Lakewood Park

By The Guinan Family

Situated in the coal regions of northeast Pennsylvania, Lakewood Park was established in 1916 by the Guinan family as a place to bathe, picnic, and camp. It became known as a nature retreat for the nearby miners and their families, and it developed into the destination for swimming, amusement rides, skating, big band dances, boxing matches, ethnic celebrations, summer stock plays, and political banquets. The park boasted a 150-yard cement pool, hand-carved Spillman carousel, and grand ballroom. It was the host of the longest-running ethnic festival in Pennsylvania, Lithuanian Day, from 1914 to 1984. Using vintage images, Lakewood Park recalls the various festivals and celebrations, amusements rides, and celebrity performers, such as Dick Clark and Doris Day, that made the park an entertainment mecca for 68 years.

• Language: English
• Publisher: Arcadia Publishing
• Release date: Sep 18, 2012
• ISBN: 9781439622292

The Guinan Family

Peggy Grigalonis and cousins Janet Cunningham and Kathy Connolly spent their summers at Lakewood near their Guinan grandparents' bungalow. Their recollections, along with stories from their 90-year-old uncle Larry Guinan, youngest son of the founder, recapture the magic and retrace the history of this beloved park.

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Grigalonis

INTRODUCTION

Louis Armstrong, Glenn Miller, and the Dorsey Brothers were regulars at Lakewood Park. Rudy Vallée, Vaughn Monroe, and Paul Whiteman broadcast live from its ballroom. Frank Sinatra and Doris Day were merely backup singers with the big bands. Bill Haley, Teresa Brewer, and Dick Clark brought rock and roll to swooning teenagers.

This is the story of Lakewood Park, a 70-year journey as thrilling as the amusement rides within it. From its World War I beginnings as a picnic site for weary coal miners to the raucous ethnic festivals of the 1970s, Lakewood served as a popular leisure-time mecca for the people of northeastern Pennsylvania and beyond.

Unlike many corporate amusement parks, Lakewood was owned and managed by the same family from 1916 until its closing in 1984. Today the park’s original carousel is housed in a museum in Grand Rapids, Michigan, and its magnificent ballroom has been burned to the ground.

The 88-acre park, situated two hours north of Philadelphia in the heart of Pennsylvania coal country, was the brainchild of the Guinan brothers. Sons of an Irish immigrant miner and his wife, Richard and Daniel Guinan became entrepreneurs at an early age.

Richard Sr., after spending time as a boy in the mines, opened his first business driving a coffee and tea cart around the Mahanoy City area. With the help of his bookish brother, he built two department stores, one in Mahanoy City and another in neighboring Mount Carmel.

Daniel I, meanwhile, became a banker, real estate developer, school superintendent and congressional candidate. Living with the Richard Guinan Sr. family, he became the family’s mentor in finance and politics and the Guinan boys’ beloved uncle who traveled with them throughout the United States.

As the United States’ involvement in World War I was about to begin and the coal towns were flourishing, the brothers purchased a vast tract of farmland in Ryan Township with the idea of developing an amusement park. Within the first five years, Lakewood featured women’s and men’s bathhouses, a boathouse and dock, campgrounds, picnic pavilions, water pump stations, food stands, an icehouse, and a large dance pavilion.

Each day from May to September, patrons boarded trains in towns such as Tamaqua and Shenandoah for the short ride to the Lakeside Junction railroad station. Swimming meets, diving competitions, fireworks, alligator wrestlers, and celebrities like Buster Crabbe (Tarzan) attracted bathers and spectators to the new park. Professional swim coaches arrived from Florida to train the local kids.

In 1925, the Lakewood Ballroom—known to most as the dance hall—was erected. Big bands traveling between Chicago and New York City began making weekly stops at the growing dance capital. Thursdays became dance night, date night, and the night to plan for all week in the coal region and beyond.

The early sound system comprised a microphone and two small speakers. But the hall—with its vaulted ceiling and wooden arches—provided excellent natural acoustics for the bands and their soloists.

As the new ballroom was being built, the man-made lake was divided into a pool—three times the length of an Olympic pool—and an adjacent lake for canoes. A toboggan, 33-foot-high diving tower, stationary rafts, and sprinklers were added.

In those early years, the children of the founders were being trained. A program for the ballroom of 1925 to 1929 details the management team: Daniel Guinan II (age 15), assistant ballroom manager; Richard Guinan Jr. (13), interior decorator; and Francis Guinan (11), ticket collector. Apparently Larry, at age 9, was deemed too young to work! After college, Daniel II and Richard Jr., joined by their two younger brothers, took on the management of the park.

As the park grew so did the surrounding community of Park Crest. Some of the earliest settlers were the men and women who manned the amusement rides: the Fogarty family, whose son John ran the park’s train, Susie Burke, operator of the carousel, and his brother Red Burke, always at the controls of the Hey Dey.

Young entrepreneurs like the Mayesky and Althoff families built homes across the road from the park. A horse stable was built by the Reed family in Park Crest, and Peter and Olga Lastowsky (Chopsy’s) built a variety store and operated the fishpond in the park.

Ethnic music and food are part of the fiber of the coal region. Building on the success of Lithuanian Day, believed to be the longest-running ethnic festival in Pennsylvania, Lakewood organized several other ethnic festivals—Ukrainian, Italian, Russian, Bavarian, and Irish—each drawing crowds from surrounding states.

In 1948, a 750-seat, air-conditioned theater was built for the legendary John Kenley, producer and founder of New York City summer stock plays. Only the stars came in for the week’s show; the house actors were young talents like Tom Poston of Bob Newhart fame. Each week, the house actors performed one play onstage while rehearsing for the next week’s play across the walk in the ballroom. Highlights include performances by Lana Turner and apprentice Alan Alda.

Donald Coombe remembers locals were a supporting cast to the Lakewood Theater. In Coombe’s words, Kenley bought his gas and joined in the conversation at Brownie’s Gas Station. One day he asked Joe Brownie Mayesky to pick up Shelley Winters in Philadelphia to bring her to the theater for her appearance in the play Born Yesterday. Folks at the time assumed that Kenley asked Mayesky because he drove a flashy yellow convertible. Theater records indicate the date as June 6, 1950. Winters had broken all records at the Paramount Theatre in New York right before coming to Lakewood. Many of the stars stayed in local homes because they were not provided with a car. Jackie Cooper lived over Witkowski’s Bar for a week, enjoying center stage at