HUB History - Our Favorite Stories from Boston History

The show this week is all about Wonderland, the early 20th century amusement park at Revere Beach. Dr. Stephen Wilk has deeply researched the investors and entrepreneurs who bought 27 acres of land along Revere Beach Boulevard and opened the park; the inventors behind rides like Shoot the Chutes, Hell’s Gate, and Love’s Journey; and the people who ran attractions like a firefighting demonstration, a wild west show, and a model Japanese village. His new book Lost Wonderland: The brief and brilliant life of Boston’s million dollar amusement park reveals all of that, as well as changes in the broader economy that doomed Wonderland nearly from the beginning. After opening in 1906, the park went through periods of success and bankruptcy in a meteoric run that lasted just four short years, while leaving a major cultural impression on the Boston area, and Revere in particular.

Please check out the transcript and full show notes at: http://HUBhistory.com/210/

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Dr. Stephen Wilk is an MIT-trained optical engineer and the author of How the Ray Gun Got its Zap, Medusa: Solving the Mystery of the Gorgon, and a young adult novel called The Traveler. He’s also the author of an upcoming book on optics from Oxford University Press tentatively titled Sandbows and Blacklights, which will attempt to untangle the layers of mystery and misinformation about the true inventor of the modern black light. His latest book about Revere’s Wonderland amusement park is called Lost Wonderland: The brief and brilliant life of Boston’s million dollar amusement park.

Find out more about Dr. Wilk or check out the photos of Wonderland that didn’t make it into the book.

In this week’s episode, we discussed topics related to these past podcast episodes:

• Norumbega Park celebrated its tenth anniversary on the day Wonderland opened.
• An accident on a well on Long Wharf explains why there was enough fresh water at Wonderland to interest an ice maker.
• The captive balloon at Wonderland was not the first balloon in Boston.
• Annette Kellermann was an amazing swimmer and cunning self promoter.
• Entertainment on Revere Beach continued long after Wonderland closed.