The Milennium Force (Cedar Point)

Emile Legros, left, and George Roose (Cedar Point)

1994The Raptor opens, the tallest and fastest inverted coaster in the world. It is the park’s eleventh roller coaster, making Cedar Point’s coaster collection the largest in the world. Before the close of the season, officials announce $17 million will be invested in park improvements for the upcoming 125th anniversary. Cedar Fair acquires three other amusement parks this decade, including Knott’s Berry Farm in California.

George Boeckling

1983With a stock value of $144 million, Cedar Point, Inc. is sold and Cedar Fair Limited Partnership is formed, with Robert Munger, Jr. still at its helm. The decade sees two water-centric attractions open: Oceana, a 1,600-seat dolphin stadium and aquazoo, in 1980, and Soak City waterpark in 1988. At the end of the decade, Magnum XL-200 will debut, breaking the 200-foot height threshold.

The Magnum XL 200 (Cedar Point)

2018Atop the bones of Mean Streak, 1991’s tallest and fastest wooden coaster in the world, Steel Vengeance debuts as the world’s tallest, fastest, longest, and steepest hybrid roller coaster. In a decade marked by the opening of GateKeeper, Rougarou and Valravn, Vengeance is the last coaster to be built in the 2010s.

The Steel Vengeance (Cedar Point)

The Blue Streak and the Space Spiral (Cedar Point)

A student measures the Raptor during Physics Day in 1994. (The Blade)

Sources • ‘Cedar Point: The Queen of American Watering Places’ by David W. Francis and Diane DeMali Francis • cedarpoint.com • Cedar Point Archives • The Blade archives Written by: Danielle Gamble Layout by: Joe Landsberger

The Cedar Point lighthouse (National Archives)

1929The Cedar Point Cyclone roller coaster opens along the beach. It is billed as “Scientifically Built for Speed, Thrills and Safety” and joins Leap Frog Railway (later renamed High Frolics) and Leap the Dips as one of three coasters at the park. As the Roaring ’20s come to a close, George Boeckling reports the best season in the park’s history, boasting gross revenues 30 percent ahead of 1919.

1905The luxurious Hotel Breakers opens at 1 Cedar Point Drive, one of the largest hotels in the region. Guests will eventually include Annie Oakley, John Philip Sousa, John D. Rockefeller, and Presidents Taft, Wilson, Harding, Coolidge, Roosevelt, and Eisenhower. Three years later, Dip the Dips Scenic Railway coaster will open..

1931George Boeckling dies and Ed Smith takes over the company under the crushing economic conditions of the Great Depression. Across the U.S., 85 percent of U.S. amusement parks report as much as a third of profits are gone. Few improvements are made to the park throughout the decade, but the resort will survive even through the rationing of World War II.

1914A roadway dubbed Cedar Point Chausee opens to the public, six years after Henry Ford’s introduction of the Model T. By the next year, as many as 3,000 visitors a day will travel by automobile to the park. In yet another year, Knute Rockne and Charles ‘Gus’ Dorais will work as lifeguards at Cedar Point, using their free time to perfect a forward pass that would help Notre Dame become a nationally-recognized program. 

The Grand Pavilion on Cedar Point (Hayes Presidential Center/Frohman Collection)

1870Louis Zistel, a German immigrant and Sandusky cabinetmaker, opens a modest beer garden with a small dance floor at Cedar Point, attracting several hundred people. After a single season, that particular venue won’t reopen, but the popularity of bathhouses on the island will help it become a tourist destination.

1956A group of investors from Cleveland, including George Roose and Emile Legros begin an attempt to acquire ownership of Cedar Point. The public fear the group will close and raze the attraction, causing Ohio Gov. Frank Lausche to announce the state will purchase the property if the park is not preserved. By the following year, Roose and Legros acquire Cedar Point — now with plans to build it into the ‘Disneyland of the Midwest’.

The Switchback Railway (David and Diane Francis)

A 1920 advertisement for Cedar Point

1978The 3,935-foot-long Gemini coaster is unveiled, with 80-year-old retired manager George Roose as one of its first riders. It is one of 26 rides featured at the park, including the colorful, looping Corkscrew. Seasonal staff numbers grow to 1,200, and attendance at the park is a record 3,000,000 visitors.

1882Benjamin F. Dwelle and Captain Wiliam Slackford, with permission from the island’s owners, open a small summer resort on Cedar Point. Within six years, the Cedar Point Pleasure Resort Company will form. The popularity of the “Coney Island of the West” will blossom as buildings and events sprung up.

1946The elaborate Midway Carrousel opens, replacing the park’s original 1906 carousel. Also, an engineering review of the Cyclone coaster is ordered, as it reportedly inflicts bruised ribs and black eyes on riders regularly. By the early 1950s, the ride will be demolished, leaving Cedar Point coaster-less for the first time that century.

Cedar Point in 1943 (Cedar Point Archives)

The Hotel Breakers east wing (Hayes Presidential Center/Frohman Collection)

1964The Blue Streak opens, named for Sandusky High School’s athletics and later to become the oldest operating roller coaster at Cedar Point. With the park now under the firm Cedar Point, Inc., and former Disney executive E.R. Lemmon as general manager, the number of rides and live entertainers grow. Later that decade, the park will introduce extravagant themed rides in Frontier Town.

2000Millennium Force is unveiled, this time breaking the 300-foot-tall threshold to be the tallest and fastest “giga-coaster” on the planet. Just three years later, Cedar Point will break the 400-foot height threshold with Top Thrill Dragster. Six parks are acquired in a Cedar Fair LP deal with CBS Corp. for Paramount Parks, which include Kings Island.

1892The resort’s first roller coaster, Switchback Railway, opens. It is 25 feet high with a top speed of 10 mph. Five years later, bad luck will strike — including the accidental death of a visitor and the destruction of the resort’s main pavilion in a fire — but George Arthur Boeckling will swoop in to purchase what will become the Cedar Point Pleasure Resort Company of Indiana and oversee three decades of wild growth.

Cedar Point in 1929

The Corkscrew in 1976 (Cedar Point)

TIMELINE

150

YEARS OF THRILLS

A decade-by-decade look at the park’s history

TAP ANYWHERE TO START