Miles' vision Indianola Park was established by dentist-turned-developer Charles Miles, who was president of the Summit Land Company, which developed residential neighborhoods in the former farmland across High Street from the
Ohio State University. He was inspired to go into the amusement park business, because he saw how well
Coney Island's new
Luna Park was doing, and he had experience using recreations to draw buyers. The park was designed by amusement park impresario Frederick Ingersoll, who also designed the Luna Parks in
Pittsburgh and
Cleveland, and the gates were opened to the public on June 8, 1905. Reduced to just its core, the dance pavilion and the pool, Indianola stayed open into the 1930s. The Great Depression made a challenging situation even more difficult, because few people had money to spare for a day at the amusement park. However, the record hot summers of the early 1930s helped keep the park afloat during the lean years, with temperature at nearly 100 °F for weeks on end. When the hot summers passed after the 1937 season, Indianola Park closed.
Shopping center In 1948, Indianola Park was converted into Indianola Park Shopping Center, and the pool was filled in and paved over for a parking lot. The former dance pavilion became an Ohio Giant Market, and a dozen or so other shops and restaurants were built around its perimeters by 1952, such as a
flower shop, a
beauty shop, a bakery, a gift shop, an appliance store, a fashion
boutique, a
dry cleaner, a
pharmacy, a
laundromat, a finance center, a
hardware store, a
variety store, and a restaurant. With the influx of students at the end of the
Vietnam War, Ohio State enrollment went up to almost 50,000 students. This changed the businesses. By 1978, the shops included three restaurants, two new pharmacies, two
realtors, a
Salvation Army Thrift Store, and a
coffee shop, as well as new grocery,
sporting goods, and appliance stores. In the early 1980s, Suzi-Cue Pool Hall, a local
dive bar and
billiards hall, moved into the complex. By 1990, Both Suzi-Cue and the Salvation Army remained, but the rest of the businesses had moved out, being replaced by Soussy Market, C&M Towing, a hair salon, and
Christian Embassy. In 2006,
Xenos Christian Fellowship purchased Indianola Park Shopping Center, just before Indianola Junior High School closed in 2010. ==Attractions==