Euclid Beach Park

Euclid Beach Park was an amusement park located on the southern shore of Lake Erie in the Collinwood neighborhood of Cleveland, Ohio, which operated from 1895 to 1969.

Originally incorporated by investors from Cleveland and patterned after New York's Coney Island, the park was managed by William R. Ryan Sr., who ran the park with featured attractions including vaudeville acts, concerts, gambling, a beer garden, and sideshows as well as a few early amusement rides. In 1899, Lee Holtzman became Euclid Beach's new manager. Later that same year, as reported in a Cleveland newspaper, Euclid Beach Park had failed. Former management was faced with the loss of more than half their investment if they sold the land for building development. It was established that the original Euclid Beach Park Company was losing $20,000 a season.

Dudley S. Humphrey Jr. led six members of his family in undertaking management of the park as of 1901. They had previously operated concessions at the park but had been unhappy with the way Ryan ran it. Humphrey and family leased the park for five years at $12,000 a year. They expanded the beach and bathing facilities, including adding a lakeside swing and many new attractions. They advertised with the slogan, "one fare, free gate and no beer".

Designed to be a family-friendly park, the Humphreys would not admit anyone who had consumed intoxicating beverages at a bar directly across the street from the entrance to the park. Signs throughout the park instructed that only children were permitted to wear shorts, because the Humphreys thought that proper dress would promote a family-friendly atmosphere. At one point, the park advertised that it would "present nothing that would demoralize or depress," and that visitors would "never be exposed to undesirable people", in which they included African Americans. In August 1910, the park was the site of an exhibition flight by aviator Glenn Curtiss from Euclid Beach to Cedar Point and back.