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High
Bridge Glens Amusement Park
In 1882, High Bridge Glens Park opened
featuring a thrilling roller coaster and a
dance hall. The park closed in the 1920s and
the Northern Ohio Traction & Light
Company, predecessor of Ohio Edison, donated
144 acres of land to the Metro Parks in 1930
High
Bridge Glens featured a dining room, dance
hall pavilion, and a roller coaster. Paths
along the rocky cliffs led to Fern Cave,
Mirror Lake, a suspension bridge across the
Cuyahoga River, and toy houses and bridges for
children. It was a popular destination for
residents of northeast Ohio, who traveled by
interurban railroad to Cuyahoga Falls. The
park operated from around 1880 until 1912,
when construction of the N.O.T. & L. dam
destroyed the scenery.
High Bridge Glens: The
Watkins Glen of the Western Reserve
by Mary McClure
Although surveyors had
long noted the beauty of the glens, it was a
Cuyahoga Falls hardware store owner who
actually developed the area’s great
potential as a summer amusement park.
L. W. Loomis convinced his
prophetically named partner H. E. Parks, to go
in with him on the development of the High
Bridge Glens Park.
Plans were put into
motion in 1877. A great deal of money was
spent for the construction of dance pavilions,
refreshment rooms, suspension bridges, stairs,
walkways, skating rinks and the famous Glens
roller coaster. The park was in full
operational mode by spring of 1882 making on
its first day $2,500. in the 90’s it
attracted 60 trainloads and trolley cars of
tourists daily.
If you step back in time
and off the steps of a trolley which has just
arrived at the park entrance, you’ll see a
steel observation bridge ahead spanning the
river banks. Towering 80 ft above the raging
Cuyahoga this high bridge resulted in the
parks name.
Sign that is on the
right side of the bridge says Entrance to
Glens Caves
Strolling toward the park
entrance at the end of the bridge, you notice
a huge, two story structure built upon a
large, jutting rock formation.
This is the
pavilion, a spacious, open, wooden structure
which is gabled and laced with gingerbread
railings and crosspieces. On the first floor
is dining hall with lemonade and light
refreshments and in the evening the second
floor became a dance hall where more than 500
a night would dance to the music of
Babcock's’ band.
Leaving the pavilion, you
could descend the first of a series of crude
wooden stairs leading to river level and a
plateau with several fine croquet courts and
picnic shelter.
From here you are just a few
feet from the beginning of the trails. The
trails consisted of one large circle that
continue down one side of the river, across a
small bridge and up the other side of the
river.
At the very bottom there
is the option of
boarding a wooden raft that will take them
back up the river. The raft is six by 8 feet
and only two side railings for the faint
hearted to hold on. The bearded suspended ferry
man returns passengers to the pavilion by
pulling hand over hand on a tow rope that
lines the river banks.
You can also explore
the caverns near the tow raft pick up point. a
favorite spot was Fern Cave 35x54 ft
further below is doves retreat with an
overhanging roof of rock 25 ft above.
Leaving the cavern you
pass a large boulder of more than 100 tons.
This is observation rock. Down from the rocks
and caverns looms the infamous glens roller coaster.
After Loomis and Parks
sold the park to the High Bridge Glens
Corporation, the new owners started selling
liquor at
the park. Soon the Cuyahoga Falls Reporter ran
stories complaining that the park was becoming
unpopular because of drunken “young roughs
from Cleveland.”
Additional security was
hired but the drunkenness and violence
continued. The number of incoming tourists
dipped again when the village cancelled it
contract with the Mountain Line trolley
company after a June 11, 1918
accident.
Man dealt the final blow
to the High Bridge Glen Park. When a dam was
constructed to harness the power of one of the
larger waterfalls the Cuyahoga river backed up
and flooded the lower levels of the High
Bridge Glen Park. what was left of the park
was shut down. The park that once thrilled
thousands of visitors yearly now exists only
in a few old photographs and the recollections
of a few senior citizens.
1885 High Bridge Glens
Tintype (courtesy of Mary McClure)
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