Jantzen Beach Amusement Park
Entrepreneurs opened the Jantzen Beach Amusement Park on May 26, 1928, according to the Oregon Encylopedia. Jantzen executives and other prominent local residents underwrote the development of the park as a facility to showcase the company’s swimwear. Popular for over forty years, the amusement park closed to the public at the end of the 1970 season.
Before the mall, from 1928 into the 1960s, the Jantzen Beach Amusement Park was frequented by up to 725,000 people annually. The Jantzen Beach Amusement Park featured the huge Big Dipper Roller Coaster, the C.W. Parker Carousel, a Ferris Wheel, a small railway, thrill rides, midget auto racing and multiple swimming pools.
Jantzen Beach may be something of a misnomer today since Jantzen never had any manufacturing facilities on the island and there is no public beach on “Jantzen Beach”.
In the 1960s, attendance dipped at the amusement park and it was closed permanently in 1970. The park was razed in 1970 to make room for the new Jantzen Beach Shopping Center, which opened in 1972. The original Jantzen Beach Mall kept only one relic of its former days: its 1921 C.W. Parker carousel.
The Jantzen Beach Carousel has been a fixture of Hayden Island since the opening of Jantzen Beach Amusement Park in 1928. It was built in 1921 by the C.W. Parker Amusement Company, the “American Amusement King”.
C. W. Parker built five large extravagant “park” machines. Only one of those five is still left, the Jantzen Beach Carousel. The 72 horse, four row carousel is said to be lit by 1,350 lights with 286 mirrors. The base is a large 67-foot diameter that can travel up to ten miles an hour on the outside steeds, making it the largest and fastest ride still in operation.
The previous mall owner, Edens has donated the carousel to Portland nonprofit Restore Oregon, so it will soon have a new home in the Portland area. Restore Oregon put together this timeline of the carousel.
Four restored horses were loaned to the Oregon Historical Society as part of their upcoming exhibit, The Odyssey of the Historic Jantzen Beach Carousel – From Leavenworth, Kansas to Portland, Oregon, 1921 – 2022. It opens November 18, 2022, with the exhibit stretching across three galleries, telling the story of the Jantzen Beach Carousel from its construction in 1921 through present day.
The National Carousel Association has been working to keep America’s remaining carousels in operation since 1973. Every year, 200-300 National Carousel Association members gather for the annual convention.
The Jantzen Beach Amusement Park opened on May 26, 1928 and was the largest amusement park in the country spanning 123 acres of land, heralded as “Portland’s Million dollar Playground”.
Built in 1928 by legendary Coaster Designer Carl Phare, the Big Dipper Roller Coaster at Jantzen Beach was one of its star attractions, the biggest and baddest coaster in the West. The Big Dipper was 55 feet tall at its highest point, and was said to send cars screaming downhill at close to 100 miles an hour.
The Jantzen Beach Amusement Park had many attractions to offer besides the coaster. The park, in the 1950 photo (above) also featured a Kiddie Dipper steel coaster, four swimming pools, a natatorium (a building containing a swimming pool), Golden Canopy Ballroom, picnic grounds, Fun House, Venetian Canal ride, Ferris Wheel, Elbow Room Restaurant, Jantzen Beach Railway, Two robot circus criers, “Laffing Sal” and “Joe Barker”, and the 1921 C.W. Parker Carousel.
It competed with the Council Crest amusement park and their roller coaster. The Council Crest trolley took you to the top of the hill, overlooking Portland. In 1958, a second highway lane across the I-5 bridge took out a large portion of the park, which was already suffering from a loss of attendees. On Labor Day, 1970, the park shut down for good.