Archive: New England's Lost Amusement Parks

I am the former webmaster of DefunctNewEngland.com (2004-2006) as well as the former webmaster of the even older Angelfire pages "Lost Amusements: Rhode Island" (ri2/amusementparks) and "Lost Amusements: Lincoln Park" (ri/lincolnpark).

As I worked on building my collection of digital artifacts, I was shocked to see how many amusement parks have come and gone, especially in Rhode Island and Massachusetts where I lived, worked, and played. These images collectively speak of a simpler time and show how things change with progress, the "bigger is better" paradigm, and the "big boxing" of American culture. I still wonder, could little parks like Lincoln Park survive today?

My website went offline due to the rising cost of web hoisting and has been gone for nearly three years. I am using Flickr to host the old photo collection from these sites due to an overwhelming number of emails asking where the webpage went. My Photo Sets can be accessed here: http://www.flickr.com/photos/defunctnewengland/sets/.

It is my goal to eventually get my webpage up and running with a fully searchable database of images. This archive represents my early efforts at sorting and cataloging, and it is still a work in progress. I will be updating these archives as I receive new items and will write clearer descriptions and short histories of the parks as time permits.

I hope these images bring back some memories!