Coney Island
Sparks, Washoe County, Nevada
Marker Inscription
Coney Island. Opened to the public on June 20 1909, Coney Island was among the most elaborate amusement parks of its day. Otto G. Benschuetz, founder and owner, landscaped the grounds, put in a children’s playground, a bandstand for outdoor concerts and a dance pavilion which also served as a skating rink and theatre. Coney Island also had an artificial lake complete with boats, covered landings and bath houses. The park’s heyday passed with Benschuetz’s death in 1912. An aircraft assembly plant occupied the site in the early “twenties” and an auto court was established here later. The pavilion was destroyed by fire in 1927 and a second blaze in 1930 took other structures. All the remaining buildings were torn down when Interstate 80 was constructed in the 1960’s.
Erected by Division Of Historic Preservation And Archeologywashoe County Historical Societycity Of Sparks
The Story
When it opened in June 1909, Coney Island was one of the grandest amusement parks in the Nevada region, the creation of Otto G. Benschuetz, who laid out landscaped grounds, a bandstand, a dance pavilion, and even an artificial boating lake with bath houses. Its bright heyday was brief, fading after Benschuetz died in 1912. The site was reinvented again and again—an aircraft assembly plant, an auto court—before fires and the arrival of Interstate 80 in the 1960s erased what remained.
Why it matters
It reflects the turn-of-the-century American craze for elaborate public amusement parks, and how the automobile and interstate highways later remade the very landscapes those leisure grounds once occupied.
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Related people
- · Otto G. Benschuetz
Themes & tags
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