originally posted on 7/23/2021
Photo: Gary Slade. View full-sized image.
Charlie Dinn played a crucial role in the renaissance of the wooden roller coaster in the latter part of the 20th century.
As director of construction, maintenance and engineering at Kings Island (Mason, Ohio) in 1978, Charlie Dinn became involved with creating a coaster for the first time. He led the team building the legendary Beast mega-woodie, which opened to much deserved fanfare in 1979. And he would go on from there a few years later to lead a coaster building boom all through the 80s, 90s, and early 2000s — overseeing nothing less than a wood coaster revival.
After he left the employ of Kings Island in 1983, Dinn assisted in the building of a wooden coaster at Knoebels Amusement Resort in Elysburg, Pennsylvania, in 1985. Knoebels and Dinn undertook relocating the closed San Antonio Playland Rocket to the Pennsylvania park, there to be treasured as perhaps the greatest coaster preservation success during ACE’s existence. Resurrecting the ride as the aptly named Phoenix, Knoebels still thrills riders to this day on one of the most popular and beloved wooden coasters.
Next, Dinn undertook the rebuilding of the Lake Compounce Wildcat on site at its home park in Bristol, Connecticut; the ride was totally reconstructed in late 1985 to reopen in 1986. Also, that year, Wild World in Maryland (now known as Six Flags America), which had just purchased the standing-but-not-operating Giant Coaster from the long-closed Paragon Park in Massachusetts, contracted with Dinn to move it and rebuild it. Dinn moved portions of the ride and supervised the reconstruction, with the assistance of engineer-designer Curtis D. Summers. Summers reworked sections of the Giant Coaster’s layout, including creating a new helix finale that replaced one that was lost in a fire at old Paragon Park in 1963. The newly named Wild One opened in May 1986.
From there, he formed the Dinn Corporation. Next up was the relocation and rebuilding of one more preserved woodie, Skyliner from closed Roseland Park in New York, rebuilt at Pennsylvania’s Lakemont Park in 1987.
The Dinn Corporation, with Dinn’s designing partner, Curtis Summers, fully on board, then moved on to create, build and open an incredible 11 new wooden coasters in a four-year period (1988 – 1991), including the biggest, boldest and some of the most fascinating, structurally beautiful and monumental coasters ever attempted. Wolverine Wildcat (Michigan’s Adventure), Raging Wolf Bobs (Geauga Lake in Ohio), Timber Wolf (Worlds of Fun in Missouri), Hercules (Dorney Park in Pennsylvania), Texas Giant (Six Flags Over Texas), Georgia Cyclone (Six Flags Over Georgia), Predator (Darien Lake in New York), Thunder Run (Kentucky Kingdom), Psyclone (Six Flags Magic Mountain in California) and Mean Streak (Cedar Point in Ohio).
The Dinn Corporation was also involved as project managers on ride installations such as Raging Rapids at Kennywood in Pennsylvania, The Grand Rapids at Florida’s Boardwalk and Baseball Zoom Flume at Lake Compounce and Paradise Island, Wild World.
Dinn and Summers were widely responsible for the move from Douglas fir as the coaster wood of choice previously to the cheaper and more readily available southern yellow pine. Thus, they helped make wooden coasters more affordable, such that even small parks could get one in that era. As RollerCoaster! magazine’s article (“Dinn and Summers,” by Jeffrey Seifert, Spring 2008, issue #105) explains, though almost every Dinn and Summers coaster had to be modified after it was turned over to park owners, enthusiasts of that era were nonetheless thrilled to have new and often remarkable wooden coaster adventures to experience.
In 1991, he closed the Dinn Corporation after a dispute during the construction of Pegasus at Efteling in the Netherlands.
Once the Dinn Corporation was dissolved in 1991, he saw his daughter, Denise; her then-husband, Randy Larrick; and Charlie’s son, Jeff Dinn, form Custom Coasters International, a firm that created 34 wooden coasters in 11 years — an amazing number.
The impact of Charles Dinn, and then the Dinn name, sparking the rejuvenation of the popularity of wood coastering, and kicking such a building renaissance into very high gear in the 1980s and ‘90s and early 2000s is deservedly legendary.
Charlie Dinn and Curt Summers paved the way for future wooden coasters. Many of the staff who worked under Dinn and Summers and those who worked under Custom Coasters International went on to work with others and form companies of their own to carry the resurgent torch into today.
Back in the day, Dinn was affable, wry, plain-spoken, blunt, and a down-to-earth worker, craftsman and builder, who happily appeared at various ACE conventions, events and conferences over the years, where he talked with and gave presentations to enthusiasts (including appearing in 1979 at ACE’s Kings Island Coaster Con II as the keynote speaker), as well as coaster openings, where he would shoot the breeze amiably when he had the chance.
Charles Dinn is survived by his loving wife of nearly 67 years, Martha June Dinn; daughter, Denise Dinn Biddle, of Ormond-by-the-Sea, Florida; and son, Jeff Dinn, of Wilmington, Ohio. American Coaster Enthusiasts offers its deepest sympathy to the family.
— Randy Geisler
Photo: Gary Slade. View full-sized image.
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