Great Places 16 – Idlewild
This Great Place was founded in 1878 as a simple picnic ground along the Ligonier Valley Rail Road. Idlewild & SoakZone is the oldest amusement park in Pennsylvania, third oldest in America and is rated the second best kid’s park in the world by Amusement Today (http://www.amusementtoday.com) magazine. Idlewild features seven fun theme areas such as SoakZone Waterpark, Story Book Forest and Mister Rogers’ Neighborhood of MakeBelieve. Visit http://www.idlewild.com.
The main park has 14 rides including the famous Caterpillar and Rollo Coaster.
Story Book Forest
Opened in June, 1956, Story Book Forest is a park built not on motion, but rather emotion. A very special place for children of all ages, Story Book Forest is where little ones can meet their favorite characters from nursery rhymes and children’s tales and where parents and grandparents can revisit their youth and reminisce about simpler times.
Story Book Forest was the brainchild of Mr. CC Macdonald, former owner of Idlewild Park, and Arthur Jennings, a performance clown who spent his summers entertaining guests at Idlewild. Working together, they made their dream a reality.
Story Book Forest, itself, is a place for dreams. You literally step through the pages of your favorite storybook to visit a land of imagination.
“Here is the Land of Once Upon a Time…
Step through the pages of this big Story Book…
And visit the people an places every child knows…
…and Loves.
Here dreams are real…
…and so are your Story Book friends.”
Once through the book, visitors can catch their favorite characters such as Mother Goose, Three Men in a Tub and Jack and the Beanstalk.
There’s also SoakZone, Jumpin Jungle, Hootin Holler and Raccoon Lagoon, so it’s a Great idea to make a weekend out of the Great Place.