Lakeside Amusement Park

Lakeside Amusement Park opened on May thirtieth, nineteen oh eight, drawing fifty thousand people on its first day. Built in the White City style, that grand electric-lit park aesthetic that swept the country after the eighteen ninety-three World's Fair, Lakeside is now the last remaining example of that tradition still operating in the United States. Its miniature steam railway has been circling Lake Rhoda since opening day; the tiny locomotives called Puffing Billy and Whistling Tom originally ran at the nineteen oh four Saint Louis World's Fair before being shipped to Denver.

Brewery magnate Adolph Zang was among the original investors, and the park has remained a family operation since Benjamin Krasner bought it in nineteen thirty-five. More than a century later it is Colorado's oldest amusement park still on its original grounds.