Memorial Day weekend marks the unofficial start of summer and, in Denver, there's hardly a place that says, "Summer fun in Denver," better than Lakeside Amusement Park. (Technically Lakeside does not offer summer fun in Denver, as Lakeside is its own municipality, but you know what we mean.)
In its 108-year history, Lakeside has played host to a number of rides, but few are as memorable as its unforgettable funhouse. This collection of bone-crushing attractions included a floor-mounted spinning disc that hurtled riders across the room, blasts of air designed to lift women's skirts, and host of other devices that would induce migraines in a modern insurance adjuster.
One particularly memorable feature, that does not appear in this 1925 photo, is the legendary Laffing Sall. Sall was an automated papier mâché figurine that stood perched atop the funhouse bellowing out an unending and terrifying cackle.
If Sall gave you nightmares as a child, we feel it's only fair to warn you that there are plenty of other Salls floating around the amusement park world. Laughing Sall was produced en masse by the Philadelphia Toboggan Company and is still on display in various museums and amusement parks across the country.
One place you won't find Sall anymore is at an actual funhouse. When Lakeside shut down its funhouse in 1986, it shut down the last known funhouse of its kind in the United States.
While Lakeside Amusement Park may lack a funhouse, it's hardly lacking in history and beautiful old buildings, as generations of Denver families can attest to.
If you loved this photo and want to see more like it, check out our Digital Collections page. If you loved this photo so much that you want a copy all to yourself, check out our Image Pricing page.
Comments
Where in the park was the fun
Where in the park was the fun house located? I remember that I, as a child had a hard time getting into the fun house due to the spinning barrels at the beginning. If I recall correctly laughing Sal was also at the Santa Cruz Boardwalk. They too have retired her
Wooow smh I did almost
Wooow smh I did almost everything in there except the spinning ride and the super high slide and y'all are gonna laugh but to this day I don't know why as a kid I was afraid of the barrels xD. I'd really wish lakeside had just added more exits to keep it open because I used to do money drops on the route for Loomis and one of the office staff said that another classic fun house caught fire and there wasn't enough exits for people to get out. Many injuries and a few died from they told me and that's why unfortunately they demolished it so as not to have the same thing happen. In my personal opinion that was the most fun attraction there along with the spider and wild chipmunk. Good memories of fun past times.
Hi Bill - Thanks for sharing
Hi Bill - Thanks for sharing your memories with us. We agree that Funhouse at Lakeside was pretty amazing and wish it were still around. The fire the Lakeside folks were referring to was likely the July, 1944 Tunnel of Love fire at Elitch's, which killed six people.
Oh how my family and I loved
Oh how my family and I loved the Lakeside Funhouse. Every time we visited extended family in Denver, from New Mexico, my sister, Judy and I and our cousins, always loved visiting the fun house. It was always one of the highlights of our trip. The spinning disk and slides were our favorites. What fun it would be for the Funhouse to be rebuilt exactly how it was. Great memories!
I agree and would love love
I agree and would love love love the Fun House to be rebuilt and it got me to thinking. I am very happy that the South Park Denverites are rebuilding another of my childhood favorites that is nearby Lakeside, Casa Bonita. It is reopening this May with a totally rebuilt restaurant, with a new higher end menu, very exciting, still with the diving and all. And it made me wonder if they might be interested in investing in another beloved Denver piece of history? Hmmm
I worked in the fun house
I worked in the fun house barrels in 1963 and 64 sad to see it gone
Hi Richard - Those barrels
Hi Richard - Those barrels were both amazing and terrifying! That must have been a fun job.
I loved the Fun House and
I loved the Fun House and often visit it in my thoughts with all the things one could do both out side and inside. Now it has been gone for many years but still a cool place to visit in my dreams
!
Thanks for sharing that,
Thanks for sharing that, Chris. Hopefully there are fewer elbow scrapes in the dream Fun House than in the real one!
I was born in the late
I was born in the late fifties and began going to Lakeside in the early sixties. During the next ten summers or so, we went to Lakeside usually five to ten times a year and the Fun House was our favorite attraction being only a quarter to get in and sometimes my father and a group of my friends who he brought along and paid for would spend up to eight hours inside having a fantastic time all the while. Walking in was fun with all the rollers under your feet, and all the fun house mirrors that would make you look fat or skinny. Then once inside, they had these walkways where the floor would go way up and then down quickly, like walking on waves and you had to hold on to the railings or you might go flying. The four barrels that rotated each in a different direction took some skill to navigate through and it really was not too hard once you figured out you had to walk at an angle, but being somewhat snot nosed kids like we were, sometimes when adults were trying hard to navigate the barrels, one of us would go in and fall down knocking them all down like bowling pins, then the kid would get up and walk like there was no problem while a mass of people rolled over and over and the operator would sometimes have to shut it down to let the adults get up and walk out. The roulette wheel would allow ten people to get on and then the operator would start it spinning faster and faster and only the person who was at the center of the wheel would stay on...maybe. I never saw anyone ever get hurt on that ride but boy was that fun in part because it was not that easy. Then they had a cage with a pole in the middle and when a few people would get in, the operator would begin the cage spinning faster and faster with the goal if you wished was to get to the pole in the center which was very hard due to the extreme centrifugal force caused by the spinning of the metal cage. Many times I got hurt on that ride slipping from the pole into the wall of the cage with a ton of force, but in the long run, always a lot more fun than pain, but I think my favorite thing in the Fun House were the three indoor slides that you had to go up the narrow wooden staircase, probably three stories high and when you were up at the top getting ready to go down one of the slides, there was an open window to the outside right there and outside that window was the loopy loop or Loop-O-Plane as it was officially called, where a few people sit in a cage and start spinning in a big loop where at the top, near the Fun House window they were upside down and almost always screaming there lungs out. My favorite of the three slides was the first one where there was no seat to sit on before you went down, it just went went straight down for the first twenty feet making it the scariest slide I have ever been on and I did so hundreds of times. I am probably forgetting some of the other fun stuff but all told, my father loved it because it was only a quarter to get in and we would have an abundance of fun for the next five to eight hours, he loved bargains, and it was really so much fun. The Lakeside Fun House was one of the most unique experiences of my life and one of the things I miss most from my happy childhood in Denver. That along with Celebrity Sports Center in Glendale, I could go on and on about that one too. Happy times
Add new comment