Kings Island

At a glance

Overview

Kings Island is a 364-acre amusement park between Interstate 71 and the Little Miami River in Mason, Warren County, about 24 miles northeast of downtown Cincinnati. It is the successor of Coney Island, a riverfront park on the Ohio River east of the city that began as James Parker's picnic grove in 1870 and was renamed after the New York resort in 1886. After a 1964 flood put Coney Island under 14 feet of water and actor Fess Parker announced a rival Kentucky theme park in 1968, the Schott-Wachs family that ran Coney Island sold it in July 1969 to Taft Broadcasting, which bought 1,600 acres in Deerfield Township, partly on the grounds of the old King Powder Company, and moved most of Coney Island's rides north. Kings Island opened on April 29, 1972, with John C. Allen's twin-track Racer, credited with reviving interest in wooden roller coasters, and in 1979 added The Beast, still the longest wooden coaster in the world. It has since passed through Kings Entertainment Company, American Financial, Paramount, Cedar Fair and, from 2024, Six Flags; the old Coney Island site closed for good after 2023.

The name

The name won a public naming contest held in 1970. It nods both to the nearby Kings Mills area and to the park's predecessor, Coney Island. (source)

Native American history

No Native village, mound or burial is recorded on the Kings Island grounds. The 1882 Warren County history held that no Native people had permanent towns in the county when Europeans arrived, while noting that the Miami claimed western Ohio, that the Shawnee settled at the headwaters of the two Miami rivers about ten years before the Revolutionary War, and that Miami leader Little Turtle ceded his nation's right to these lands at the Treaty of Greenville in 1795. The same writers' Deerfield Township chapter describes an unbroken forest crossed only by winding Native trails when settlers came. That 19th-century claim of an empty land reflects its authors' view; Little Turtle himself, as the same book quotes him, said the marks of his ancestors' houses were to be seen everywhere in the country being ceded.

• Native trails through the Deerfield Township forest: trail, Deerfield Township, Warren County (not located precisely), before settlement, c. 1790s
• Treaty of Greenville cession: treaty, Miami country including Warren County, as described by the 1882 county history, 1795

Stories

From apple orchard to Coney Island of the West

In 1867 James Parker bought a 20-acre apple orchard on the Ohio River. When a party of Cincinnatians rode out in 1870 asking to rent it for a picnic, he saw more money in visitors than apples and built a dining hall, a dance hall, a bowling alley and a mule-powered merry-go-round; as his apple trees died he planted maples for shade. In 1886 two steamboat captains, William and Malcolm McIntyre, bought the grove for $17,500 to fill their boats, named it Ohio Grove, The Coney Island of the West, and advertised it as Cincinnati's Moral Resort. The steamer Guiding Star brought the first guests on a rainy June 21, 1886, for a fifty-cent round trip that included admission. The river ride became the heart of a day at Coney, carried in later years by the Island Queen. (source)

The river that made and unmade Coney Island

The river that brought Coney Island its customers also flooded it. In 1937 the park stood under 28 feet of water: carousel horses floated away and parts turned up as far as Paducah, Kentucky, the Moonlite Gardens dance floor rose to the rafters, and horse barns from the River Downs track washed into the park. With cheap Depression labor the owners rebuilt in three months for $300,000, replacing wooden buildings with Art Deco masonry. A 1964 flood left 14 feet of water on the grounds and persuaded Gary Wachs that the park could not grow where it was. After Taft Broadcasting bought it, Coney Island closed its rides on September 6, 1971; the next spring, as Kings Island was being finished, the river flooded the empty park again. (source)

Marian Spencer and the Coney Island color line

In 1952 Marian Spencer's sons heard a radio advertisement inviting children to a celebrity visit at Coney Island. She phoned to ask whether the invitation was for all children; when she said the family was Black, she was told Black people were not allowed in the park. She was refused entry on July 4, 1952. With the NAACP she sued and won, and the ruling desegregated the park. Spencer went on to become the first woman president of the Cincinnati NAACP in 1981 and, in 1983, the first African American woman elected to Cincinnati City Council, where she served as vice mayor. (source)

The Racer and The Beast

After the national attention The Racer and Evel Knievel's jump brought the park, Kings Island spent three years secretly planning a bigger coaster. The first idea was a replica of Coney Island's Shooting Star, whose dimensions had been measured before its 1971 demolition, but management chose a bigger design. Engineers Al Collins and Jeff Gramke designed The Beast over two years by hand, without scientific calculators or computers, on 35 acres of ravines in the southeast corner of the park, with coaster designer John C. Allen consulting. It opened on April 14, 1979, as the tallest, fastest and longest wooden coaster in the world, and at 7,361 feet it is still the longest. (source)

Evel Knievel's fourteen buses

On October 25, 1975, Evel Knievel jumped 14 Greyhound buses on a Harley-Davidson at Kings Island. He landed on the safety deck above the last bus but stayed up, covering 133 feet, the longest successful jump of his career. The live broadcast drew the highest ratings in the history of ABC's Wide World of Sports, and his bus record stood until 1999. Getting the jump insured was its own ordeal: the park required $1 million in one-day liability coverage, Lloyd's of London quoted $17,500, and Knievel finally paid $2,500 to an American insurer. He announced his retirement afterward, then kept jumping at shorter distances. (source)

Timeline

• 1867: Apple farmer James Parker buys a 20-acre, 400-tree orchard on the Ohio River about ten miles east of downtown Cincinnati. (source)
• 1870: Parker rents the orchard to a group for a private picnic and begins running it as Parker's Grove, with a dining hall, dance hall, bowling alley and a mule-powered merry-go-round. (source)
• 1877: J. W. King and his nephew Ahimaaz King start the Great Western Powder Company at the old Stubbs mill on the Little Miami River, the works that became the King Powder Company in 1889. (source)
• 1884: Kings Mills is established as a company town for the King Powder Company and the Peters Cartridge Company. (source)
• 1886: Steamboat captains William and Malcolm McIntyre buy Parker's Grove for $17,500 and open it on June 21 as Ohio Grove, The Coney Island of the West, served by the steamer Guiding Star. (source)
• 1887: Ohio Grove is dropped from the name, and the park becomes simply Coney Island. (source)
• 1893: The Coney Island Company adds Lake Como, dug in a former cornfield, which becomes the center of the early rides. (source)
• 1896: The first Island Queen steamboat begins carrying visitors to Coney Island. (source)
• 1924: George Schott's Coney Island, Inc. buys the park and spends $1 million enlarging it to 120 acres. (source)
• 1925: Coney Island opens Sunlite Pool, 200 by 401 feet, and Moonlite Gardens, and launches a second, five-deck Island Queen. (source)
• 1937: The great Ohio River flood puts Coney Island under 28 feet of water; the park is rebuilt in three months for $300,000. (source)
• 1947: The Shooting Star roller coaster opens, and on September 9 the Island Queen explodes at Pittsburgh, killing 19 people and ending the park's steamboat era. (source)
• 1952: Marian Spencer is refused entry with her sons on July 4 because they are Black; her NAACP lawsuit desegregates Coney Island. (source)
• 1958: The King Powder Company closes and its powder buildings are destroyed; Kings Island was later built on part of its property. (source)
• 1964: A flood submerges Coney Island under 14 feet of water, and Gary Wachs begins pressing for a new park away from the river. (source)
• 1968: Actor Fess Parker announces a theme park for Northern Kentucky, inside Coney Island's market, which gives the relocation plan urgency. (source)
• 1969: In July, Taft Broadcasting buys Coney Island for $6.5 million and 1,600 acres in Deerfield Township, Warren County, for $3.2 million. (source)
• 1970: Construction of Kings Island begins on June 15, and a public contest picks the name. (source)
• 1970: Ralph and Gary Wachs meet retired coaster designer John C. Allen of the Philadelphia Toboggan Company at an amusement-park convention in Chicago and persuade him to design a coaster as popular as Coney Island's Shooting Star; the result is The Racer, credited with starting the coaster revival of the 1970s. (source)
• 1971: Coney Island closes its rides on September 6 after a final season of 2.75 million visitors; most rides move to Kings Island. (source)
• 1971: Mason, a farming village of fewer than 5,700 people in 1970, incorporates as a city under a charter voters approved in 1969. (source)
• 1972: Kings Island opens to the public on April 29, with a grand opening on May 27; The Racer's own history gives its public debut as April 28. (source)
• 1973: The Brady Bunch features The Racer in its episode "The Cincinnati Kids", filmed at the park. (source)
• 1974: Karl Wallenda, 69, walks a record 1,800 feet on a wire 60 feet above the park. (source)
• 1975: On October 25, Evel Knievel jumps 14 Greyhound buses, 133 feet, his longest successful jump, in a broadcast that set a ratings record for ABC's Wide World of Sports. (source)
• 1979: The Beast opens on April 14 as the tallest, fastest and longest wooden roller coaster in the world. (source)
• 1982: On May 28 one track of The Racer starts running backward, a change kept until 2008. (source)
• 1984: Riverbend Music Center opens on July 4 on 15 acres of the old Coney Island grounds donated to the Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra. (source)
• 1984: Taft sells its theme park division, including Kings Island, to Kings Entertainment Company for $167.5 million. (source)
• 1992: Paramount Communications buys Kings Island in a $400 million deal, and it becomes Paramount's Kings Island. (source)
• 1997: The city of Mason annexes most of Kings Island from Deerfield Township, and the rest follows in 1999. (source)
• 2000: Son of Beast opens on April 28 as the tallest and fastest wooden coaster in the world, 218 feet high. (source)
• 2006: On July 9 a structural track failure on Son of Beast jolts a train and sends 27 riders to the hospital. (source)
• 2006: Cedar Fair completes its $1.24 billion purchase of Paramount Parks, including Kings Island, from CBS on June 30; the sale was announced on May 22. (source)
• 2012: Son of Beast, closed since 2009, is demolished. (source)
• 2024: Cedar Fair merges with Six Flags on July 1, and Kings Island becomes a Six Flags park. (source)
• 2024: After closing for good at the end of the 2023 season and being sold to Music and Event Management, Inc., a Cincinnati Symphony Orchestra subsidiary, the old Coney Island park is demolished beginning in early 2024. (source)

Sources

• en.wikipedia.org: Kings Island
• en.wikipedia.org: Coney Island (Cincinnati)
• en.wikipedia.org: The Beast (roller coaster)
• en.wikipedia.org: The Racer (Kings Island)
• en.wikipedia.org: Son of Beast
• en.wikipedia.org: Evel Knievel
• en.wikipedia.org: Marian Spencer
• en.wikipedia.org: Kings Mills, Ohio
• coneyislandpark.com: history
• deerfieldtwp.com: KingMansionHistory
• warren.ohgenweb.org
• warren.ohgenweb.org
• imaginemason.org: history
• visitkingsisland.com: history