Fontaine Ferry Park lives again in Frazier exhibit
Hundreds of thousands of Louisvillians visited the Fontaine Ferry amusement park while it was open from 1905 to 1969.
You can go back to the park at the Frazier International History Museum with its exhibit Fontaine Ferry: From Your Memory to Our Museum, which runs through Sept. 8.
Commemorating the 40th anniversary of Fontaine Ferry's closing, the 3,800-square-foot exhibit traces the history of the 64-acre park in Louisville's West End from its heyday to its closing day. The exhibition is based on 50 oral histories.
The exhibit on the Frazier's second floor North Gallery explores Fontaine Ferry through memorabilia, text panels, photographs, video, oral histories, sound effects and interactive games.
More than 200 original artifacts — including wooden carousel horses, penny-arcade machines, funhouse mirrors, personal keepsakes and an array of entertainment items — recreate the feel of the amusement park. The Frazier has even recreated Sam and Sue, the laughing, animated figures from Hilarity Hall, Fontaine Ferry Park's funhouse!
Pronounced as "Fountain Ferry" by locals, in its heyday, Fontaine Ferry Park boasted more than 50 rides and attractions — including four wooden roller coasters — in addition to a swimming pool, a theater, an outdoor dance garden called the Gypsy Village and a roller-skating rink.
But the exhibition begins Fontaine Ferry's story long before then: Fontaine Ferry began as an actual ferry operated by Aaron Fontaine, beginning in 1814. The amusement park opened in 1905. The exhibit recounts Fontaine Ferry's travails during the Great Depression and its use as a medical facility during the 1937 flood.
For many patrons, Fontaine Ferry conjures up memories of days of summer fun and sun on the banks of the Ohio River. But for African Americans barred from the amusement park, the park serves as a symbol of symbol of racial segregation in Louisville and the city's version of Jim Crow.
Fontaine Ferry did not integrate until 1964 — and not until after years of bitter protests and pickets by blacks and whites. By the late 1960s, white flight from the Shawnee neighborhood and the 1968 riots in the West End were already hurting attendance at the park. On May 4, opening day for the 1969 season, a spree of vandalism, attacks against workers and looting that resulted in $18,000 in damages marked Fontaine Ferry's tragic last day.
The $1.2 million Shawnee Park Sports Complex now sits on the former Fontaine Ferry site.
Posted by Ivonne Rovira
