Vinewood Park, Topeka, Kansas had a Figure 8 Toboggan 'new' for the year 1904. Coaster designed by Henry B.Auchy. Philadelphia Toboggan Company.


------- Marshall's Military Band for Sunday concerts. At Vinewood Park the band was an institution from 1903 until its closing in 1910. A contract in the archives indicates that band members had the privilege of boarding the first trolley car to Topeka after the conclusion of the concerts. The band became a fixture at Senator Arthur Capper's annual birthday party at Garfield Park and for many years the band played three times daily for the Kansas Free Fair. About 25 members would travel over the city in a streetcar trailer in the mornings to advertise the event. The full band would give an afternoon concert on the second-floor south porch of the Agricultural Building.

C.W. Ament constructed Vinewood Park in 1889 and opened the building for dancing in the spring of 1890. In 1903, Vinewood Park was transformed into an amusement park. The park featured a merry-go-round, canoes, a circle swing and a penny arcade. Over the years, the Vinewood has featured many well-known musicians and was enjoyed by many members of the local community.



Until the 1930's the biggest attraction on Deer Creek was undoubtedly a spot called Vinewood Park. Located just north of 29th Street, Vinewood was labeled Topeka's stellar attraction. Just after the turn of the century, young people (and older ones, too) flocked to Vinewood. While different sections of town and county possessed a grove or park well used by the neighborhood residents, Vinewood Park outshone them all as a place for recreation, relaxation or quiet courtship. Again from "Witness of the Times": "When the expanded park reopened in July, 1903, over 7,000 persons jammed the place, causing a mammoth tie-up on the street-railway. Some persons did not get home until after 3:00 o'clock, many after an all night walk from the park. Yet, everything that night proved a success... The Journal, on July 27, stated that all the row boats were "busy from morning till night and the remarkable twistings and curves of Deer Creek were the cause of an unprecedented destruction of oars." "Highlights at Vinewood included a penny arcade, bandstand, dance hall, lagoons, a moving picture theater, carousel, roller coaster and a circle swing." But the dance hall was destined to rot away, the lagoons to dry and the waters of Deer Creek to slow to a trickle. It was now the 1930's. The Great Depression and Dust Bowl Days had come to Kansas. John Armstrong recalled that it seemed "almost a daily occurrence for the sun to suddenly grow dim and that blistering hot... never-ceasing wind to deposit almost two-thirds of the topsoil from Trego County onto Topeka."

----- the article goes on to descripe the project by WPA Administration in the 1930's in creation of Lake Shawnee and Park by dam on Deer Creek....

CREDITS: Various: Excerpts Shawnee Yacht Club and Marshall's Military Band