Electric Park, Kansas City

Electric Park was the name shared by two amusement parks in Kansas City, Missouri, USA that were constructed by Joseph Heim (then president of the Heim Brothers Brewery) and his brothers Michael and Ferdinand Jr. and run by them. The first was built next to the Heim Beer brewery in 1899; the second, a larger one, was built and opened for the public in 1907 and remained in operation until the end of the 1925 season. Animator and entrepreneur Walt Disney cited the second Kansas City Electric Park as his primary inspiration for the design of the first modern theme park, Disneyland.

The Heim brothers built the first Electric Park in land adjacent to the Heim Brothers Brewery (at the time the largest brewery in the world) in East Bottoms. The amusement park was bounded by Montgall, Chestnut, Nicholson, and Rochester Avenues.

Open from 1899 to 1906, the first Electric Park proved to be an immediate success as one of the world's first full-time amusement parks. Featuring a Shoot-the-Chutes ride (called the Mystic Chute), the park also had a beer garden with beer piped directly from the brewery next door. Eventually, the carefully groomed grounds were too small to sustain the park's popularity; at the end of the 1906 season, some of the rides were dismantled and moved to a new location to the south.

Much of the grounds lay neglected or abandoned for the next 19 years. in 1925, part of the plot (near the corner of Montgall and Rochester) was deeded to city of Kansas City for use as a neighborhood playground. Opened in a 1 August 1925 ceremony, the park offered "Pet Night", in which children won prizes for displaying the largest, smallest, and the most deformed dog. Another day saw swimsuits awarded to boys who created wood carvings from dead trees.

The second Kansas City Electric Park, this time at 46th Street and the Paseo, opened 19 May 1907. Like the first one, it was a trolley park (this time served by the Troost Avenue, Woodland Avenue, and Rockhill lines of the Metropolitan Street Railway Company), but the successor was one of the largest (if not the largest) ever to be called Electric Park. It had "band concerts, vaudeville, Electric Fountain, ballroom, natatorium, German village, alligator farm, chutes, Dips Coaster, Norton slide, penny parlors, novelty stand, Japanese rolling ball, scenic railway, pool room, a Hale's Tour of the World, Electric Studio, boat tours, old mill, a Temple of Mirth, Flying Lady, Double Whirl, Circle Swing, soda fountain and ice cream shops, knife rack, doll rack, shooting gallery, air gun gallery, giant teeter, boating, outdoor swimming, carousel, cafe, Casino 5 cent theater, fortune telling and palmistry, covered promenade and horseless buggy garage."Souvenirs from the park touted it as "Kansas City's Coney Island," which it matched by having 100,000 light bulbs adorn its buildings.

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Wikipedia