Nothing to 'ho, ho, ho' about as Santa's Village is sold off
Mary Ann Meyer and her sister Diane Paulini visited Santa's Village every summer when they were kids, then years later took their own kids to the Christmas-themed East Dundee amusement park.
The women returned to the shuttered suburban park Wednesday for one last look around as the rides and attractions they fondly remembered were auctioned off as part of a giant going-out-of-business sale.
"It's like going to a funeral. It is just sad," said Meyer, now 54, of Woodridge. "I was counting on bringing my grandbaby here."
Hundreds of other former customers and employees also turned out to wander the park one final time -- willingly paying the $10-a-head admission fee for the auction. But few who attended the sale out of nostalgia ended up bidding on items as exotic as a 65-foot-tall roller coaster and a 12-foot tall Santa, and as simple as ice skates once used on the park's rink and bins of bolts and screws.
The park's attractions were auctioned because of financial strains and a desire by long-time owner Hugh Wilson to retire. He initially sold the park -- which opened in 1959 -- to another operator, but the sale fell through earlier this year, leaving him with bills to pay.
The decision to close the park and sell off all of the rides was difficult, said Wilson, who has owned the park for 29 years.
"It's bittersweet," he said. "In a way I'm ready to go, but it's sad to see it go because it's such a fixture."
The park's biggest attraction, the towering Typhoon Roller Coaster, sold for an even $250,000 -- a great deal for a ride that cost $1.5 million when it was built in 1998, its new owner said. The coaster will be shipped to a carnival near Phoenix, said Guy Leavitt of RSC Inc., which purchased the ride.
Not all the attractions auctioned will be traveling so far.
The Snowball, a ride that twirls customers in oversize snowballs, will be going only as far as the Grand Bear Lodge in Downstate Utica, which includes an indoor water park and amusement park.
"It really fits into the family atmosphere we have there," said Joe Hook, managing partner of Grand Bear Lodge, which is considering redoing its theme park to re-create the Christmas-style atmosphere of Santa's Village. That may include obtaining the legal rights to rename it Santa's Village, Hook said.
Phillip Wenz, who portrayed Santa Claus at Santa's Village for 20 years, said he wanted the rides to be used at other parks.
"Hopefully they'll end up in other parks, so part of this place will live on," said Wenz, who had been acting administrator of the park.
The 40-acre site is owned by a Chicago area development company, although it's not clear what will be done with the site once the rides are taken apart and trucked away, Wenz said.
Though encouraged that at least some of the rides will be put to use in other parks, Meyer and Paulini still feel pained to know the park is gone for good.
"I can see it all in my mind," Paulini said. "But it's sad when you lose a past that has so many memories."
1894: Paul Boyton, the future father of Coney Island in New York, opened Paul Boyton's Water Chute at 63rd and Drexel.
1896: The original Ferris wheel was at Clark and Wrightwood in Lincoln Park. It closed in 1903.
1903: White City opened in Woodlawn, where it offered rides, a roller rink, ballroom, an ice palace, beer garden, penny arcades and a boardwalk before it closed in 1933. Other parks of that era included San Souci, also in Woodlawn; Luna Park in New City; Forest Park in Maywood, and Joyland Park in Bronzeville.
1904: Riverview opened at Belmont and Western, Chicago's largest, longest-running park, surviving until 1967 despite high-profile fatal accidents early in its history.
1929: Art Fritz's pony-ride attraction in Melrose Park eventually morphed into Kiddieland. That park is still operating, but the other Kiddielands in the Chicago area are gone.
1950: Funtown opened at 95th and Stony Island, capitalizing on the postwar boom in leisure activities. Many parks appeared in the suburbs, such as Addison's now-defunct Adventureland.
1975: The indoor Old Chicago amusement park and shopping mall opened in Bolingbrook, but it went belly up only five years later.