While some Luna Parks (such as Cleveland and Pittsburgh) opening to sizable success, the monetary demands of constantly maintaining and updating rides and other attractions led Ingersoll to declare bankruptcy in 1908.Īs a result of bankruptcy proceedings, the Cleveland flagship park was sold to one of the investors of the Luna Park Amusement Company, Matthew Bramley, owner of the Cleveland Trinidad Paving Company (at the time the world's largest paving company). The first two, Cleveland and Pittsburgh - the 36th and 37th parks designed and made by Ingersoll Company - ignited an explosion of park building worldwide, with Luna Parks (both associated with Ingersoll and those having no such connection) being spread around the world. By 1904, the Luna Park Amusement Company was formed with investor help.Īfter the 1905 opening of Indianola Park in Columbus, Ohio, Ingersoll turned his attention to his proposed Luna Park chain. With the success of the Ingersoll parks (and that of Coney Island's Luna Park, which opened the same year), Ingersoll conceived of an amusement park chain, featuring establishments both individually and collectively named Luna Park.

Two early successes, Riverside Amusement Park in Indianapolis and Rocky Glen Park near Moosic, Pennsylvania, were trolley parks designed, built, and opened by Ingersoll by 19 respectively. Ingersoll also designed and built another ride that many parks presented as their signature attraction, the Shoot-the-Chutes water ride, a type that has since evolved into the modern log flume that many current parks feature.īy 1901, Ingersoll and his company broadened their scope from designing and building amusement park rides to designing and building amusement parks themselves. In the 1890s, he designed (and the Ingersoll Construction Company built) roller coasters - mainly the type now known as ' figure eight' coasters like the first one to be installed in Kennywood Park (1902) - and scenic railroads (originally called ' Russian Mountains' as the type originated in Europe). His 1900 United States census form described his occupation as a 'coin machine proprietor,' but his manufacturing company did more than just sell vending machines: they made them and amusement park rides as well. By 1900, he had moved to Glenfield, Pennsylvania, a community on the Ohio River near Pittsburgh. Ingersoll was born in New Jersey, one of five brothers. Some of these parks and roller coasters still exist today.

Frederick Ingersoll (1876 – October 23, 1927) was an American inventor, designer, builder and entrepreneur who created the world's first chain of amusement parks (known collectively as ' Luna Parks' regardless of their actual name) and whose manufacturing company built 277 roller coasters, fueling the popularity of trolley parks in the first third of the twentieth century.

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