CONNEAUT LAKE PARK Old-fashioned attraction is poised for a comeback

CONNEAUT LAKE, Pa. (AP) -- A wooden barrier with a street sign reading "Do Not Enter" keeps trespassers from the sherbet-colored rides standing still at this lakeside amusement park. There's no water in Connie Otter's Kiddie Cove, the wooden Blue Streak roller coaster is silent and the picnic areas are empty.
But there are signs of life in a ranch-house-turned-office at Conneaut Lake Park, where a group of local officials and business owners are discussing the future of the 112-year-old attraction. After several bankruptcies and the conspiracy conviction of a former owner, the park is poised for a comeback, its court-appointed overseers say.
"We're gonna boom," said H. LeRoy Stearns, a member of the park's board of trustees and a Crawford County humane officer.
The park was once a hot summer destination for travelers from northwestern Pennsylvania and parts of Ohio. Nestled among small summer cottages and motels on the state's largest natural lake, Conneaut drew visitors by the busload, some even arranged by the many steel mills that once thrived across the region, said Mary Ellen ReBrassier, the park's chief operating officer.
Downslide
But by the early 1990s, attendance at the park declined. In 1992, the low turnout and rainy summer forced the park to shut down for 14 of 16 weekends.
In 1993, then-owner Charles Flynn sold the park to 15 Crawford County businessmen, who later filed for bankruptcy. Conneaut was closed for the 1995 season.
Ohio businessman Gary Harris bought the park with promises of returning it to its glory and reopened it in 1996. But a year later he was convicted of federal income tax evasion and other charges and sentenced to 48 months in prison.
Harris gave the park to a nonprofit board but retained control, citing a 99-year lease he claimed to have to the property. That touched off a multiyear legal battle, which led to a ruling cutting Harris' ties to the property. In the meantime, a judge appointed a custodian, and a private management company that leased the property filed for bankruptcy.
Court-appointed overseers
Court-appointed trustees have overseen the park ever since, under the guidance of a new custodian appointed in 2001.
"It's like running a city and if you don't maintain it properly, that's the state we were in a few years ago," ReBrassier said.
Earlier this year, Harris, his wife and a business partner were convicted of using different corporations and trusts to hide income from Harris' businesses, including Conneaut Lake Park.
Local officials say there's a lot at stake to making the park a success. Billed by its operators in brochures as being in a "four-stoplight town," the park employs 250 people in the rural county of about 90,000.
"The park's an important asset not only to Crawford County, but to northwestern Pennsylvania," Stearns said.
The park is Crawford County's biggest attraction, said Susan Elwell with the Crawford County Convention and Visitors Bureau. Elwell herself has fond memories of going to Conneaut every summer and riding the historic Blue Streak, the sixth-oldest wooden roller coaster in the United States.
"It just feels like a hometown carnival," Elwell said.
Loan, state allocation
This year, the park was able to get a bank loan so it can open in May. For the first time, there also is money set aside in the state budget for the park, trustees said. The park is a not-for-profit, meaning all the money it makes gets put back into the park; last year, it generated $2.4 million.
Though Conneaut doesn't have the superfast, shiny roller coasters that many larger parks do, its advocates say it's got a charm the big parks don't. The attractions include water slides, the Tilt-a-Whirl and the Toboggan, where visitors sit in cars that spin on a green and purple track wrapped around a white pole.
The park bills itself as an affordable, family-friendly attraction. Admission is $14.95 for the day. By comparison, visitors pay as much as $28.85 at Kennywood in Pittsburgh and as much as $20.95 a day at Idlewild in Ligonier.