Arnolds Park Amusement Park on Lake Okoboji Celebrates 125 Years on Iowa’s Great Lakes
ARNOLDS PARK, IOWA – One of the longest standing great attractions of the Great Lakes will mark a major milestone in 2015. Arnolds Park’s Okoboji Amusement Park will celebrate its 125th year with a season-long series of quasquicentennial events. The park is full of great, classic rides including one of the oldest wooden roller coasters in the US, vintage bumper cars, a Ferris wheel, vintage tilt-a-whirl and a great winding train ride and an old fashioned log flume. Not all vintage, the park will offer the brand new ride “The Wreckless” to patrons on its 125 year.
BRIEF ARNOLDS PARK HISTORY
Arnolds Park Amusement Park first began as a lone water slide that dumped riders into West Lake. W.B. Arnold opened the Arnolds Park Hotel where the Park now stands in the early 1880s to take advantage of some of the new visitors arriving by train. He later constructed the 60-foot toboggan slide on the property in 1889, so guests could plunge into the blue waters of West Lake Okoboji — that’s how Arnolds Park Amusement Park was born. Then came the legendary Roof Garden in 1923 followed by the Legend Roller Coaster in 1930.
The Park almost met its demise in 1999 when developers wanted to turn it into condos, but the “Save the Park” campaign helped it skirt that fate. In 2005, the “Sustain the Park” fundraiser helped support improvements on the Park’s facilities.
The Legend recently underwent a two-phase, $1 million reconstruction that was completed last spring. Improved tracks, catwalks and wooden supports have created an even smoother and faster ride.
