Idora Park and Playland-at-the-Beach: Bay Area Amusement Parks of a Bygone Era

View the full episode transcript.

This story originally published September 15, 2022. It has been updated to reflect that Six Flags now owns California’s Great America and in 2024 it announced that the park will close after the 2027 season.

While the rest of the country cools off and settles into fall, the Bay Area has a couple of months of warm weather that seem designed for a trip to an old-fashioned amusement park. For generations Bay Area residents have sought fresh air, community and thrills. Many of these parks are gone now, and their ultimate demise was the result of a very Bay Area problem: sky-high real estate values.

A center of culture in Oakland

Oakland was a city on the move at the turn of the century. Still a few years from the automobile becoming ubiquitous, the city bustled with kinetic energy from bicycles, pedestrians and streetcars.

A group of business and property owners who called themselves the Realty Syndicate owned most of the streetcars and the land they ran over. Commuters used the trolleys on weekdays, but on the weekends there wasn’t much happening around Oakland that necessitated a streetcar ride.

The Realty Syndicate came up with a strategy to increase weekend ridership and the value of land it owned in North Oakland — a parcel bordered by Telegraph and Shattuck avenues to the east and west, and 58th and 56th streets to the north and south. There was already a sleepy neighborhood park there, called Ayala Park, but Realty Syndicate had big plans for it.

The syndicate leased Ayala Park to Ingersoll Amusements, who built a beautiful amusement park destination for Oaklanders. They named it Idora Park and opened its doors to the public in 1903. Visitors could conveniently reach it by riding the trolleys owned by the syndicate.

For the price of admission, just $0.10, visitors could access Idora Park’s beautifully landscaped grounds with many attractions and exhibits on display.

“There were a huge number of things that would get people thinking about new technologies,” said amusement park historian TJ Fisher. “They had an experience that showed you what a coal mine was like.” Concessions and some of the rides cost a little extra, and Idora Park had swings, slides, a bandstand, a scenic railway and a pool, which was segregated.

Recounting his life story to the Bancroft Library in Berkeley, native Oaklander and Olympic gold medalist Archie Williams remembered being barred from joining his friends at the Idora Park pool because of a sign that read “No Blacks Allowed!”

After the 1906 earthquake, the Realty Syndicate used Idora Park as a home base to house and support several thousand refugees fleeing the destruction in San Francisco. In the years that followed, the park became an informal community center where demonstrations, performances and political rallies took place.

“It was really a center of culture in Oakland before we had as many public city parks as we do today,” Fisher said. “It was something everybody would have known.”

The neighborhood around Idora Park continued to grow in popularity, and land values in the area started to rise. “At the end of 1928 it was announced that the [Realty Syndicate] was going to subdivide the park, and sell it as real estate,” Fisher said. Idora Park closed and, by the end of 1929, was demolished. Homes quickly went up, the first in Oakland with underground plumbing, and many of them are still standing today.

“There’s no sign there was ever an amusement park there,” Fisher said of the now quiet neighborhood just north of the 24 freeway. “Which is a real shame, because it was an important part of civic life in Oakland for so long.”

San Francisco’s very own beachside attraction

Ocean Beach was already a popular — though hard-to-reach — destination for San Franciscans at the turn of the 20th century. The Cliff House restaurant and nearby Sutro Baths attracted people with the means to make the trip west, but when the city’s trolleys reached the western part of the city, the makeup of the neighborhood began to shift.

Almost immediately vendors and concessions began popping up on the beach to take advantage of the tourist traffic. Over a decade or so, a small, disorganized amusement park began to assemble at Ocean Beach.

“In 1914 they actually put in the merry-go-round down there. That was the Looff’s Hippodrome,” said historian Jim Smith, author of San Francisco’s Playland at the Beach: The Early Years and San Francisco’s Playland at the Beach: The Golden Years. Other attractions like Shoot-the-Chutes — a primitive log flume ride — soon popped up, and the park gained popularity. Within a few years a businessman named John Friedle stepped in with financial investments and big ideas for the area now known by residents as “Chutes-at-the-Beach.”

“Friedle wanted to make a first-rate park out of it,” Smith said. He expanded the park’s offerings, building the famous 65-foot-high Big Dipper roller coaster. He eventually stepped aside, and in 1926 George Whitney took over and gave the park the name that would stick: “Playland-at-the-Beach.”

Playland-at-the-Beach becomes beloved

Under Whitney, the various independent concessionaires began to work together. “They made it free to get in,” said Smith. “There were no gates, and if you had a dime or a quarter, you could put it toward a ride.

Rides like the Skyliner, the Big Dipper, Dodg ‘Em, the Scrambler, the Twister and the Diving Bell thrilled guests over the years, but one quirky attraction called the Fun House etched itself into the memory of Bay Area resident Jeanne Lawton, who would often go to Playland-at-the-Beach in the 1960s.

“The scariest thing about going into the Fun House when wearing a skirt was the air holes in the floor,” Lawton said, referring to something pretty unsavory: Seemingly at random, jets of air would burst up from the floor, riffling the skirts of unsuspecting women. One night, Lawton and her friends figured out what was actually going on.

“I happened to look up in the balcony and saw a guy that was working there grinning from ear to ear,” she said. The man would wait until women walked over the air holes, “and then he would hit the button,” she said.

Lawton has fond memories, too. Playland owner George Whitney invented the famous Its-It ice cream sandwich.

“They made their own oatmeal cookies,” Lawton remembered fondly, “and then put a scoop of vanilla ice cream in between the cookies, dipped it in hot chocolate and handed it to you to eat right away.”

Playland’s slow decline

During the Great Depression, many of Playland’s independently owned concessionaires struggled to stay open as attendance at the park dwindled. George Whitney bought up many of those concessions, gaining control of much of the park. He was known as the “Barnum of the Golden Gate,” and his beachside attractions thrived until his death in 1958.

The Whitneys also purchased the Cliff House, Sutro Baths and additional plots nearby for future expansion.

Whitney’s son used his experience at Playland to help Walt Disney design some of the queues on the earliest attractions at Disneyland. He was Disneyland employee No. 7 and has a window bearing his name on Main Street, U.S.A. After his father’s death, he returned to San Francisco to run Playland himself. After a few years of conflict with his mother over how the park should be run, Whitney Jr. stepped aside.

In 1972, a developer named Jeremy Ets-Hokin bought the park, closed it and unceremoniously tore it down. “The developer wanted to build condos up there,” Smith said. “Everyone hated him in the city because, the way they saw it, he stole Playland from them. No one wanted to see Playland go, except the ones who wanted the money.”

Amusement parks still struggle to survive here

Only a few amusement parks remain in operation in the Bay Area today: Six Flags Discovery Kingdom in Vallejo, Children’s Fairyland in Oakland and California’s Great America in Santa Clara. Six Flags, the operator of California’s Great America, announced in 2024 that they’ll close the park after the 2027 season.

Luckily, some quirky souvenirs from Playland still exist. At the Santa Cruz Beach Boardwalk, you’ll find a rare Wurlitzer organ from Playland still in operation. At the Musée Mécanique on San Francisco’s Pier 45, you can still hear animatronic Laffing Sal’s eerie cackle. And a collector named Marianne Stevens purchased the original carousel from Looff’s Hippodrome. At 116 years old, the LeRoy King Carousel, as it’s now known, is part of the Children’s Creativity Museum in Yerba Buena Gardens. There you can still climb aboard a genuine wooden horse, and race to victory with your family and friends.

Episode Transcript

Katrina Schwartz: Try to imagine the first time you saw the lights of an amusement park twinkling in the night sky…

To me those lights meant fun with my family, fried food and rides! Although to be honest, I’ve always had a little bit of a weak stomach for them. 

Throughout the last 100 years or so, amusement parks like Marine World, Neptune’s Beach, Great America, and Discovery Kingdom have dotted the landscape here in the Bay Area … a few are still around, but most have closed for good. In a few years, California’s Great America in Santa Clara will become the next to close its gates.

This week we remember two amusement parks that have etched themselves into the imaginations of generations of Bay Area residents….Idora Park in Oakland, and San Francisco’s Playland at the Beach. This episode first aired in 2022, but we’re bringing it back to celebrate the end of summer. I’m Katrina Schwartz. You’re listening to Bay Curious.

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Katrina Schwartz: This week on Bay Curious, we look back at Bay Area amusement parks of yesteryear. Here’s reporter Christopher Beale.

Christopher Beale: In the early 1900s, Oakland was bustling with activity. The Model-T was still a few years away so cars weren’t super commonplace yet. The streets buzzed with bicycle and trolley traffic. The main streetcar around Oakland in those days was the San Francisco, Oakland, and San Jose Railway (SFOSJR), which later became the Key System. The streetcar and the land it ran on was owned by the very mob-sounding “Realty Syndicate.”

TJ Fisher: An impossibly evil name for a corporation.

Christopher Beale: This is TJ Fisher.

TJ Fisher: But the Realty syndicate was exactly what it sounded like.

Christopher: TJ grew up on the east coast. He now lives in the Castro in San Francisco and says he has loved and studied amusement parks, pretty much his entire life.

TJ Fisher: When I was in college, I wrote my thesis about different intersectional aspects of the way people enjoyed amusement parks over time and how that reflected other elements of culture.

Christopher Beale: The way TJ tells it, this group of wealthy businessmen…

TJ Fisher: The Realty Syndicate.

Christopher Beale: Owned the trolley system, as well as a lot of land around Oakland. The trolleys were busy on the weekdays with commuters, but on the weekends…not so much. This presented a cash flow issue for the Syndicate…they thought if they could boost weekend ridership there might be other benefits down the line. The Syndicate owned a piece of land in what is now North Oakland, just north of where the 24 freeway crosses telegraph now…

TJ Fisher: Between 56th and 58th streets and Shaddock and Telegraph.

Christopher Beale: And they leased it to this company called Ingersoll Amusements. Ingersoll set out to create a beautiful destination for Oaklanders, and the Realty Syndicate put a streetcar stop nearby. In 1904, Idora Park was born, and was an instant hit with locals.

TJ Fisher: It was just about 10 cents admission fee to get in, which would be about $3 in today’s money. That’s a fantastic bargain when you think about what it costs to get into Great America or Disneyland today.

Christopher Beale: That admission got you into the more than 17 acre park where there were roller coasters, slides, swings, and all manner of concessions.

TJ Fisher: You got the beautifully landscaped grounds. You got some, but not all of the rides, there were a huge number of things on display that would really get people thinking about new technologies. They had an experience that showed you what a coal mine was like. So those kinds of things would be included and then concessions like a roller coaster, a carousel would cost extra.

Christopher Beale: There was also an opera house, animals, exhibits, and a pool.

TJ Fisher: It was really a center of culture in Oakland before we had as many public city parks as we do today, you would go to Idora to get outside. It was really something that everybody would’ve known.

Christopher Beale: But the Realty Syndicate…that’s the trolley company…had another motivation for making this part of Oakland a destination.

TJ Fisher: They had always hoped that the area around the park would grow and be considered desirable and they would be able to use the park for another purpose. So it was a huge shock when at the end of 1928, it was announced that the Realty trust was going to subdivide the park and sell it as real estate. And so, things were dismantled very quickly in, uh, early 1929. and now it’s a very residential neighborhood and there are no signs that there was ever an amusement park there.

Christopher Beale: When Idora Park was at its most popular in the early nineteen hundreds, another amusement park popped up just across the Bay at San Francisco’s Ocean Beach.

Like Idora Park, new trolley lines played a big role…food stands and small rides greeted passengers riding all the way to the Western end of the line. Soon, the ragtag park would become a beloved getaway for young and old alike.

Jim Smith: In 1914 they actually put in the, uh, merry-go-round there. And that was the Loof’s Hippodrome.

Christopher Beale:That’s Jim Smith.

Jim Smith: I’m the author of, San Francisco’s Playland at the beach the early years and a second book, the golden years.

Christopher Beale: Loof’s Hippodrome was this ornate carousel, shortly after it opened it this guy John Friedel bought in and brought big ideas to the area residents were calling Chutes-At-The-Beach.

Jim Smith: Friedel decided that he wanted to make a first rate park out of it. So in 1919, he went in and started building a lot of rides and people loved it. I mean, at that time there was nothing near like it anywhere else in the west coast.

Christopher Beale: George Whitney became the manager in 1926 and formally changed the name of the roughly three block area to Playland-at-the-Beach.

Jim Smith: Now, one of the smart things they did was they, uh, made it free to get in the park. There were no gates. You just go down there and If you got a quarter or you got a dime, you could put those towards a ride.

Sound of LAFFING SAL

Christopher Beale: That’s Laffing Sal, possibly the most iconic character to survive Playland at the Beach. More on that later. She was a sort of early animatronic…and this was way before Disneyland. She was located at the entrance to the Funhouse. Jeanne Lawton remembers visiting in the 60s.

Jeanne Lawton: And always the scariest thing about going into the funhouse when wearing a skirt was the airholes in the floor that randomly would blow a shot of air as you stepped over them. We girls would scream with delight and try to jump over them before they got us, but we never succeeded.

Christopher Beale: One night she and her girlfriends discovered the secret to that gag.

Jeanne Lawton: I distinctly remember the day that I happened to look up in the balcony and saw a guy that was working there grinning from ear to ear, and then he would hit the button.

Christopher Beale: The Playhouse was one of a whole selection of attractions available at the park. There were food vendors too, one of the more popular ones was actually invented by George Whitney in 1928. When he got the formula right he is said to have yelled “It’s…it!” the It’s-It was born.

Jeanne Lawton: Back then they made their own oatmeal cookies, and then put a scoop of vanilla ice cream in between the cookies, and then dipped it in hot chocolate and handed it to you to eat right away.

Christopher Beale: You can still buy It’s-Its at many west coast grocery stores in the freezer section. A Lot of the attractions and food stands at Playland at the Beach were independently owned and operated. Like small businesses.

Jim Smith: Bob’s roller coaster. The merry-go-round. The Whirlpool ride, which you’re sitting in a cage spinning around, was really fast. They had, uh, Dodger, it was originally, it was called Dodge him, and then it became Dodger and they didn’t ever call ’em bumper cars cuz they didn’t want you to slam ’em into each other. They had to repair ’em. The big dipper when they built that was really tall.

Christopher Beale: 65 feet…like a 7 story building.

Jim Smith:  And it had huge drops and long climbs. It was really an exciting ride and everybody wanted to ride that thing. By the way it had no seat belts, no bar, nothing to hang onto except the rail on each side. People did get hurt on that once in a while

Christopher Beale: Like the rides weren’t very safe were they?

Jim Smith:  No, there was no OSHA back then! 

Sound of the Diving Bell

Jim Smith: Diving bell was fun. It was a bell shaped thing. Once you get in, they bolt down the door, you know, tie it down, like in a, like in a submarine They had this 40 foot deep, well, and as you were going down, you’d see fish in there. I mean, it had sharks. It had, uh, Octupie. It had all kinds of different, uh, salt water animals. I think it was designed this way on purpose it leaked, and the guy was operating. It would say uh oh, uh, oh, we’re leaking here. We’re gonna sink. I’m not gonna be able to get this thing back up. He says, let’s see . If we can come up. Well, he’d pull the brakes off this thing. And it would Bob to the top, like a cork. Some people thought it was a riot and some people were scared to death.

Christopher Beale: During the great depression in the 30s, Whitney was able to consolidate power by buying out other concessions as they failed, and through this he garnered control of much of Playland-at-the-Beach. The Whitneys even bought the land Playland sat on, and nearby plots for future expansion. But then, in 1958, George Whitney died. Without him, Playland-At-The-Beach was rudderless and began to fail.

Jim Smith: They started pulling down the rides. They tore down the Big Dipper.

Christopher: The property itself fell into disrepair, and folks stopped visiting. Then in 1972, Whitney’s widow sold Playland-At-The-Beach to a developer.

Jim Smith:  They sold it to Jeremy Ets-Hokin.

Christopher Beale: Eventually the property’s new owner decided to close Playland.

Jim Smith: He wanted to build on it and he wanted to build these, uh, big condos up there. Everybody hated him in the city.

Christopher Beale in scene: Wait, why did people hate him?

Jim Smith: The way they saw it is he stole Playland from them. Nobody wanted to see a Playland go away except for the ones that wanted the money.

Christopher Beale: Ets-Hoken had the park torn down.

Jim Smith: He had no permission or anything. And then the city fathers got all ticked off. So they put a 10 year moratorium on building on that lot. So he was stuck with this thing. He paid a fortune for it, but he couldn’t do anything with it now.

Christopher Beale: The moratorium eventually ended. Today, those apartments that are various shades of pastels…and the Safeway on 48th Avenue, are where Playland-At-The-Beach… used to be. Thankfully, several important pieces of Playland survived the demolition. A pretty visible one is the big Wurlitzer organ at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. Of course there is Laffing Sal, at Pier 45’s Musee Mechanique and the original carousel from Loof’s Hippodrome is still around too. Today the Leroy King Carousel, as it’s now known, is operated by the Children’s Creativity Museum at Yerba Buena Gardens. 

Deyvi Solorzano: Key in the ignition. Bell time.

Bell rings. Overhead announcement: Welcome to the Leroy King Carousel! While the ride is in motion please remain seated facing forward.

Christopher Beale: Okay. So I heard that earlier and I thought it was a recording. I didn’t realize that was actually you saying that.

Deyvi Solorzano: That’s me. Yeah. My name is Deyvi Solorzano. I’m the operations and events coordinator here. carousel operator, amongst many other things.

Christopher Beale:Is it crazy to stand here every day and operate something that is like several lifetimes older than you like that has been around all this time and people have cared for it. And now it’s in your hands?

Deyvi Solorzano: Yeah. It’s a really cool job. Um, it’s not even a job. I don’t even, I I’m, I’m literally just here. This is not a job. 

Christopher Beale: Yeah. Don’t, don’t tell them, you’ll do it for free though.

Deyvi Solorzano: Yeah, no, I won’t say that. 

Christopher Beale: Idora Park closed 90 years ago…Playland has been gone almost 50 years. There are no pieces of Idora Park remaining, but these tangible memories of Playland-At-The-Beach, like organs, carousels, and weird carnival attractions like Laffing Sal will live on under the watchful eye of their caretakers. Allowing the next generation of thrill seekers, and those chasing nostalgia another trip back in time.

Katrina Schwartz: That was reporter Christopher Beale. Thanks to David Gallagher, Mike Winslow and Carol Tang for their help with this story.

We’ve got pictures galore of these old parks on our website … be sure to check them out at BayCurious.org. And while you are there, take a moment to vote in our August voting round.

Here are your choices:

Voice 1: How did Telegraph Avenue in Berkeley and Oakland become such a hub of East African cuisine?

Voice 2: What was South San Francisco “the birthplace of biotechnology,” and why is it still home to so much of the biotech industry today? Why didn’t it develop closer to universities in Palo Alto or Berkeley?

Voice 3: What’s the history of the concrete ruins in American Canyon right off Highway 29?

Katrina Schwartz: These three are neck and neck right now…but there’s still time to make your voice heard. Go to Bay Curious dot org to cast your vote.

Our team will be off next week for Labor Day, but we’ll be back with a brand new episode on September 11th.

Bay Curious is made in San Francisco at member-supported KQED.

Our show is produced by Gabriela Glueck, Christopher Beale and me, Katrina Schwartz.

With extra support from Maha Sanad, Katie Sprenger, Jen Chien, Ethan Toven-Lindsey and everyone on team KQED. Thanks for listening.