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Coordinates: 38°50′40″N 77°03′20″W / 38.84444°N 77.05556°W / 38.84444; -77.05556
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For other amusement parks known by the same name, see Luna Park.

Luna Park (also known as Washington Luna Park and Luna Park Washington D.C.) was a trolley park in Alexandria County, Virginia (now Arlington County) that operated between 1906 and 1915. The Washington, Alexandria, and Mount Vernon Electric Railway (later the Washington-Virginia Railway) constructed the amusement park for $350,000 in collaboration with the facility's designer and operator, Frederick Ingersoll.


Development

In the late 19th century, the part of Alexandria County, Virginia across from Washington D.C. near Long Bridge was known as Jackson City. The area was originally intended to be an industrial hub, but after the Civil War and anti-gambling crackdowns in New Jersey and Washington, D.C., the area became known as the "Monte Carlo of the East". Jackson City became filled with gambling dens and racetracks. Though the Virginia Assembly banned most forms of gambling in 1892, the laws remained unenforced in Jackson City.[1]

In 1903, Crandal Mackey won the race for Alexandria County Attorney General on a progressive anti-corruption platform. Taking aim at the gambling resorts, Mackey ordered law enforcement to clear them out. After the police did nothing for several months, Mackey assembled, deputized, and armed thirty residents, who then tore through Jackson City, smashing up the gambling dens they found.[1][2] This and further raids shuttered the gambling industry in the area.

The loss of business, especially to the now-closed St. Asaph Racetrack, prompted the Washington, Alexandria, and Mount Vernon Railway to seek a new way to attract customers. To that end, they constructed Luna Park for $350,000 in collaboration with the facility's designer and operator, Frederick Ingersoll.[citation needed] The park consisted of a 40 acres (16 ha) plot situated on an old farm, north of Four Mile Run and west of the Alexandria Canal and adjacent roadway and trolley line. A "Luna Park Special" spur line was built to connect to the park. Water was supplied by a concrete reservoir built near Fort Scott on a hill.[3]

The cost of construction was reported as $350,000.[4]

Luna Park was one of several amusement parks that Ingersoll operated in 1905 and 1906 (including Indianola Park in Columbus, Ohio, Rocky Glen Park near Moosic, Pennsylvania, and Luna Parks in Pittsburgh, Cleveland, Scranton, and Mexico City). Although Ingersoll's amusement park empire was drastically reduced as a result of his declaration of bankruptcy in 1911,[5] he retained his interest in the Alexandria County park.

Operation and decline

The park opened ____

Exhibits were housed in buildings displaying different architecture styles (Japanese, Moorish, Gothic).[4] The park featured a figure eight roller coaster, a shoot-the-chutes ride, a ballroom, restaurants, picnic facilities for 3,000 people and an arena that sat 8,000 spectators and accommodated circuses.[4][6][7] Billboard magazine described the park in 1908 as having "big dumb acts", though a Luna Park brochure highlighted that visitors would not find low-brow "fat women, tattooed freaks or other distasteful features of the tented shows".[8]

The park also featured special features rented from Coney Island in New York, such as a diving horse and trained elephants. On the morning of August 20, 1906, four elephants from one such traveling show were found to have escaped. Attempts to round them up were frustrated by the elephants stampeding after being frightened by local dogs. It took several days to round them up. One wandered as far as Baileys Crossroads; another, 20 miles south of Alexandria. Suggested causes of the elephants' stampede included thunder and lightning during a violent storm the previous night, to a deliberate release to garner publicity.[3][8]

On April 15, 1915, a fire destroyed the park's signature roller coaster. According to The Washington Post, "the origin of the fire is thought to have been from sparks from a blaze in the woods adjoining the park" (the nearest fire hydrant was miles away in Alexandria).[9] The damage was extensive, and the park's precarious finances forced the park to go out of business. The structures in the park were mostly dismantled later in the year. The entrance gates and a few buildings survived for decades afterwards,[3] and traces of the park were evident as late as 1988.[6] The Arlington County sewage treatment facility now covers the park's site,[6] near the present intersection of South Glebe Road and Jefferson Davis Highway (U. S. Route 1).

Notes

  1. ^ a b Cleary
  2. ^ Templeman, 76.
  3. ^ a b c Templeman, 164.
  4. ^ a b c "Luna Park". Arlington Public Library: A Pictorial History of Arlington - Area H Neighborhoods. Government of Arlington County, Virginia. Archived from the original on April 1, 2010. {{cite web}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  5. ^ Pitz, Marylynne (September 1, 2008). "Luna Park's luminary: Entrepreneur/roller coaster designer deserves his due". Pittsburgh Post-Gazette. Archived from the original on December 2, 2008. Retrieved July 9, 2015. {{cite news}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  6. ^ a b c Suydam, Marty (2016). "From Trolley Park to Sewage Treatment: Luna Park". The Arlington Historical Magazine. 15 (4). The Arlington Historical Society, Inc.: 45–47. ISSN 0066-7684. OCLC 1802280.
  7. ^ McClellan, Jim; Raybuck, Shirley (2012). "Great Northern Virginia Elephant Hunt or The Pachyderm Panic of 1906" (PDF). The Northern Virginia Review. 26. Northern Virginia Community College: 87–98. Archived from the original (PDF) on February 18, 2018. Retrieved February 18, 2018. {{cite journal}}: Unknown parameter |dead-url= ignored (|url-status= suggested) (help)
  8. ^ a b Kelly.
  9. ^ "Luna Park-1915". Arlington Fire Journal. June 24, 2009.

References

  • Michael Lee Pope. Shotgun Justice: Once Prosecutor’s Crusade Against Crime and Corruption in Alexandria and Arlington (Charleston, SC: The History Press, 2012), 66.

38°50′40″N 77°03′20″W / 38.84444°N 77.05556°W / 38.84444; -77.05556

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