Art Deco design by Richard Crowther

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Lakeside Amusement Park celebrates it’s 100 year anniversary this year! It is one of the oldest still-standing amusement parks in the country. It just opened for the season this last Memorial Day weekend.

Lakeside was built in 1908 as White City in the Beaux-Arts style of the World’s Exposition Fair of 1893. It resides in it’s own city of Lakeside, CO, just outside of Denver.

The Tower of Jewels is decorated with 16,000 light bulbs. It is sometimes referred to as The Casino Tower, as Lakeside once housed a casino.

You can still see traces of the Casino Theatre signage on the front east side of the main building.

The Casino Theatre once had a prison theme, where patrons would be served drinks in tin cups, and a mock prison band would play music behind bars!

This wonderful historic park is still family owned and run by the Krasner family. Benjamin Krasner bought the park in the 1930s and gave it a wild Art Deco makeover, with the aid of renowned architect Richard Crowther.

One of Richard Crowther’s beautiful Art Deco Moderne ticket booths.

Lakeside Amusement Park is very inexpensive to visit. A nominal $2.50 entry fee gets you into the park! And to me, that is quite a bargain to enjoy all this history!

The Streamline Moderne style of the Auto Skooter bumper cars.

One of the joys of Lakeside is that they take pride in their history and retain as much of the parks historic past as possible.

The Skoota bumper boats

Richard Crowther’s designs are famous for their imaginative use of neon lighting. I’ll post night time shots of Lakeside as soon as the weather cooperates!

Richard Crowther also designed the cylindrical Cooper Cinerama Theatre on Colorado Avenue, which is now repurposed as an electronics store, I believe.

Lakeside’s Merry Go Round is one of the parks most interesting features.

It is made up of four rows of salvaged animals from many different carousels, making it one of the most unique Merry-Go-Rounds you will ever see. . .

goats, pigs, bears, pink rabbits. . .

green rabbits, dogs, mules, black pigs. . .

and finally a Knight’s Templar horse

Art Deco design by Richard Crowther

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The Tower of Jewels at Lakeside Amusement Park,
in the city of Lakeside, CO, built 1908.

At the time of it’s construction, this Beaux-Arts style tower was
the tallest structure in Colorado at 150 feet!

You may notice the mysterious word REDIT, latin for “Return”.

Lakeside is most famous for the Cyclone Roller Coaster. If you are visiting Denver, you can pay the $2.50 entry fee, then buy the $2.00 worth of tickets to ride the Cyclone for a grand total of $4.50!

So, even if you only have a half-hour, you can pop in for an inexpensive quick thrill ride on this wild wooden coaster!

Richard Crowther designed many of the beautiful Art Deco signs and booths thoughout Lakeside, but for the interior of the Eataway Cafe (below), Lakeside owner Ben Krasner was savvy enough to salvage this Art Deco interior from a renovation of the inside of Denver’s Union Station, where this beautiful decor was being removed.

You can no longer go into the interior of Lakeside’s College Inn but it too was a wonderful example of Art Deco.

Lakeside has a great metal coaster as well, titled the Wild Chipmunk!

This ticket booth for the Wild Chipmunk is one of my favorite designs in the entire park!

And finally, the Riviera Ballroom, all that is left of the historic El Patio Ballroom, where big bands and rock and roll acts once played.

I believe the interior of the Riviera was also designed by Richard Crowther, and may possibly be still intact behind this door!

Behind you can see the old grandstands looking out over Lake Rhoda.

sketchup, coreldraw

Lakeside Train Station, from Lakeside Amusement Park,
located in the city of Lakeside, CO (right next to Denver).

Why did Lakeside put an Italianate clock tower in their train station,
when Union Station in Denver has no such tower?

Well, Union Station did have a similar clock tower that was removed during the redesign of the station in 1914, so I would guess that this building dates from
between 1908 and 1914.

This minature locomotive is actually a true steam powered engine just like a full size locomotive and has been running here continously since the opening of the park in 1908!

This steam engine is one of two in operation here, nicknamed Puffing Billy and Whistling Tom.

Lakeside also has a minature diesel locomotive, it’s own version of the famous Zephyr, which ran from Chicago to LA, via Denver.

While there is still much of Lakeside that dates back 100 years, the 30s, 40s and 50s eras saw Lakeside updated in various Art Deco and modernist styles.

Many of the Art Deco booths and similar features were designed by Richard Crowther, who brought neon lighting techniques that he had used helping light up San Francisco’s Golden Gate International Exposition Fair.

Later, Richard Crowther would go on to become a world famous Green architect, noted for his use of Passive Solar Heating. His ideas are still taught in architectural schools today.

Many of Crowther’s remarkable building designs have been torn down or otherwise lost, including his grand Cinerama Cooper Theatre on Colorado Blvd.

There are still a few Crowther office buildings and a handfull of his house designs left, including the amazing Crowther House in Cherry Creek.

Lakeside has an elaborately decorated version of the classic bob-sled ride, the Matterhorn.

The 30s-era Lakeside Speedway still stands on it’s original spot,
even though cars haven’t raced here since the 1980s.

Visitors with historical interests are fortunate that Lakeside Amusement Park does not hurry to tear down unused features.

For example, here is the old pier for the long gone Lakeside Speed Boats, with a beautiful view of the Rocky Mountains over Lake Rhoda (named for Lakeside owner Rhoda Krasner)

sketchup, coreldraw

Lakeside Amusement Park is a historical time-capsule treasure, located in it’s very own city, Lakeside, CO, bordering Denver, Wheatridge & Arvada. It is one my favorites places in the world!

The Tower of Jewels, shown above, is now 100 years old and is built in the original Beaux Arts style from when the park was first created by Denver brewer Adolph Zang and friends in 1908!

Many cities across the nation created their own local versions of the 1893 World Exhibition and Fair of Chicago, all dubbed White City. They were all painted white
and covered head to toe in electric light bulbs, which would have been quite a sight
in that era!

But what makes Lakeside great is that is was purchased in the 1930s
by Benjamin Krasner, who then updated the park in elaborate
Art Deco & modernist styles which continued through to the 1960s.

It is amazing that this Krasner family still owns the park today and
has left the historical beauty of this park intact!

The ticket booths, the signs, the lettering are a treasure trove of
beautiful modernist designs.

Many of the late-1940s & 1950s era designs are by important
modernist architect Richard Crowther.

Richard Crowther designed some beautiful modernist homes around the Denver area, along with the Cooper Cinerama Theatre on Colorado Blvd.

IMPORTANT NOTE: The Crowther House (401 Madison St), a gorgeous Cherry Creek modernist masterpiece, seems to be in constant danger of being scraped!

This is absolutely ridiculous, considering it is one of the most impressive buildings of it’s type in the state, on par with the Flying Saucer House in Gennessee, or the Mushroom House in Boulder!

Lakeside has an original Eyerly Aircraft Company Satellite ride!

Eyerly Aircraft Company also created the Loop O-Plane, the Roll O-Plane, the Rock O-Plane, & the much loved Octopus!

Even small gardening features at Lakeside look wonderful.

And Lakeside has plenty of shade from the hot Colorado sun. Look at this wild shade roof located in front of the Satellite.

This beautiful ghostly skeleton appearing through the trees is the original
Staride Ferris Wheel, from the old White City days.

Though this ride will probably never be restored, we can all thank the Krasner family for leaving it intact for those of us in later generations to appreciate!