Former Site of the Riverside Amusement Park

Indianapolis’ first amusement park was constructed in 1903 through a joint venture between Pittsburgh investor Frederick Ingersoll and local businessmen J. Clyde Power, Bert Feibleman, and Albert Lieber. The 30-acre Riverside Amusement Park (RAP) featured mechanical rides, concessions, a Ferris wheel, and a large central dance hall, where visitors danced to live orchestras and bands. It boasted a laughing gallery hall of mirrors, an aerial circle swing, shooting galleries, canoe and rowboat rentals, and the Double Eight roller coaster, the longest in the U.S. at the time.

A fire in 1905 destroyed much of the park but it was totally refurbished the next year with new attractions. The park didn’t charge an admission fee but charged by the attraction. RAP was so popular that by the end of the summer of 1906, streetcars were arriving there every three minutes.

In 1910, the 15-acre Riverside Bathing Beach opened adjacent to RAP. The “Hoosier Coney Island” featured a diving platform and giant cascades to circulate clean water. A wooden boardwalk along the outer rim of the lake was constructed for sunbathers as well as covered bleacher seats. The lake doubled as an ice rink in the winter months.

The park flourished and in 1919 came under the local control of lawyer Lewis Coleman, who modernized the park with new amenities and rides. Coleman’s son John took over management of the park in 1939 until its closing in 1971.

Under the leadership if Coleman, the policy of "Whites-Only" remained in place, except for a few specific days throughout the year. This area was also considered a "Sundown town" due to laws that ordered African Americans to be home before sundown because known lynchings happened in the park.

During World War II, RAP kept patrons coming by sponsoring wartime relief programs for servicemen and their families. Following the war, economic prosperity fueled increased attendance at the park. In 1952, RAP hosted an estimated one million visitors. During the late 1950s, it introduced several expensive amusements, including one modeled after an attraction at Disneyland.

Segregation History:

Prior to Lewis Coleman’s taking control of RAP in 1919, African Americans used the park for church picnics and social outings. Coleman instituted a “whites only” policy with African- American patrons permitted entry only on designated “Colored Frolic Days,” typically one to two days a year. Signs at the park proclaimed, “White Patronage Only Solicited.” In 1921, the city of Indianapolis opened Douglass Park, designating it as the sole city park for African Americans and refused to grant permits for African-American events at any park but Douglass. In 1922, George Tompkins was lynched at Cold Spring woods, a nearby privately-owned tract that became part of Riverside Park in 1927.

Citizens began to protest the segregationist policy of RAP during the 1940s. While African- American patrons flocked to the park on their day for several years, black leaders, particularly black veterans, denounced what was then called “Negro Day” and all it symbolized. Black lawyers and elected representatives organized a 1945 boycott of “Negro Day.” The boycott worked and only a few blacks, mostly children, attended Negro Day that year. However, the whites-only signs remained at the park.

In June 1962, fifteen picketers representing the NAACP picketed RAP, protesting its discriminatory policies. The picketing continued for several months. In August 1962, the NAACP held a mass protest meeting about the whites-only signs at the park. Eventually, John Coleman was convinced to remove the whites-only signs and RAP’s segregationist policy ended in 1963. By the late 1960s, Riverside Park was fully open to African Americans and even hosted a three-day black cultural festival in 1971.

By that time, however, much of the population growth in Indianapolis was occurring outside city limits. As the suburbs expanded, attendance at the RAP declined. For these and other reasons (such as significant national competition), RAP closed following the 1970 season. The park rides and buildings were demolished in 1978 and the site left vacant. Between 1998 and 2007, the site was redeveloped into single-family houses and townhomes in the Rivers Edge subdivision.