America's oldest amusement park finds new life

BRISTOL, Conn. -- Tom Wages, a 25-year veteran of the amusement park industry, recalls the day when he first strolled through the grounds of America's oldest continually operating amusement park here.

"There were weeds growing up through the pavement and the paint was peeling off buildings," says Wages, who has been general manager of 157-year-old Lake Compounce since 1997.

On that particular day, Wages was an outsider looking in at what once was a thriving summer resort at the foot of Compounce Mountain in central Connecticut. Having struggled in previous years, every indicator in 1996 pointed to a park on its deathbed. Lake Compounce had run the gamut and was on the brink of collapse, a fate hundreds of the nation's older traditional amusement parks had already met.

Saving a national treasure

The park didn't open for the season in 1992, but the property maintained its title as "America's Oldest (Continually) Operating Amusement Park" only because a group of volunteers managed to operate the facility for one day that summer. But saving this national treasure would take an entirely different approach, one which only a handful of individuals in this unique industry were probably qualified to tackle.

"The park had been family owned for 140 years," Wages points out.

A transition started in the mid-1980s when a corporation took over the property and started to update the infrastructure. But that transition fell short of bringing the park back and that company soon put Lake Compounce back up for sale..

In April 1996, Kennywood Entertainment, which operates historic Kennywood Park (1898) near Pittsburgh, became the new managing partner of Lake Compounce. Wages, who had managed successful park operations for years in western and upstate New York, was named general manager.

Around $50 million in new rides, attractions and physical improvements were immediately put into the park to lure guests back. But with all of the modern improvements, park officials were careful to maintain the identity of the old traditional park.

The park still features its ever-popular bumper cars, and the kiddyland section has a pony kart ride which has been delighting tots for half a century. 1/4

Thrill-seekers won't be disappointed as the park's new profile includes some of the biggest and best thrill rides available from throughout the United States and Europe. They include the topsy-turvy "Top Spin," built in Germany, a 100-foot Ferris wheel and a state-of-the-art dark ride called "Ghost Hunt."

The single largest investment in the rebirth of 325-acre Lake Compounce came in 2000 when the park installed "Boulder Dash," a one-of-a-kind wooden roller-coaster constructed on the mountainside. The $6 million ride was built into the rocky topography of the heavily wooded mountain.

"We were very careful in preserving the large trees in that area when the coaster went in," Wages says. "It was certainly a challenge getting the concrete footers set into the rocky terrain and construction crews had to literally hand-carry materials to the site."