Idora Park (Youngstown)
amusement park in Youngstown, Ohio
Idora Park (1899–1984) was an amusement park in Youngstown, Ohio, United States, also known as "Youngstown's Million Dollar Playground."
Built by the Youngstown Park and Falls Street Railway Company, the park's expansion coincided with the growth of the South Side of Youngstown, Ohio, in the Fosterville neighborhood. Prior to its closure in the wake of a devastating fire, Idora Park was one of the nation's few remaining urban amusement parks.
Opening and early development
The park opened as Terminal Park on May 30, 1899, which was Decoration Day (now known as Memorial Day). At that time in America, it was common for amusement parks called trolley parks to sprout at the end of trolley lines to generate weekend revenue. Without an admission fee, anyone who could afford the trolley fare could enter the park. This trolley park's first season presented its guests a bandstand, theater, dance pavilion, a roller coaster, a circle swing, and concession stands. It was later renamed Idora Park.
When a bridge spanning the Mahoning River opened on Youngstown's Market Street on May 23, 1899, the entire South Side was unrolled for development. The trolley line linking the downtown to Idora Park ran south on Market, west on Warren, south on Hillman Street, Sherwood west to Glenwood Avenue, then cruised through Parkview Avenue (west) into the Idora terminal. In 1967, Idora Park began charging admission for the first time, introducing a Pay-One-Price policy that included unlimited rides for $2.50.[1]
Major attractions
Roller coasters
One of the park's many attractions was a wooden roller coaster with a length of 3,000 feet (910 m) and the height of 85 feet high, called the Wild Cat, which opened in 1930.
This brief starts where responsible research should: with the source description of “Idora Park (Youngstown)” as amusement park in Youngstown, Ohio. Everything that follows is an evidence route, not borrowed authority.
Why this record matters
The subject matters to the places & architecture register because the source frames it as amusement park in Youngstown, Ohio. Its deeper value depends on whether names, dates, institutions and citations support that framing.
The strongest evidence will usually combine a dated visual record with documents produced by the authority responsible for the place. The source revision retrieved here is dated Sep 5, 2026. The linked authority identifier is Q5989523. VIAF identifies the subject as 315147751. The Library of Congress control number is sh98002630. Authority coordinates are 41.072, -80.685. 2 of 4 selected statements include explicit references; 0 carry qualifiers and 0 use preferred rank. The first chronological checks are 1899, 1984, 1967 and 1930.
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This entry incorporates text from “Idora Park (Youngstown)” on English Wikipedia. Contributors are listed in the page history. Text is available under the Creative Commons Attribution-ShareAlike 4.0 License. Selected authority identifiers and statements are retrieved from Wikidata under CC0; their references and qualifiers remain part of the verification path.