outlining the history of the amusement park A major part of the lake's history is the amusement park and dancehall once in
Russells Point, advertised as the "Midwest's Million Dollar Playground". Pappy Wilgus, a Russells Point resident, built Sandy Beach Amusement Park, which opened to the public on May 29, 1924. It was promoted as the "Atlantic City of the West". They erected a "out and back" wooden
roller coaster, built by the National Amusement Device Company, known variously as "Coaster", "Thriller", "Big Dipper" and "Silver Streak" through the years. The park offered a
penny arcade, a
carousel, a
millrace ride, a
Ferris wheel, a
funhouse, boat excursions, and a boardwalk to Sandy Beach Island for swimming. A major attraction was the Minnewawa Dance Hall. With two bandstands and room for hundreds of couples, the park claimed it was the largest and best dance hall in Ohio. Famous orchestras such as those led by
Paul Whiteman and
Rudy Vallée packed in the crowds. Sandy Beach was a great success even during the Great Depression, and hosted many dance marathons in the 1920s and early 1930s. The 1931 National Endurance Dance Marathon, held in Minnewawa, lasted an incredible 80 days, 2 hours. When a fire destroyed much of the wooden structures of the park in 1935, the park was sold to new owners. They invested $100,000 in rebuilding, including replacing Minnewawa Dance Hall with the Moonlight Terrace Gardens. Crowds continued to come through the 1950s. Over 100,000 attended the 1953 Ohio Sesquicentennial celebration at Indian Lake. The park and dancehall began to deteriorate and decline in the 1950s, as attendance fell due to people having more choices and access by personal cars. The park was renamed "San Juan Amusement Park", inspired by a vintage neon sign "San Juan Hotel" located near the park's entrance. On the evening of July 4, 1961, rowdies at Russells Point bars across the street started fighting - and before the evening was over, there was a riot involving nearly 500 youths. For nearly a decade, there were repeats of the
Independence Day weekend riots. Families chose to go to safer destinations, and
motorcycle gangs were attracted to the disruption and came to be part of it. The park management fought back, increasing their security budget, and when it appeared that they had turned the corner on the violence, they renamed the park "Indian Lake Playland" in 1967. An illuminated slowly revolving statue of the
Virgin Mary was erected at the park in 1964 adjacent to the lake in an effort to bring families back. The statue, still locally maintained, remains there to this day. But large, modern new parks at
Cedar Point and
Kings Island, each within about a two-hour drive, drew away customers. Seeing the success of
Disneyland in
Anaheim, California, investors in
Sandusky, Ohio, made massive investments in Cedar Point in the 1960s. In 1972, the Taft family (Taft Broadcasting) relocated some rides from
Coney Island Amusement Park on the banks of the
Ohio River 10 miles east of downtown Cincinnati to
Kings Mills, Ohio, where they provided the start for a major new theme park known as Kings Island. The Indian Lake park bought a second roller coaster, one of the popular Ben Schiff "
Wild Mouse" coasters, but it was to no avail. The park sold the steel coaster, replacing it with a giant multicolored steel slide, before closing down in 1975. The wooden coaster and other rides continued to deteriorate and sit idle until the park was razed in 1982 after the property was purchased in 1981. Many of the dismantled kiddie rides and other park memorabilia were auctioned off prior to the park's demolition. Much of the property has been privately developed. The park was divided by a channel, the entrance to the Russells Point harbor, with a 1920s
footbridge connecting the two sides. A lack of maintenance led to the bridge's closing decades later, though it remained standing. Private residential development has taken place on former parkland, and condos and apartments line the water. Local fundraising and grants allowed the bridge to be re-lighted in 2010, and in 2014 the bridge was renovated with brick walkways and reopened to the public in a ceremony on August 23, 2014. ==The Area==