Life, Missouri History Today
50,000 Kansas Citians Attend Opening of Electric Park: May 19, 1907
The Electirc Park theme park, dubbed “Kansas City’s Coney Island,” was the brainchild of the Heim family, who operated the massive Heim Brewing Company. The park opened near 46th and Paseo, boasting 100,000 lights illuminating attractions like a roller coaster, carousel, swimming pool, skating rink, dance halls, arcades, and even an alligator farm!
It remained a popular destination for years – with an estimated one million people visiting annually. In an interesting aside, Walt Disney and his sister regularly attended the park as kids, and a nine-year-old named Walter Cronkite witnessed the 1925 fire that hastened the park’s demise.
Based upon content from the book Missouri 365: This Day in Missouri History by John W. Brown, broadcaster and Missouri historian. Get your copy at Reedy Press.
Photo credit: Kirill Belichenko, Unsplash
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Missouri Life
