Americana becomes Monroe Bicentennial Commons park

[sharondbond]

I was giving updates in one of the announcement threads for the conversion of Americana/LeSourdsville Lake from being an empty park to its new use as a nature park. The site is now Monroe Bicentennial Commons, and open to the public. I think it must have opened sometime this past summer. Matt and I walked around it after we did the ACE Eastern Great Lakes event at Stricker's Grove on Sep. 25.

The parking lot is very nicely paved and landscaped, thanks to the Butler Tech students who use it all the time for construction tech. While we were there, a group was using part of it for motorcycle ride training, probably for beginning riders.

You enter through the same path as the park had, crossing the still-active RR tracks. There is a nice new set of wide, deep steps down to the level of the park - down just a few feet. There are really pretty lighting fixtures
along the way. It leads to a paved area with a large open pavilion, which is new and not a leftover from the park. It's roughly where a 1997 map says were the Tubs of Fun and Helicopter rides. Inside is a massive climbing structure for little kids. Surrounding it is a larger paved area, with benches. The map I'm looking at is https://cincyshirts.com/blogs/news/the-cincy-shirts-podcast-episode-173-lesourdsville-lake-americana-amusement-park but I'm not sure if it's the best one to reference.

Off to the right, along the tree line, are some old open shelters. Unfortunately we didn't get to take a walk over there - explanation later.

The lake is completely gone. What I saw before just looking in on previous visits must have been the river. The entire park is a big field of grass, with some exceptions. Off to the left as you enter is an old stone building. On the map, it is the building behind the Jolly Roger. Then near it is the end of the Sky Ride. They have left up the shelter and the ride mechanism. It has the big pole and gears for the turnaround, and the first pole after that. The old Sky Ride sign is there, but most of the electric light tubes for the sign are gone. Just a few are left - the Y and most of the D on one side, and most of the E on the other side.

From there, we walked over to where the station for the Screeching Eagle would have been, and along where the coaster would have been. We saw lots of concrete chunks in various places, some scattered on the grass and dirt, and some embedded in the grass. They were all probably for various buildings or the pavement or a ride structure. We also found a rusting, twisted piece of metal, which I brought home. Even though we have no evidence, it was found roughly where the coaster was, so I'm calling it a piece of the Eagle. Later we found more of that in a ring attached to a slab of concrete, also where the Eagle would have been, near the area of the turnaround.

Over in the weeds we found what looks like a capital from a column from something. It's made of concrete and has a design on it that's very 1800s looking, like part of a building that was supposed to look old. We cleaned it off and also brought it home. It was just lying there and someone was going to take it - might as well be someone who wants to research and figure out where it might have been located. If any historical society hears that we have it and wants us to donate it, I'm more than willing to do that. But because Matt thought it weighed about 40-50 pounds, and he was lugging it all the way back, we just brought it out the van and that was it for our visit.

I plan to go back again and walk more around the park. Hopefully will find some more little bits and pieces lying around. The park is so new that I don't think a lot of people have walked around it yet. Will take more pictures and try to figure out more of what things were that are left.

Sharon

[Surf Dance Chris]

Thanks for the update. I went to Americana one time in 1997. Glad to I got to visit, even if just for a few hours before heading up to cedar point for the second half of our trip - first time ever to Ohio and first real coaster/park trip outside of a Florida vacation or local driveable parks. Enjoyed the Eagle, they were doing a radio promotion that day where a local DJ was marathoning the coaster. Park was mostly full of school groups as it was a weekday in early June.

[Heather Kendrick]

Thanks for the report. One of my biggest amusement park regrets is that I
went to grad school at Miami U. in 1996-1998 and never went to or even saw
Americana. I wasn´t yet an amusement park fan. My nearest pass to it was
one time when my ex-husband and I got lost in Middletown looking for
something in ´97 or `98 and we passed a sign that said, simply,
"Amusement Park" and pointed down a road we were passing. We said to each
other, "Amusement park? What amusement park is here?" I had never heard
of an amusement park nearby. Later I was in a meeting or class with other
grad students and asked if anyone knew anything about an amusement park and
no one knew anything about it. One guy said that he thought it wasn´t a
real amusement park, just a go kart track or something. It wasn´t until the
early 2000s when I got into this hobby and found the Internet roller coaster
forums that I discovered I had actually missed something. By then I had moved
out of the area.

--
Heather, the Carousel Rabbit