Wildcat rolls on in hearts of 100s at Idora celebration

By Harold Gwin

Many at Spring Thing 2009 Saturday said they’d love to see the amusement park on Youngstown’s South Side come back.

YOUNGSTOWN —It was all about the memories Saturday for the hundreds of people gathered at Bears Den Cabin in Mill Creek Park.

Today is the 25th anniversary of the devastating fire that destroyed a big piece of Idora Park, and those gathering in Mill Creek Park wanted to relive some of their favorite times at the entertainment center, which closed permanently at the end of the 1984 season. The park is all gone, and the land, now owned by Mount Calvary Baptist Church, sits vacant.

Organizers David Price and his fianc e, Susan Walters, dubbed Saturday’s event “Spring Thing 2009,” a flashback to Idora’s opening day every year, which was known as the “Spring Thing.”

“I’m just trying to do something this weekend to remember the park,” Price said.

“We used to have 3-cent days,” reminisced Bill Lewis of Youngstown, now 89 years young. Those were days at the park sponsored by Wonder Bread and Ward’s Bakery when all rides were just 3 cents. If you brought a bread wrapper from one of those companies’ products, you got a free ride, he said.

The kids would get to ride the street cars to Idora for free on those special days, but they couldn’t ride before 9 a.m., so as not to interfere with people going to work, or until after 3 p.m. in the afternoon, to avoid those riding home from work.

Lewis tells a sad tale of a young fellow on one of those days.

It was in the Depression years, he recalled, explaining how his mother carefully wrapped up a quarter and two pennies in the corner of a handkerchief stuck in his back pocket so he could have nine rides at the park.

“I was all excited. I was going to get nine rides,” he said.

He hopped the street car near his home and rode to the park, only to find that he’d lost his handkerchief and had no money.

“I had to sit on a bench all day and watch people having fun,” he said, pointing out that he couldn’t catch a street car ride until after 3 p.m., and the 10 miles home was too far to walk.

But that didn’t dampen his love for the park.

“That was my palace, Idora Park, and the dance hall was my love,” Lewis said. He didn’t have money to enter the dance hall but would stand outside listening to the music.

Mattie Tate, 76, of Youngstown remembers the dance hall too.

She went to the park often as a child, and, when she got married, she and her husband frequented the hall, she said.

Her favorite memories of the park as a child?

“The Wildcat and the french fries,” she said, smiling broadly, then adding. And the frozen custard.”

She first visited Idora at age 6 with her brothers, sisters and friends. They were regulars, she said, hitting the park about once a month.

“Every 3-cent day, we were there,” she said, smiling again at the memory.

It was a beautiful place to spend the day, she said, adding, “I cried when it caught fire.”

Others at Spring Thing 2009 talked about their favorite rides at Idora.

“The Jack Rabbit,” offered Lisa Kollar, 39, of Austintown.

“The log ride,” said Zoe Panno, 42, of Youngstown.

“Classic Cars,” said Heather Duck, 30, of Austintown.

The three women grew up in the Mahoning Valley, and, although they went to the park often with friends, they didn’t meet each other until they became adults and all worked at the same place.

Kollar said she saw the story about Spring Thing 2009 in The Vindicator and “dragged” her friends to Mill Creek Park.

“I loved Idora,” she said. “I wish we still had it.”

That was a common comment heard from people as they moved slowly through Bears Den Cabin viewing photos, videos and various memorabilia from the park, including such oddities as a link from the big chain that hauled the Wildcat to the top of the first hill and an iron target shaped like a duck that came from the shooting gallery.

Ray and Chris Kondas of Coitsville were there with a handful of pictures of the 1-32nd working scale model of the Wildcat built by his brother, the late John Kondas.

The model is sitting in their garage now, and they’ve displayed it at the Canfield Fair a number of times, Chris said.

Charles J. Jacques Jr., co-author of “Idora Park The Last Ride of Summer,” a detailed history of the park from its opening in 1899 until its closing in 1984, was there too, and offered tales of long evenings of arguing with his co-author, Rick Shale, of just how the book should be done.

One particular photo — marking a visit to Idora by TV icons Howdy Doody, Buffalo Vic (Buffalo Bob’s brother), Clarabelle the Clown and others from the show — prompted a long debate over how big it should be, Jacques recalled, adding that the argument ended with a decision to write both a caption and a narrative of the visit.

Jacques said he originally wanted to have only 3,500 copies of the book printed, but Shale insisted on 4,500.

It sold out and continues to sell, he said, noting that it is now in its third printing.

Joan Yanchick of New Middletown, who organized a bus trip to see the restored Idora carousel in Brooklyn, N.Y., last October, thinks the remembrance day Saturday was “a terrific idea.”

“We’re keeping some things alive for ourselves,” she said, adding that she’s now organizing a second, larger group trip to see the carousel, which is destined for Brooklyn Bridge Park.

Artist Jane Walentas, who bought and spent years restoring it, is close to sealing the deal to get it into operation in that park, Yanchick said.

gwin@vindy.com