant undertakings in Fairmont.

With the money taken care of, the next phase was to get the ok to erect permanent buildings on the property. The company wanted to ensure that what was done here would provide entertainment all year. I could not state any better than what was written below how this would change the face of Fairmont.

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Furthermore, it would not just be an amusement park but a gathering place to meet up with family and friends, relax, enjoy a cool drink, and catch up. It would be a worthwhile profit-making business for the City. The masses that come will hopefully go home and relate what a great city Fairmont was and bring in a new population to work and live in the town. Labor will gain new employees, and the City will prosper. Everything was going quite smoothly. The pavilion was erected for the dances, singers, and bands to perform at.

The concession stands are assembled and filled to the brim with lemonades, colas, and sweet treats. Laborers were working on a large pool so patrons could dip in and cool off on hot days. A skating rink built for adventurous roller skaters. A large Autortorium where various concerts and favorite vaudeville acts could perform.

As much as this sounded like the best place in town that you could ever imagine, not everyone felt that way.

Moreover, they would try everything in their power to stop it. Many citizens in Fairmont liked having the park just as it was. They loved walking thru the area and enjoyed the singing of the birds, the smell of flowers, and the coolness of the trees. For them, it was already a haven.

Nature was their happy place, and they feared with the erection of the park, it would be ruined.

They feared it would be replaced with noise, fumes, trash, and undesirables. This new creation would be not only bad for nature but the moral fiber of the City. Even with all the objections, the park was becoming a reality.

Fairmont at the time had many social clubs such as the Elks, the Knights of Columbus, the YMCA and the YWCA, and one that always helped many causes in town and the women it was comprised of the Business and Professional Women’s Club, which is still around today but called just the Woman’s Club of Fairmont.

The Elks would, over the period of the park, hold dances almost every week, and the Business and Professional Women’s Club would sponsor dances for a cause. In 1922, they helped support a little girl named Rosie Seculla, who had been in an accident and lost both her arms. They threw dances and raffles to help with her medical cost, and eventually, she could have artificial arms made in Chicago.

Since the park was opened in the Prohibition era, no drinking of strong liquor was permitted. Speaking of raffles, the park was raided just after opening in 1921, where the police had been alerted to illegal gambling games. They found such gaming as chicken raffles, candy raffles, basket raffles, and cushion games [like bingo]. They were all ordered to be shut down.

There were many, many more surprises to come to this park. Let’s say rides were involved. There is so much more to this story that I could not fit it all into one blog, so this is the end of Part 1 of “Let’s Jump and Jive and Take a Ride in Ravine Park Tonight”!

In part 2 of this blog, next week, you will be amazed at what was yet to occupy the park and how the city threw its support big time into the park. With all this and more, I’m afraid to say it did not have a happy ending.

I will publish a new weekly blog containing more Fairmont and Marion County history. If there is a topic you may want to explore more, please comment below, and I will research it. Please comment below, letting me know if you did or didn’t like this article. It helps me improve with your suggestions.

Thank you for taking the time to read my blog, and remember: History is the spine of America; not learning from it would make us collapse and fall!