Brenda Armiger Proctor - Chesapeake Beach Amusement Park 1945-1972

Brenda Proctor, a museum volunteer and member of the Friends of the CBRM, recalls visiting Chesapeake Beach Amusement Park and her favorite rides.

VOICE:

I remember, as a child in the 1960s, going to Chesapeake Beach Amusement Park for the Farmers’ Picnic every year.  My grandma would pack our picnic lunch and her fried chicken was the best!  After eating a great big meal, we’d all run around and explore the park.  

My favorite rides were the carousel, of course, which I would watch to see which animal went the highest up in the air and then I would hop on that one for a ride.  As I recall, it was usually the black stallion that went the highest.  Sometimes I’d pick another animal just because I liked it.  My other favorite ride was the Fun House, which I’m not sure why it was called the Fun House because it was supposed to be more like a house of horrors.  You went inside a completely dark building in a car, and you were going along a track and every once in a while the car would be swung around and you’d be face-to-face with this scene that was supposed to be horrifying.  But I found it amusing, actually, because it was so cheesy!  There would be a rubber gorilla mask or a plastic skeleton or plastic spiders hanging from the ceiling, and these would be lit.  As you swung around and got surprised by these things, you were supposed to be screaming, but I was laughing the whole way.