Silver Beach Amusement Park

  Silver Beach County Park is a park located in St. Joseph, Michigan at the mouth of the St. Joseph River. It was formerly Silver Beach Amusement Park, an amusement park, which operated between 1891 and 1971. Silver Beach opened as a resort in 1891 when local businessmen in boat building Logan Drake and Louis D. Wallace built vacation cottages as Silver Beach Amusement and Realty Company along Lake Michigan. Construction of buildings such as a pavilion followed and were completed in 1896. After the park was established, two of the earliest aviators, Augustus Moore Herring and Logan Archbold Vilas, used the beach to experiment with aircraft, the latter being the first person to fly across Lake Michigan when he flew from Silver Beach to Chicago. The first roller coaster, Chase through the Clouds, opened in 1905; it was replaced in 1923 by another coaster, the Velvet (later "the Comet"). Also added in 1905 were a roller rink, with a pipe organ included in 1906, both firsts in th...