originally posted on 4/10/2019
Camden Park Big Dipper Named ACE Roller Coaster Landmark
Nestled along the Ohio River valley in Huntington, West Virginia, is a small traditional amusement park that is one of the few remaining sites that began as a trolley park. Developed by the Camden Interstate Railway Company in 1902 as a peaceful picnic spot and for riders to change trolley lines, Camden Park was known by locals for its idyllic, peaceful location along the Ohio River. The land also featured an ancient Indian burial mound, which has always been a local curiosity.
The park installed its first coaster in 1912, a side-friction figure-8 design by the Breinig Construction Company of Nicolette, West Virginia. It was appropriately called The New Sensation, being a very popular concession in the park. In later years, it was renamed simply Roller Coaster. In 1916, Eustace Via purchased the park from the Camden Interstate Railway and added more rides and attractions over the subsequent years. Via ran the park until his death in 1946 when it was then purchased by John P. Boylin Sr. Boylin continued to operate the park and decided in 1957 that the aging Roller Coaster would need to be replaced. During that summer, he closed the ride early in the season and demolished it in preparation for a new attraction.
Boylin contacted Aurel Vaszin of the National Amusement Device Company (NAD) in Dayton, Ohio, to build a new roller coaster for the park. With the help of NAD construction Supervisor Jerome A. “Eddie” Leis, NAD created a new modest-sized, more thrilling roller coaster experience that would be called Big Dipper. The 50-foot-tall coaster would feature a second drop of 35 feet as the ride’s largest, an elevated midcourse curving tunnel and several airtime-producing smaller hills along its 1,800 feet of track. When it opened in the spring of 1958, the new coaster featured two silver NAD Century Flyer trains with working headlights. Today, the coaster still uses one of those Century Flyer trains to thrill guests both young and old and is not only the park’s oldest roller coaster, but the oldest operating in West Virginia. In 1961, a smaller NAD Comet Jr. wooden coaster named Lil’ Dipper was added to the park for younger riders too small to ride Big Dipper. It is the last NAD production model wooden kiddie coaster still operating. These wood-tracked, steel-structure kiddie coasters were once the staples for kiddielands and amusement parks across the country. Camden Park is the only park to have two operating wood NAD coasters, both of which are ACE Coaster Classics.
Photo: Richard Koppelman. View full-sized image.
Photo: Richard Koppelman. View full-sized image.
Although the park was sold in 1980 to out-of-state investors, John Boylin Jr., along with his son Jack Boylin, repurchased the park in 1995 after it began to have financial and operational issues. Today, Jack Boylin and his family continue to operate Camden Park as a hometown, family-run amusement park. They have have upgraded and invested in the park with new attractions and park improvements, helping ensure that Camden Park will be here for future generations.
Thanks go to members of the ACE History Committee for their help in researching the history of both Camden Park and Big Dipper.
— Dave Hahner
ACE historian
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