Many of these kiosks were set up along what was then called Cliff Avenue, now Point Lobos Ave. Sutro also purchased dozens of concession stands from the 1894 Midwinter Fair, intending to create a bustling market on the Pleasure Grounds. In reality, it was an optical illusion: it was the room itself that rotated around the swing, while the passengers stayed completely still. In fact, not so much as a hat was out of place.įor 1890s San Franciscans, this seemed pretty damn haunted. Gradually, it would oscillate higher and higher, until suddenly, the swing flipped an entire 360 degrees - but no one fell out. The swing, which held about forty people suspended in a room, would begin swaying side to side gently at first. Perhaps most popular, however, was the “Haunted Swing,” an attraction that so alarmed riders that they prayed while on it, the San Francisco Chronicle wrote at the time. Newspaper articles at the time advertised a daring tightrope walk performed between the Firth Wheel and the Scenic Railway, a trained bear, and band concerts every weekend. There was also the “Scenic Railway,” an early wooden rollercoaster that left passengers breathless with its steep drops and inclines, according to the National Park Service. Sutro bought up the most popular rides from San Francisco’s massive (and very racist) 1894 Midwinter Fair, including the “Firth Wheel,” a 100-foot diameter Ferris wheel with dazzling views of the Pacific Ocean, and the “Mystic Maze,” an indoor house of mirrors in which a girl seated somewhere in the room would give you $500 if you could find her.
a host of popular shows, compared with which the brilliancy of the Chicago Midway would be as a candle in the sunlight.” “Adolph Sutro has announced that he intends to spend $200,000 immediately for the purchase of attractions that will make the Cliff House region a formidable rival of Coney Island,” read the article. In a New York Times article published just before its grand opening, he outlined his ambitious vision. Sutro first opened the amusement park in 1896, just steps away from his elaborate saltwater swimming pool complex, the Sutro Baths. Built by former San Francisco mayor Adolph Sutro, the Pleasure Grounds were a complement to his other grand seaside developments: the Cliff House, Sutro Baths and Sutro Gardens. A few decades before the iconic Playland at the Beach first sprung up along Ocean Beach, another amusement park delighted fun-loving San Franciscans: the Sutro Pleasure Grounds.
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