Amusement parks became popular just as leisure time was becoming a regular part of working people’s lives. The earliest recorded amusement park is Denmark’s Bakken, which began as a gathering spot around a spring believed to have healing qualities. But permanent, large-scale amusement parks as we know them rose in popularity in the late 1800s. 

Parks like New York’s Coney Island featured Ferris wheels and other attractions that gave people a chance to enjoy their hard-won weekends with fun and thrills. Many of these early amusement parks, however, were built at the end of trolley lines and, sometimes, near graveyards.

The Dawn of Mass Public Transit Shapes Theme Park Locations

American theme parks in the late 19th century were frequently built at the very end of trolley, streetcar, and railway lines. One reason for this was that transit companies often experienced dips in ridership on weekends and evenings. In order to incentivize people to ride during this time, pleasure parks were frequently built at the end of these lines. 

Additionally, the land at the end of trolley lines was naturally less expensive and more available while still being accessible to city folk. The land at the end of transit lines wasn’t always desirable, however. Oftentimes, parks would wind up being built next to factories, sprawling graveyards, or land otherwise considered unsafe or unappealing for one reason or another. For example, Coney Island was built on a marshy, isolated stretch of land that was originally considered undesirable for higher-end development—but perfect for cheap thrills.

Why Parks Were Built Near (or On) Cemeteries

Early amusement parks required open, available land, which naturally happened to brush up against, or sometimes even overlap, cemeteries. This was the case for Gala Park, an amusement park in Queens, New York built on a plot of land formerly owned by a settler named Daniel Rapelye. 

When Rapelye died, he was buried right on his land, which later became a burial ground for his descendants. The land was later abandoned and leased to Gale Park, and a roller coaster and dance hall were built right around the graves.

“Picknickers could be observed eating their lunches among the headstones and using the remaining foundation stones from the mansion as tables for their provisions,” Wes and Barbara Gottlock, authors of Lost Amusement Parks of New York City: Beyond Coney Island, told Boroughs of the Dead.

Things weren’t always so harmonious, though. Chicago’s Forest Park Amusement Park was built between the Waldheim and Concordia cemeteries, leading to years of legal disputes between the cemetery leaders and the park.

Additionally, the Lake Shawnee amusement park of Rock, West Virginia is said to have been built on top of Shawnee burial grounds, leading to years of rumors that the park was haunted. The park was plagued by tragedy and death and eventually closed in 1988, but is still available for eerie tours. 

A Different Kind of Graveyard

In general, cemeteries didn’t always have quite the reputation they have today as somber, melancholy locales. 19th-century cemeteries often served as public parks and were popular locations for picnics and gatherings, and actually helped inspire and shape public parks in the coming century. These larger cemeteries were often placed in large green areas just outside of cities, making them natural neighbors for theme parks.

Cemeteries of this time were frequently envisioned as alternatives to the often crowded, unsanitary cemeteries of town centers. According to historian Stanley French, cemetery designers behind some of the largest cemeteries of this era hoped that their creations would help people connect to nature and would remind them that “the circle of creation and destruction is eternal.”

Because of this, it may have once felt more natural for cemeteries and theme parks to overlap. In those early days, you could take a trolley to the end of the line for 35 cents, hop on a creaky roller coaster, and have a picnic among headstones all in the same celebratory day.

Over the years, theme parks and cemeteries have overlapped in numerous ways. Forest Lawn, a Los Angeles cemetery that opened in 1917, was, in many ways, the nation’s first theme park, per Smithsonian. This cemetery had themed sections, gigantic statues, stores, and decorations, and continues to be a tourist attraction to this day. In more recent years, cemeteries like New York’s Green-Wood Cemetery and the Hollywood Forever Cemetery have begun hosting creative events like movie showings and concerts.

Meanwhile, many theme parks have their own cemetery-themed rides and attractions, from Disney parks’ Haunted Mansion rides to the Six Saints Cemetery at Six Flags Great America. In some ways, the macabre and the entertaining have always overlapped, whether in the form of exhilarating, fiery rides, horror movies, or the location of amusement parks themselves. Also, reflecting on death has long been seen as a way to appreciate life even more. But ultimately, amusement parks and graveyards generally overlapped back in the day because of nothing more than cost and convenience.