Beach Club at Conneaut Lake Park amusement park burns

CONNEAUT LAKE, Pa. (AP) — Fire destroyed a restaurant and beach club at a 121-year-old amusement park in northwestern Pennsylvania on today.

The ruins at Conneaut Lake Park, about 90 miles north of Pittsburgh, could smolder for a week, Summit fire Chief Gig King said.

The complex that burned contained the Beach Club and Downunder Beach Bar, as well as the Dockside banquet facility next to them.

“When it went up, it went up pretty quickly,” King said.

The Beach Club was built in 1936, and the neighboring banquet pavilion recently had been renovated as part of ongoing efforts to revitalize the seasonal park, which didn’t open during the summers of 2007 and 2008 because of long-standing financial problems.

The park is now run by a public nonprofit, the Trustees of Conneaut Lake Park Inc., though the entertainment complex is leased by three people doing business as Park Restoration LLC. One of those partners, Joyce Popovich, said weddings and other events had been booked at the banquet facility into next year.