Rocky Glen Park

Known by a variety of names over its 101-year existence, Rocky Glen Park was a park near Moosic, Pennsylvania, USA. Founded by Arthur Frothingham in 1886 as a picnic park, it was transformed into an amusement park by engineer and entrepreneur Frederick Ingersoll in 1905. The trolley park was a popular Pennsylvania attraction that featured rides, arcades, and restaurants - even as a "wild west" theme park in the 1970s - until its closure in 1987.

History

Land developer Arthur Frothingham purchased the site for $15 at a tax sale in 1885. The following year, Rocky Glenn was open to the public as a picnic park. About 1900, Frothingham contracted E. S. Williams to dam Dry Valley Run Creek to create a lake on the property; when Frothingham failed to pay Williams for the work, Williams sued and was awarded one-half interest in the park.

Soon afterward, Frothingham obtained a Pennsylvania state cemetery charter for the park after learning of plans of extending tracks of the Lehigh Valley Railroad over the grounds. To avoid losing the park via eminent domain, Frothingham interred two bodies (one of a man who died in a mining accident, one of a man who died in a train accident) in the proposed route of the track; the Lehigh Valley Railway purchased a parcel of the cemetery for $25,000 and agreed to build a Laurel Line station nearby.