The Rocky Mountain News is all atwitter today with a cover image and story about Lakeside’s 100th anniversary. Denver’s historic amusement park at I-70 and Sheridan Boulevard was built in 1908 and still boasts some of its original structures, in addition to newer but still-rickety rides like the Wild Chipmunk roller coaster. With admission a mere $2.50 plus extra for rides, the park welcomes families large and small.
"Lakeside is a survivor, one of a handful of small, family-owned amusement parks that have held enough appeal for succeeding generations to keep opening the gates when summer rolls around, despite the availability of bigger, flashier theme parks," reads the article.
The Rocky sure imparted a feel-good take on the anniversary, but the tabloid left out one very interesting detail: the fact that Lakeside was envisioned as a major Denver attraction during the 1908 Democratic National Convention. The Colorado Independent reported on the Lakeside anniversary during an article that ran three weeks ago.
"It was 1908 and delegates to Denver’s Democratic National Convention were welcomed to the city with great fanfare," noted a June 26 story on the 1908 Democratic National Convention.
Lakeside Amusement Park, the ‘Coney Island of the West,’ opened just in time for the 1908 convention. A group of Apache American Indians were set up as a spectacle in City Park. And the Moffat Railroad transported carloads of snow into the city from the Western Slope so that the delegates could have a snowball fight.
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