In the beginning…! Though it may not be the prologue you’d expect from a trip down an amusement park’s memory lane, there’s no better nor more biblical way to begin a look into one of the most unique and under-recognized attractions on Earth – a last-of-its-kind historic whale of a walkthrough found only at Kennywood Park just outside of Pittsburgh…
A classic attraction that’s survived the Great Depression, a World War, fifteen Presidents, countless redesigns, and (imagine this) a real flood, Noah’s Ark at Kennywood has been shared between nearly 90 years of Yinzers. Like a story passed from generation to generation, this ultra-original walkthrough still floats today, rocking back and forth atop a mountain smack dab in the middle of “America’s Finest Traditional Amusement Park.”
A climb through Noah’s Ark is to step into history. So just as we’ve explored Son of Beast, TOMB RAIDER: The Ride, VOLCANO: The Blast Coaster, and dozens more classic attractions in Theme Park Tourist’s Legend Library, we hope you’ll join us for a journey to Noah’s Ark.
Kenny’s Grove
“In the beginning” might be the best way to begin the story of Kennywood, because for generations of Pittsburgh locals, the park has simply always been. You can imagine why! Like so many of the amusement parks that dotted the American landscape throughout the early 20th century (long before the master-planned Disneyland, mind you), Kennywood’s “start” isn’t so easy to pin down.
George Washington himself set foot there as a colonel in 1755’s Battle of the Monongahela. Sixty years later, westward traveler Thomas Kenny settled there, figuring the 365 acre plot overlooking the Monongahela River would make a fine farm and homestead. By the end of the 1800s, a wooded portion of the property nicknamed “Kenny’s Grove” had been opened to the public as a pleasant picnic park on the outskirts of an industrializing city.
In 1898, the picnic grove’s land was leased to the Monongahela Street Railways Company, ensuring little Kenny’s Grove could offer leisure and amusements to the city’s steelworkers… while also cleverly increasing weekend trolley ridership. The turn of the century saw dozens and dozens of such “trolley parks” bloom in cities across the country, and like its contemporaries, the newly designated Kennywood Park added a carousel, a casino hall, a bandstand, a lagoon with rowboats, and a dance pavilion to serve as a one-stop-shop for Victorian entertainment.
In 1901 – 120 years ago! – Kennywood added its first dark ride: The Old Mill. Drifting down a flume channel powered by a spinning waterwheel, riders would pass through simple scenes depicting grottos and caverns, underscored by music.
For couples, the draw of these early, rudimentary dark rides was the chance to canoodle in the dark – a rare opportunity in the prudish Victorian era. For most people, though, the Old Mill’s real draw was the ability to see those interior scenes lit by the breathtaking, new electric lightbulb. (Restored and reimagined in 2020, The Old Mill remains the world’s oldest operating dark ride today.)
Fun House, Fun Boat
Though no one alive today would remember it, DAFE – the Darkride and Funhouse Enthusiasts organization – reports that in 1902, the park opened the “Pavilion of Fun.” Within, guests could walk through the blustery “Cave of the Winds” (where surprise compressed air streams would send women’s skirts flying and men chasing after hats) and the “Earthquake Room” (with wooden floors trembling, rumbling, and shaking).
They’d find relief at the “Spring Water” oasis… only to find that connecting the fountain’s tin cup with a secretly-electrified stream of water caused a “shocking” surprise. (It was, to say the least, a very different time… as also evidenced by a peep hole through which guests would see a reflection of their own face on the body of “a fat policeman making love to the house-maid.”)
Finally, guests would climb “The Crazy Staircase” (with steps rising and lowering opposite one another, patented by Coney Island’s George Tilyou) for a ride down the “Swirly Slide.”
Suffice it to say that Kennywood’s “Pavilion of Fun” would today easily be recognized as one of the first ever in a new genre of attractions: a funhouse! Evolving parallel to the first walkthrough attractions in New York’s Coney Island, Kennywood added a handful of amusing funhouses in the era: the endless mazes of the House of Trouble; the Laughing Gallery mirror maze (the first-of-its-kind, imported from the Paris Exposition); The House of Mystery (ironically, for which no known images or descriptions remain); and the Daffy Dilla Fun Factory (featuring a human roulette wheel!).
One after another, Kennywood refined the art of the laugh-out-loud walkthrough in subsequent installations and redecoratings… The Tumble Inn; Hilarity Hall; the Bug House; Tut’s Tomb (capitalizing on the actual 1922 archaeological discovery, in real time)… You have to imagine that even by the 1920s, funhouses, slides, and walkthroughs still vastly outnumbered even the most traditional dark rides. (The definitive, single-rail, bus-bar powered “Pretzel” dark ride wouldn’t even be patented till the end of the decade.)
While meandering Old Mills and Tunnels of Love may have given guests respite from the summer heat in darkened, musty chambers, walkthroughs were the way that guests could step into new worlds, filled with special effects, laugh-out-loud tricks, and (sometimes literally) shocking surprises. (It’s probably no coincidence that even with the cart-based dark ride at his disposal, Walt Disney himself initially envisioned both the Haunted Mansion and Pirates of the Caribbean as walkthroughs!)
But the most unique subgenre of funhouse was soon to arrive…
Genesis
And God saw that the wickedness of man was great in the earth […] And it repented the Lord that he had made man on the earth, and it grieved him at his heart. And the Lord said, I will destroy man whom I have created from the face of the earth; both man, and beast, and the creeping thing, and the fowls of the air; for it repenteth me that I have made them
Dozens of religious texts around the globe dating to ancient times tell of a “Great Flood” brought from the heavens, with only those selected by the divine spared to replenish the Earth. The story of Noah is among the most well-known in the Western world. Chosen by God to collect two of every animal, Noah and his family were said to build and board a floating Ark, surviving forty days and forty nights of rain before receding water set the ark down among the mountains of Ararat.
You might think of “Noah’s Ark” as a theological Atlantis: understood by some as a mere allegory or myth, pursued by others like a treasure waiting to be discovered. Of course, the latter set need not look too far, given that dozens of Arks have been found atop as many Mount Ararats across the United States and Great Britain!
The first “Noah’s Ark” opened in 1919 at Venice Pier in California. Inside the curiously beached boat, guests would pass through a maze populated by not only traditional “funhouse” gags like rocking floors and wacky mirrors, but by simple, static vignettes stylized after Noah, his family, and sculpted animals on board. Designed by Leroy Ramond, the uniquely-themed walkthrough was a hit.
In 1920, Ramond sold the rights to build further Arks to William Dentzel (of the Dentzel Carousel Company), which sold and constructed Arks across the country. In fact, “Noah’s Arks” became the funhouse-du-jour for amusement parks in the ensuing decades. According to Joel Styler at Laff in the Dark, when Dentzel passed away in 1928, the Carousel Company was purchased by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company (a well-known roller coaster manufacturer to this day), who were able to sell the model on a wider scale.
During the 1920s and ’30s, Noah’s Arks spread around the country! Nearly three dozen versions of the attraction were known to have existed, from New York’s Coney Island to Maine’s Old Orchard Beach; Cedar Point in Ohio to Frontierland and Blackpool Pleasure Beach in the UK. Typically set in a pool of water (with access to the Ark via floating platforms) or atop a carved Mount Ararat (with ascending tunnels and bridges to the ship), Noah’s Arks were about as synonymous with amusement parks as Ferris wheels or bumper cars!
Today, just one is left… And on the last page, we’ll trek inside to discover what can be found inside the last Noah’s Ark on Earth…
A Rocking & Rollicking Good Time
Back in Pittsburgh, Kennywood had certainly become a more modern park of amusements and thrills over the course of the 1920s! The opening of a number of historic John Miller coasters – 1920’s Jack Rabbit, 1924’s Pippin (now Thunderbolt), and 1927’s mobius Racer – had made the park look more like its modern self. So had 1930’s Laff in the Dark – a classic, twisting dark ride through the “funnies” built in an enclosed bumper car shed (left). (The Old Mill, you’ll remember, was already thirty years old by that point!)
As the story goes, plans to add a Noah’s Ark to the park had been a foregone conclusion… until the 1929 Wall Street Crash and the ensuing Great Depression slowed the park’s plans. In retrospect, it’s probably for the best. Frankly, the Ark wasn’t as needed then as it soon would be…
On March 17 and 18th of 1936, a catastrophic flood swept through all of Pittsburgh. Over the course of the two days, the “Great St. Patrick’s Day Flood” saw water levels swell to 49 feet – nearly double the 25 feet that would indicate flood conditions. Over 100,000 buildings were destroyed. Damage to the city’s riverside steel mills left 60,000 citizens out of work. Pittsburgh was without power for 8 days, and 69 people were reported dead from the catastrophe.
Aside from the irony of a devestating flood delaying the construction of Kennywood’s biblical Ark (“The recent flood hindered me from getting my ark ready for today, but we shall sail soon!” said a construction sign), it’s easy to imagine that Kennywood and its funhouse were a rare respite for the weary Pittsburghers whose lives had been upended that spring… Perhaps moreso than ever, once the flood waters receded into the Three Rivers, Noah’s Ark was needed.
Finally, in the summer of 1936 – and at a total cost of $20,000 (the equivalent of about $400,000 today) – Kennywood became home to the last-known Ark to be constructed, and certainly the final Philadelphia Toboggan Company version of the attraction.
While climbing through the rocky base of Mount Ararat and along steps and boardwalks leading to the shipwrecked Ark, guests would encounter their first of its many gags. Hidden air hoses slyly activated by attendants would blast streams of air upward when crossed by young ladies, sending their skirts flying (and delighting crowds who gathered below to catch a glimpse).
To reach the ark itself, guests would need to navigate “wobbling lilly pads” across a pool of water on the mountainside. Stepping across those anchored, floating platforms that would leave visitors young and old slipping into the ankle-deep reservoir there. Knocking floors, sirens, and surprise airhorns would likewise startle guests, leaving spectators in stitches.
But perhaps that attraction’s greatest gag was the ship itself… The entire Ark was built atop a rocking mechanism, like a pendulum swinging deep in the mountainous base. Guests standing atop the stairs at the ship’s threshold would hop aboard as it bobbed on invisible waves, navigating through the ship’s interior as it alternatively raised and lowered.
On its upper decks, they’d pass animals hand-carved by cartoon scenes and motion-based funhouse gags (like a tower of “falling barrels,” loudly toppling toward startled guests with each rock of the ship) before descending down dark, narrow stairs that likewise leaned forward and back with the ship’s movement. Even once deep inside the “mountain” structure itself, guests would find themselves in a maze of vibrating floors, rumbling walkways, and oscillating path panels filled with ghostly figures and skeletons.
Characteristic of any classic attraction that’s seen the better part of a century, Noah’s Ark changed in the context of the world around it! According to the LA Times, for example, during World War II the tilting ship would cause a coffin to fall open over guests’ heads, containing the crudely-crafted corpse of Adolf Hitler; in the 1950s, a TV antenna was added atop the ark – apparently even Noah had fallen for the new fad of television – and in 1960s, a parade of animals including the Peanuts’ Snoopy ringed around the Ark on a motorized track.
By far the Ark’s most iconic makeover took place in 1969. As part of a major reconstruction effort, the path to the Ark was rerouted, the gags reimagined, and Noah’s cast of creatures gained its most fabled occupant: a full-sized blue whale whose famously squishy tongue served as its entry way. Though plucked more from the Bible story of Jonah than Noah, the spouting whale served as a beloved marquee for the attraction for nearly thirty years… Until…
Raiders of the Lost Ark
As the New Millennium neared, just three Arks remained – two in the UK (Blackpool Pleasure Beach and Frontierland) and a single US installation… Kennywood’s. “Rides like these – the funhouses – you’ll find that they need a refreshing about every 20, 25 years to not get totally stale,” Kennywood spokesperson Nick Paradise told the Pittsburgh Post Gazette in 2015.
In 1996, that quarter-century upgrade turned the Ark into a construction site as a massive restoration and reimagining overtook Mount Ararat. Reportedly, upon “digging into” the Ark, engineers conceded that the ship’s internal wood was too rotted to salvage. What might’ve spelled the end of the then-60-year-old attraction at any park instead lead Kennywood to a an extensive, nearly from-scratch rebuild of the teetering boat.
The complete reconstruction of the Ark also offered the rare opportunity for a pop culture upgrade. Noah’s Ark largely dropped its whimsical mid-century style and the comical animals that came with it. Over the 1995 – 1996 off-season, the blue whale that had been an icon of Noah’s Ark – and by extension, Kennywood’s classic attraction lineup – for thirty years was put out to sea. Is it any surprise that in the era of the Modern Marvel: Indiana Jones Adventure, the Ark was rewritten with a more adventurous edge?
Guests were recast as would-be archaeologists who’d come to explore the recently-recovered resting place of the Ark. With the squishy-tongued whale gone, the attraction switched to a batched entry, with groups of guests loaded into a freight elevator meant to whisk them up to the ship’s remains. With excavation lights flickering (and thanks to a rocky scrim on rollers), the elevator would appear to lose power of plummet (actually rotating on a turntable), depositing guests into caverns deep inside Mount Ararat.
Once there, a clever illusion would see guests face (Plexiglass-covered) pits of petrified skeletons, seemingly crossable only by tip-toeing across a narrow wooden beam or hopping across pillars. Even once guests reached the mount’s summit, the Ark was refilled with new gags, including filling its lower levels with all manner of creepy creatures (like snakes that spat at approaching guests) and a dizzying, dimensional, revolving Ark illusion. The attraction’s end was also reimagined as a “bathysphere,” where guests would again gather to see a mini special-effects show wherein the walls would collapse inward, pouring water into the chamber.
Make no mistake: for a generation of ’90s kids, this Noah’s Ark was the Noah’s Ark – more a test of bravery than a whale of a good time. But kids who’d grown up with the “classic” Noah’s Ark now watched their own children cowered through the funhouse-turned-fearhouse, sapped of its color, comedy, and mid-century joy. From the “Elevator of Doom” to the terrifying tombs; jumpscare animals to flooding chambers, Kennywood had successfully transformed Noah’s Ark for a new generation… but in so doing, had trampled on the memories of the generations before.
Any reference to Noah’s Ark among Pittsburghers inevitably included one comment: “They should bring back the whale.”
A Whale of a Good Time
In 2015, Kennywood announced an unexpectedly retro project set to debut in the 2016 season: the next large-scale restoration of Noah’s Ark. The “Elevator of Doom” was removed in November 2015 and trucked away – much to the delight of fans and followers on social media.
Better yet, the next iteration of the 1936 classic would see the restoration of the Ark’s “old-school,” retro feel! Inside, glowing bold, bright, blacklight scenes would replace the grim caverns and caves of the 1996 redo; air hoses would return to playfully spook ascending visitors; UV paint would fill blank corridors with geometric patterns; scary animal experiences would be replaced with comical gags and setups straight from the ’60s; and, of course…
When Noah’s Ark reopened in 2016, visitors entered the attraction by… walking down the spongey tongue of a big, goofy blue whale. The “new” Noah’s Ark is a masterpiece – a vibrant, Technicolor example of how to restore a classic attraction to its most beloved form while also infusing it with modern showmanship, fresh scenes,… and 21st century accessibility! Take a walk through Kennywood’s reborn Noah’s Ark here:
Filled with timeless gags, optical illusions, tilted rooms, and – yes – shaking floors, the ascent to – and trip through – the Ark now feels like an experience for the whole family again; a rare remnant of the golden age of the funhouse. Plus, over a hundred years after the first installation at Venice Pier, Kennywood’s Noah’s Ark is the last… a one-of-a-kind, last-of-its-kind throwback to another time, now revitalized and reimagined for a generation more.
It may sound strange to give a 1936 walkthrough attraction a prominent place in Theme Park Tourist’s selective collection of in-depth Modern Marvels, but this Depression-era icon is the kind of classic only Kennywood would commit to; a delightful reminder of another time, reinfused with retro magic. Against all odds, Noah’s Ark has survived wars, expansions, overlays, and yes, even floods.
Thank you for joining us on a walk through the history of Noah’s Ark at Kennywood! Be sure to share your memories and thoughts of this Pittsburgh classic in the comments below, or when you share this story! Be sure to make the jump to Theme Park Tourist’s Legend Library collection to set course for another in-depth attraction story!
