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Images courtesy of Archives & Special Collections, University of Pittsburgh Library System
Luna Park
Pittsburg’s Luna Park was open from 1905-1909 in the area bound by Centre Avenue on the south, Craig Street on the west, and Baum Boulevard on the north. The land was owned by Annie Aspenwall, known as an eccentric, reclusive widow, and when she passed away, she left her 16.5 acre estate to her confidant Thomas Crump. The land was highly sought-after by developers, who wanted it to construct apartment-style housing or a subway system. When Crump sold the land, his real estate broker intended to subdivide it between housing and subway developers, but got sick for two days in December 1904, and Frederick Ingersoll swooped in to buy the land for $115,000.
Ingersoll was an inventor and entrepreneur who developed Luna Parks, a chain of “world’s fair style” amusement parks. Upon purchasing the Aspenwall estate, Ingersoll’s team started building immediately, although a freeze in February 1905 put them behind schedule, as they couldn’t dig because the ground was frozen solid. The team used dynamite to blast the area near Craig Street so they could dig down 35 feet to install Luna Park’s Venetian Canal and boat launch. The lumber to construct the park arrived by railroad, and horse drawn carriages on skis carted 5 million feet of wood from Shadyside rail station to Oakland.
The park’s attractions included animal exhibits, geographically themed areas like the Venetian Canal and a Chinese-style pagoda, and an infant incubator building. Visitors were charged to enter the incubator building, raising money for the infants’ care and eventually leading to the first neonatal care unit in Pittsburgh. At night, the park was illuminated by over 50,000 electric lights.
In 1909, a lion escaped from its cage and killed a visitor. This is usually blamed for starting the park’s decline, and Luna Park was also competing with the first Nickelodeon (in downtown Pittsburgh) and nearby Forbes Field (among the first modern ballparks). Ingersoll closed the park in 1909, declared bankruptcy in 1911, and died in 1929.
If you’ve ever visited Kennywood, you may know that “Lost Kennywood” is modeled after Luna Park, so you can imagine what it might have been like to visit!
Ingersoll was an inventor and entrepreneur who developed Luna Parks, a chain of “world’s fair style” amusement parks. Upon purchasing the Aspenwall estate, Ingersoll’s team started building immediately, although a freeze in February 1905 put them behind schedule, as they couldn’t dig because the ground was frozen solid. The team used dynamite to blast the area near Craig Street so they could dig down 35 feet to install Luna Park’s Venetian Canal and boat launch. The lumber to construct the park arrived by railroad, and horse drawn carriages on skis carted 5 million feet of wood from Shadyside rail station to Oakland.
The park’s attractions included animal exhibits, geographically themed areas like the Venetian Canal and a Chinese-style pagoda, and an infant incubator building. Visitors were charged to enter the incubator building, raising money for the infants’ care and eventually leading to the first neonatal care unit in Pittsburgh. At night, the park was illuminated by over 50,000 electric lights.
In 1909, a lion escaped from its cage and killed a visitor. This is usually blamed for starting the park’s decline, and Luna Park was also competing with the first Nickelodeon (in downtown Pittsburgh) and nearby Forbes Field (among the first modern ballparks). Ingersoll closed the park in 1909, declared bankruptcy in 1911, and died in 1929.
If you’ve ever visited Kennywood, you may know that “Lost Kennywood” is modeled after Luna Park, so you can imagine what it might have been like to visit!
PNC Carousel
Barnum & Bailey’s Last Tent in Pittsburgh
"A great American institution -- the circus under the canvas tent -- passed away early today into history and folklore,“ Post-Gazette reporter Alvin Rosensweet wrote on July 17, 1956.
Halfway through a summer season marked by terrible weather, transportation breakdowns and union woes, John Ringling North, board chairman, pronounced the ”death sentence“ for outdoor performances of the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus.
”The tented circus as it now exists is in my opinion a thing of the past,“ North said in a statement that appeared in the July 16 edition of The Pittsburgh Press. The circus would close immediately and move next spring into what he called ”mechanically controlled“ exhibition spaces. He was referring to indoor arenas like Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The last performance under canvas in Scott Township brought back boyhood memories for Post-Gazette reporter William Rimmel of when he was growing up in Allegheny City, now Pittsburgh’s North Side. Rimmel, who was born in 1897, wrote of ”slipping out of the house long before dawn to meet the Barnum and Bailey Circus ... And then for the next eight hours along with half a dozen other boys I carried gallons of water for the elephants.“ In return, he and his buddies were ”permitted to sit among the throng inside the big top.“
”Another boyhood thrill was the time my grandfather, an old circus man, took me behind the scenes of the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show to show me the one and only Buffalo Bill,“ he wrote. ”The old scout shook my hand ... I remember the trouble my mother had getting me to wash the hand that shook the hand of the great Indian scout that day.“
Rosensweet wrote that the late-starting evening performance drew a capacity crowd of 10,000 to the Heidelberg Raceway. The last show was ”a sad and a shabby end, hardly deserved by an institution of tinseled glory and laughs,“ he wrote. ”But true to the tradition of the circus symbolized by Pagliacci, the clown, they gave a brilliant performance for their last audience, even though despair and grief dimmed eyes with tears.“
Veteran Post-Gazette cartoonist Cy Hungerford also took note of the final show under canvas. His June 17 editorial cartoon, labeled ”An Old Boyhood Friend Passes On,“ showed a tearful Uncle Sam mourning in front of a tombstone as ”The Big Top“ floats away on a cloud.
Halfway through a summer season marked by terrible weather, transportation breakdowns and union woes, John Ringling North, board chairman, pronounced the ”death sentence“ for outdoor performances of the Ringling Brothers, Barnum & Bailey Circus.
”The tented circus as it now exists is in my opinion a thing of the past,“ North said in a statement that appeared in the July 16 edition of The Pittsburgh Press. The circus would close immediately and move next spring into what he called ”mechanically controlled“ exhibition spaces. He was referring to indoor arenas like Madison Square Garden in New York City.
The last performance under canvas in Scott Township brought back boyhood memories for Post-Gazette reporter William Rimmel of when he was growing up in Allegheny City, now Pittsburgh’s North Side. Rimmel, who was born in 1897, wrote of ”slipping out of the house long before dawn to meet the Barnum and Bailey Circus ... And then for the next eight hours along with half a dozen other boys I carried gallons of water for the elephants.“ In return, he and his buddies were ”permitted to sit among the throng inside the big top.“
”Another boyhood thrill was the time my grandfather, an old circus man, took me behind the scenes of the Buffalo Bill Wild West Show to show me the one and only Buffalo Bill,“ he wrote. ”The old scout shook my hand ... I remember the trouble my mother had getting me to wash the hand that shook the hand of the great Indian scout that day.“
Rosensweet wrote that the late-starting evening performance drew a capacity crowd of 10,000 to the Heidelberg Raceway. The last show was ”a sad and a shabby end, hardly deserved by an institution of tinseled glory and laughs,“ he wrote. ”But true to the tradition of the circus symbolized by Pagliacci, the clown, they gave a brilliant performance for their last audience, even though despair and grief dimmed eyes with tears.“
Veteran Post-Gazette cartoonist Cy Hungerford also took note of the final show under canvas. His June 17 editorial cartoon, labeled ”An Old Boyhood Friend Passes On,“ showed a tearful Uncle Sam mourning in front of a tombstone as ”The Big Top“ floats away on a cloud.
