Today in History—June 16: The “Scenic Railway” Roller Coaster Opens
The slightly grim inspiration for the first roller coaster in America: gravity-driven railways hauling coal cars through the Pennsylvania mountains.
And it was a Sunday schoolteacher who didn’t approve of many amusements in the first place who took the idea and made it a sensation.
On this day in 1884, the Gravity Pleasure Switchback Railway, the wooden contraption generally considered to have been America’s first roller coaster, opened at Coney Island. It featured two tracks that ran parallel to each other in opposite directions, and it propelled riders up and down and around at a whopping speed of 6 miles per hour.
It opened to a huge crowd, and they were not disappointed. It was such a success that the attraction paid for itself in three weeks.
Unlike other early roller coasters in America, this one was purpose-built for entertainment. Previous thrill rides had been adapted from abandoned rail lines—coal service leftovers that had fallen out of use and been repurposed by clever companies.
Just like the one in Mauch Chunk, Pennsylvania, an 18-mile route with a 665-foot drop, that inventor LaMarcus Adna Thompson had taken a ride on. But Thompson saw not a relic of the coal industry but a possibility for family fun. He ran with the idea, riffing on a design by another inventor (who might’ve been inspired by the ice slides of Russia) to make his Switchback Railway coaster.
There have been reported sightings of Thompson’s ghost at Coney Island.
Riders climbed a set of stairs and boarded benches that faced outward (hence the “Scenic Railway” nickname). At the halfway point, passengers had to climb another platform and board cars traveling in the opposite direction to finish the ride.
The ride’s success launched an industry, and Thompson went on to build an empire of roller coasters, designing at least 50 across Europe and North America. He helped make the roller coaster synonymous with amusement parks.
By the time the Great Depression rolled around (see what I did there?), wooden coasters—and discretionary spending—had fallen out of fashion. After World War II, the money returned, but so did the availability of steel, and we lurched and dropped and jerked our way to the modern behemoth coasters we have today.
- 5 cents: Cost per ride
- ~$600 a day: Profit from rides on the “Scenic Railway”
- 30+: Roller-coaster tech patents held by Thompson
- 1963: Soviet cosmonaut Valentina Tereshkova becomes the first woman in space
- 1978: NASA and the NOAA’s GOES-3 weather satellite launches
- 2012: Liu Yang becomes the first Chinese woman in space
