Rocky Point Amusement Park
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| Slogan | We've Got Your Summer at Rocky Point |
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| Location | Warwick, Rhode Island, United States |
| Coordinates | 41°41′21″N 71°22′03″W / 41.68917°N 71.36750°WCoordinates: 41°41′21″N 71°22′03″W / 41.68917°N 71.36750°W |
| Opened | 1847 |
| Closed | 1995 |
| Operating season | Memorial Day Weekend thru mid-September |
| Rides | |
| Total | 24+ |
| Roller coasters | 2+ |
| Water rides | 1 |
Rocky Point Park was an amusement park on the Narragansett Bay side of Warwick, Rhode Island. It operated from the late 1840s until it closed in 1995. The following year, the park filed for bankruptcy.
Rocky Point Park was first conceived by Captain William Winslow in the 1840s. By 1847, he had purchased a part of the land and began to offer amusements and serve dinner.
On Sunday, September 6, 1903, blue laws prevented the National League's Boston Beaneaters from playing the Philadelphia Phillies at their usual home park, South End Grounds in Boston. The game was moved to a field at Rocky Point, where the ocean apparently came right up to the edge of the outfield. (Boston won, 3-2.)
From the 1950s through the mid-1990s, Rocky Point Park was one of the most popular attractions in Rhode Island. It featured rides such as the Skyliner, Corkscrew Loop Roller Coaster, Log Flume, and the Freefall (similar to the identically named ride at Six Flags parks), which fell 13 stories at 55 mph (89 km/h). It also featured the Shore Dinner Hall, famous for its clamcakes, steamers, lobsters, and New England Clam Chowder, which seated over 4,000 patrons at a time. In later years, Rocky Point's locally-famous logo of a lobster tipping his hat was used in much of the park's advertising both in TV commercials and in print.
The park was the inspiration for the title of Rocky Point Holiday, a composition for wind band by Ron Nelson.
In the early 1990s, Rocky Point's financial situation became shaky. The privately held company that owned the park began to lose money as it attempted to keep the park up to date. Critics accused the company's shareholders of trying to wring every last penny out of the park. Rocky Point closed in 1995, then reopened briefly in 1996 as a farewell to patrons. Rides such as the Flume and Corkscrew were sold in an auction and are now in use at other amusement parks.
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