Star Beacon
October 08, 2006 07:23 am Click here to order our 10/7/2006 Archive edition.
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Fright Zone will live on at Conneaut Lake Park
By MARGIE TRAX PAGE
Staff Writer
mtrax@starbeacon.com
GENEVA-ON-THE-LAKE - - Creepy, kooky, mysterious and spooky, the Fright Zone dark ride at Erieview Park is altogether ooky.
It is also the last of it's kind, evoking the kind of nostalgia reserved for carousels and vintage Ferris wheels.
After a dramatic week fraught with peril, the vintage dark ride will be fully restored and relocated to Conneaut Lake Park, Erieview owner Don "Woody" Woodward said.
The future of Fright Zone was looking grim as the ride faced the auction block. Would bidders take just one spooky scene or would the ride sell as a lot? Would the vintage ride be reconstructed for more screams and laughs?
Fright Zone came to Geneva-on-the-Lake by default as an unwanted ride at a great price, Woodward said.
Woodward went to the sale at the defunct Westview Amusement Park in Pennsylvania to purchase some equipment. Woodward wasn't in the market for a dark ride, but bought the cars and track for another ride.
A few weeks later, Woodward bought the other pieces of the ride and eventually purchased the portable building.
"It was like I bought the whole thing as an afterthought. I gave them a lowball offer and they took it, Woodward said. "In the end we got a real kick out of it and it became a staple at Erieview," he said.
Fright Zone is a piece of history and the work of the famous Allen Herschel Co. This amusement ride manufacturer was at the height of business in the 1950s when it branched off into the scary dark ride niche. Just a few years later and with only three dark rides sold, the company closed the dark ride division. Fright Zone would be a third of this sordid history and Erieview's version is the last one left.
It sold as one piece at auction last week for $8,000 to Toledo antique dealer and collector Matt Jasin, but Woodward was afraid it would be broken up and sold to modern haunted houses.
"I told (Jasin) that I would be prepared to buy Fright Zone back and sell it to someone who wanted to keep it together," Woodward said.
After a little wheeling and dealing, Jasin made a profit and sold Fright Zone to Greg Sutterlin of Conneaut Lake Park.
"This is exciting this is what we wanted all along. Breaking up Fright Zone would have been like taking a Model T Ford and chopping it up for parts," Woodward said.
Sutterlin said he remembers Fright Zone from his childhood days at Westview and wanted to make sure the dark ride continued in one piece, keeping Westview and Erieview alive for future generations.
"This is something I have always wanted to do," he said.
Jasin said he is thrilled to sell Fright Zone to a fellow enthusiast.
"This was a sentimental decision. I couldn't stand to see it ripped to smithereens. Splitting it up would be losing a piece of history," Jasin said. "Fright Zone is a piece of dorky Americana, but if it didn't sell immediately, I would have had to sell it piece by piece," he said.
Erieview Park's carousel and Ferris wheel will stay local, as the Ferris wheel will move just a few hundred yards to the Old Firehouse Winery and the carousel will be moved to Geneva-on-the-Lake's Adventure Zone Family Fun Center, Woodward said.
The beloved Erieview Park train, which gave riders a stunning view of the water, is also staying with a private owner in the Geneva area, Woodward said.
Star Beacon Print Edition: 10/7/2006
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